If you haven't read up on the rest of the site I'll quickly go over the different colors of chips and how they relate to the rest of the roulette rules. You trade in your checks (which most people think of as regular casino chips, but they're actually called checks) for roulette chips when a new session starts, and the dealer assigns you a number and denomination. 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. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned to you, you can't place any more bets. Now lets take a look at each of the individual bets you can make. 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. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. Red or Black - you can choose to bet on the outcome either being a red number, or a black number. 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. 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. 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. When the ball is getting ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No more bets". Each player's chips are a different color. 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. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5, $25, etc. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. Inside bets can usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is 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) Black and Red still have equal chances of hitting. if you win, the casino doesn't pay you 37 to 1, they pay you less - 35 to 1. The difference between the true odds and what they actually pay you is 2/38, or 5.26%. The European wheel has a lower house edge (2.63%) because it has only 37 slots instead of 38 (no 00) If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) 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.