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. On inside bets, the total of all of your bets must add up to at least the table minimum. Split bet - you can place a single bet on two individual numbers if those numbers are beside each other on the table layout. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split. It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. Fiver number bet - there is only one five number bet available. The outside bets on a roulette board are simply the bets that reside 'outside' of the main playing area of 38 numbers. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. 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. Columns - at one end of the set of 38 numbers are boxes with the words '2 to 1' written in them. 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)

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. Making a bet is easy - you just place your chip(s) on the number(s), color, or sets you want to bet on. The house edge is the same whether you make one bet per spin or several. 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. " when you're buying chips, to find out whether you're making inside bets (the ones listed in purple in the table, on specific numbers) or outside bets (the ones listed in yellow, on kinds of numbers) 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. There's no advantage to limiting yourself to inside or outside. Roulette games have minimum bets, which will be posted on a placard at the table. Minimum bets work differently for inside and outside bets. Remember that you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on a given spin. " 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. There have been 152 spins (coincidentally, 4 x 38), and so we expect that each number should have come up 4 times on average. If you play Roulette, the most important thing is to find a casino that offers the European wheel (which is called "Single 0" Roulette) 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. 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.