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. 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. 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'. 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. Corner bet - lets you bet on four adjoining numbers. Placing your chips at the point where four numbers meet will indicate you want a corner 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. Low or High - this bet lets you predict whether you think the next number to come up will be part of the range from 1 to 18, or part of the range from 19 to 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. 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. now, let's see how to play roulette. 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. you will likely lose money faster the more bets you make, because you're betting more. When the ball is getting ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No more bets". Then he'll scoop up all the losing bets towards the dealer area. 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. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. For outside bets, any bet you make has to be the table minimum. 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. 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. Your odds of winning a one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) 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.