ROULETTE – Guide and Rules to Playing Roulette
Roulette Playing Strategy Guide and Game Rules – How to Play Roulette Online or at Land Casinos: Roulette is one of the oldest casino games with origins going back to the 17th century and played in its present form since 1796. It’s really one of the most simple games to play as you can simply bet on red or black, odd or even.
Bets are placed, the Roulette wheel is spun, and a ball is dropped onto the wheel by a croupier, the ’Dealer‘. Bets can be placed at any time until the dealer announces that no more bets are to be laid.
There are several varieties of Roulette and each have their own table and rules but all use the same wheel. We’ll look at European Roulette here, the difference between it and American Roulette is that there is only one zero in European and two on an American Roulette table giving the House better odds against you. Most casinos offer both so it is always best to play the European version.
The Roulette wheel is divided into 37 pockets for the ball to fall into – they are black and red and numbered 1-36 with an additional green pocket for Zero. There are 18 red, and 18 black pockets. There are also 18 odd numbers and 18 even numbers on the wheel. All odd numbers are red and all even numbers are black.
Outside Bets:
The object of the game is to guess what number or color the ball will land on. The simplest bet pays even money and is either black or red, or odd or even. This is an outside bet as it is laid on the outside of the table. There are 18 chances to win and 19 chances to lose, so the green Zero represents the House Advantage as a losing result on this wager.
Other outside bets include betting that the ball will land on 1-18 or 19-36. This also pays even money and has the same odds as black/red/odd/even. For a wager that pays 2:1 you can bet on 1-12, 13-24, or 25-36. Another wager with the same payout and odds is the column bet. The table is arranged into 3 columns with 12 numbers in each and you can place a bet on one of these columns.
Inside Bets:
For a wager that poses higher risk, therefore higher returns we look to the inside of the table. A Straight-up bet is choosing a particular number, including Zero in hopes the ball will land in the corresponding pocket. This bet pays 35:1 along with returning your original bet. There is one chance to win and 36 chances to lose.
You may bet on as many possible outcomes as you want. To illustrate the House Advantage built into the game imagine placing $1 on each of the 36 numbers and the Zero. There is no way to “lose“, it will land on one of the numbers. When it does you will win $35 + $1 returned for $36, but it cost $37 to play. To put it another way for the more mathematically inclined, a single number bet wins 1/37 and loses 36/37:
-1×36/37 + 35×1/37 = -0.0270 (2.70% House Edge)
Some other possible Inside bets include:
Street bets @ 11:1 Place your chip on the vertical line that separates the inside from the outside bets.
Double Street or Six Line bet @5:1. Place your chip on the line separating the outside and inside area as you do for the street bet but let it also straddles the row above or below.
Corner Square/Quad bet @ 8:1 Place your chip at an intersection claiming 4 numbers 11-12-14-15 for example. Any one of these numbers will pay 8x your bet.
Split bet @ 17:1 straddle the line between two numbers with your chip and win 17x your wager if either number is the winner.
One great thing about Roulette is that you get to pick and choose, spin by spin, what sort of volatility or variance you want in your game. If you are feeling lucky go Inside, want to ride out a lull stay Outside. You can play almost even money with an odd/even outside bet, or high risk/high reward with a single number bet. And best of all you can bet both ways on one spin to make it medium variance.
The most important thing to remember as you explore this most famous of casino games is that there are no systems or secrets that will ever change the natural facts of the green Zero and the House Advantage. It is set in stone.