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. 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. Split bet - you
can place a single bet on two individual numbers if those numbers are beside
each other on the table layout. The outside bets on a roulette board are
simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. 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. 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. When the ball is getting
ready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "No
more bets". 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. In other games the color of the chip
denotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which player
the chip belongs to. 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. There's an old saying,
"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. Your odds of winning a
one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) 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%. If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that
offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) The
last time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere and
the Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip. Atlantic City has a special rule which
reduces the house edge to 2.7% on even money bets (Red/Black, Odd/Even,
1-18/19-36): If 0 or 00 comes up on on even money bet, you lose only half your
bet. If
you win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and you
get it back. In effect, this variation has the ability to turn a loss into a tie.