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. A session ends when the ball lands where it may, and the dealers clear the board of losing bets (and pay winning ones of course) If you have a player you likes to put down twenty different bets each time they play, the sessions are going to move a little slower. After the ball has started spinning, the dealer will wave his hands across the table and say 'no more bets'. Now lets take a look at each of the individual bets you can make. 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. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. 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.

You should always calculate your expected loss and how long you can play on a given bankroll before playing any game, but with roulette it's especially important. The house edge is the same whether you make one bet per spin or several. Sometimes the dealer will ask you "Inside or Outside? " when you're buying chips, to find out whether you're making inside bets (the ones listed in purple in the table, on specific numbers) or outside bets (the ones listed in yellow, on kinds of numbers) That's because if you're betting only inside and someone else is betting only outside, he can give you both the same color chips and there won't be any confusion. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5, $25, etc. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is the table minimum. It most other games a bet usually wins only even money, but Roulette gives you the chance to win 35 times your bet (a winning bet placed on a single number) 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. 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) If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) 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. If you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you get it back. In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.