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) At this point the
dealer will say 'place your bets' and everyone at the table will start throwing
chips down like crazy. 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. There aren't many specific things that can be
considered roulette rules at the table, but here's one you shouldn't forget. At this point, as you intuition may have mentioned
to you, you can't place any more bets. Just sit back and let the ball fall where
it may. Straight-up bet - this
is the classic roulette bet. Choose any one of the 38 numbers and put your
chips down on that number for the chance to win back at 35 to 1. 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. Low or High - this bet lets you predict whether you
think the next number to come up will be part of the range from 1 to 18, or part
of the range from 19 to 36.
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. 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. 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. Don't reach for your winnings until the dealer
removes the marker, or the dealer will scold you. 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. 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. Remember that
you can bet inside or outside if you like; there's no requirement to bet both on
a given spin. It most other games a bet usually wins only even money, but
Roulette gives you the chance to win 35 times your bet (a winning bet placed on
a single number) 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. Black and Red still have equal chances of hitting. 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. Your odds of winning a
one-number bet are 37 to 1 (37 ways to lose, 1 way to win) The European
wheel has a lower house edge (2.63%) because it has only 37 slots instead of 38
(no 00)