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. 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) All of your chips of the same
color are worth the same amount. On inside bets, the total of all
of your bets must add up to at least the table minimum. 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. The outside bets on a roulette board are
simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. When you place an outside
bet your bet must meet the table minimum. Red or Black - you can choose to bet on
the outcome either being a red number, or a black number. Dozens - a bet very similar to
the columns bet, dozens lets you place a bet on either the first dozen numbers
(1-12), the second dozen (13-24), or the third dozen (25-36)
Roulette is the game where you guess where the little marble is going to drop
on the spinning wheel. 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'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. If you're asked Inside or Outside, always answer "Both",
even if you only intend to bet one or the other. 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. In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can
win a lot. 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. " 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. 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. On an American wheel,
there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. The
last time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere and
the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip. 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. If
you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you
get it back. You don't get paid for the win, though, but it's better than losing
it outright.