At this point the
dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing
chips down like crazy. All of your chips of the same
color are worth the same amount. 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. 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. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split.
It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. There
are the different types of outside bets. 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.
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) You don't have to make just one kind of bet for
each spin, you can make several, and you win if the ball lands on any of your
numbers. 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. 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 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. 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! It's important to
understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. There's an old saying,
"The wheel has no memory. 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. Your odds of winning a
one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) 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. On even money bets when 0 comes up, instead of losing right
away, your bet is "imprisoned" and rides again for the next spin.