At this point the dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing chips down like crazy. You trade in your checks (which most people think of as regular casino chips, but they're actually called checks) for roulette chips when a new session starts, and the dealer assigns you a number and denomination. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. Now lets take a look at each of the individual bets you can make. Split bet - you can place a single bet on two individual numbers if those numbers are beside each other on the table layout. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. There are the different types of outside bets. 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. 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)

Roulette would be a great game were it not for the high house edge - usually 5.26%, sometimes as low as 2.63%, which is still higher than blackjack, craps, or baccarat. now, let's see how to play roulette. 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) Don't reach for your winnings until the dealer removes the marker, or the dealer will scold you. That way, you're not locked in and you always have the ability to change your mind. For outside bets, any bet you make has to be the table minimum. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. Remember that you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on a given spin. In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can win a lot. Here's a handy way to remember the payouts when you're betting on a set of numbers: Take 36 divided by the quantity of numbers you're betting on, and subtract 1. It's important to understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. There have been 152 spins (coincidentally, 4 x 38), and so we expect that each number should have come up 4 times on average. The wheel has no memory. On an American wheel, there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. The difference between the true odds and what they actually pay you is 2/38, or 5.26%. The European wheel has a lower house edge (2.63%) because it has only 37 slots instead of 38 (no 00) 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.