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. Each player plays with their own color chips. 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. 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. Just sit back and let the ball fall where it may. 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. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split. It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. 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.

Roulette is the game where you guess where the little marble is going to drop on the spinning wheel. 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) In most games players can continue making bets even while the ball is still spinning. Then he'll scoop up all the losing bets towards the dealer area. Don't reach for your winnings until the dealer removes the marker, or the dealer will scold you. 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. 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. There's no advantage to limiting yourself to inside or outside. In other games the color of the chip denotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which player the chip belongs to. 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) There's an old saying, "The wheel has no memory. 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. On an American wheel, there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. The European wheel has a lower house edge (2.63%) because it has only 37 slots instead of 38 (no 00) In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.