The first thing you should know before you learn anything about the bets you can make, is when and how you can make those bets. If you haven't read up on the rest of the site I'll quickly go over the different colors of chips and how they relate to the rest of the roulette rules. Each player plays with their own color chips. Just sit back and let the ball fall where it may. Straight-up bet - this is the classic roulette bet. Choose any one of the 38 numbers and put your chips down on that number for the chance to win back at 35 to 1. Red or Black - you can choose to bet on the outcome either being a red number, or a black number. Odd or Even - similar to the red black bet, this even money bet is based on whether the resulting number will be odd or even. Columns - at one end of the set of 38 numbers are boxes with the words '2 to 1' written in them. Dozens - a bet very similar to the columns bet, dozens lets you place a bet on either the first dozen numbers (1-12), the second dozen (13-24), or the third dozen (25-36)

For most bets it's fairly obvious - you can't miss the Red diamond for Red bets, and things like Even, 1-18, and 1st 12 are written out in plain English. We've added blue circled letters to the diagram to point out how to make the not-so-obvious bets (the sets of 2-6 numbers) When the ball is getting ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No more bets". New players often have to be told this repeatedly the first time they play because they kept forgetting and because they're excited about collecting their winnings. That way if two players bet on the same number (or set of numbers), then the dealer knows who to pay, and arguments can't arise over who bet what. If you're asked Inside or Outside, always answer "Both", even if you only intend to bet one or the other. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5, $25, etc. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can win a lot. It's important to understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. If Black has come up for the last 10 spins in a row, the next spin is not more likely to be Red. Here's another example: Since there are 38 slots on the wheel, we expect any given number to hit 1 out of 38 spins on average. Now let's say you've been playing Roulette for a few hours, betting on Red every time, and you've been keeping track of what numbers have hit. The chances of #27 coming up on a given spin are the same, whether it just come up on the last spin or not - 1 in 38. European games have an option called en prison which reduces the house edge to 1.35%, but it's generally not available in the U.S., even in casinos that use the European wheel. On even money bets when 0 comes up, instead of losing right away, your bet is "imprisoned" and rides again for the next spin. In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.