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. 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. 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. After the ball has started spinning, the dealer will wave his hands across the table and say 'no more bets'. 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. Fiver number bet - there is only one five number bet available. This is different than inside bets, where the total of all of your inside bets must meet the table minimum. Columns - at one end of the set of 38 numbers are boxes with the words '2 to 1' written in them.

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. now, let's see how to play roulette. 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. Here are the different bets you can make. The house edge is the same whether you make one bet per spin or several. 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. 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. That way, you're not locked in and you always have the ability to change your mind. There's no advantage to limiting yourself to inside or outside. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5, $25, etc. When you buy in, tell the dealer what denomination you want. It's important to understand that the outcome of the roulette wheel is truly random. The chances of #27 coming up on a given spin are the same, whether it just come up on the last spin or not - 1 in 38. 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) 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.