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. 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. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned
to you, you can't place any more bets. The
inside bets are made up of specific numbers or combinations of numbers within
the number layout, or along the border of it. Street bet - this is a bet not unlike a split.
It allows you to bet on three different numbers with the same bet. There are no winning outside bets for 0 or 00 results. When you place an outside
bet your bet must meet the table minimum.
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. 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. 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. Each player's chips are a different color. " 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) 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. Inside bets can
usually be as small a you like, as long as the total of all your inside bets is
the table minimum. Remember that
you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on
a given spin. In this way, Roulette is more like slots - one single bet can
win a lot. There's an old saying,
"The wheel has no memory. You can certainly switch to
another number if you want, but that won't improve or worsen your chances. 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) 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.