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) Each player plays with their own color chips. 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. This is different than inside bets,
where the total of all of your inside bets must meet the table minimum. There
are the different types of outside bets. 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. 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.
Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or
sets you want to bet on. 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. When the ball is getting
ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No
more 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. Roulette games have minimum bets, which will be posted on a
placard at the table. Inside bets can
usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is
the table minimum. Here's a
handy way to remember the payouts when you're betting on a set of numbers: Take
36 divided by the quantity of numbers you're betting on, and subtract 1. Black and Red still have equal chances of hitting. There's an old saying,
"The wheel has no memory. " That means it doesn't know what it spun
before, and even if it did, the wheel can't select what number comes up out of
its own volition. 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. 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) 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.