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. Each roulette table moves in
sessions, each session is associated with a spin of the wheel and that spin's
result. 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) At this point the
dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing
chips down like crazy. When the new session starts you can put your
chips down where you want to bet, and you don't really have to be in a hurry. Most roulette sessions move at a fairly slow pace, to accommodate the number of
people betting, and the variety on which they can bet. 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. Fiver number bet - there
is only one five number bet available. There
are the different types of outside bets.
When the ball falls into a slot, the dealer will announce the
number and the color, and place a marker on the layout where the winning number
is. Each player's chips are a different color. 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. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. For outside bets, any bet you make has to be 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) In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can
win a lot. All the bets on the layout carry the same house edge, with the exception
of 5-number Line Bet (0, 00, 1, 2, 3), which carries a whopping 7.29% edge! 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. It's more important to know what the house edge is, than how to calculate
it, but here's a quick analysis in case you're interested. 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%. If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that
offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette)