How to Play Roulette Like a Champion

December 21, 2020

Roulette is an incredibly popular game, largely because of its simplicity. Roulette is fairly easy to understand, and you can pick it up just by visiting a table and watching a few rounds. Another thing that makes roulette so popular is that it’s one of the oldest known casino games, first created in 18th century France, believed to have been partly introduced by Blaise Pascal, the famous French mathematician.

 

Since then, Roulette has become a staple of both brick and mortar establishments and online casinos. As a game made largely of random chance and based on statistics and probability, many players gravitate towards it for its transparent nature. There’s also much less pressure to employ strategy to win, as one strategy will largely work as well as any other. The gameplay is quick, and there is no real need to stay any longer than you’d like. It’s also a hugely dynamic game for how short rounds are, with a ton of betting options and often wild and riotous table play.

 

General Overview

Essentially, roulette consists of two major states of play: the betting round, and the spinning round. During the betting round, players will place their bets in a way that suits them best. There are a number of different betting strategies you can employ and a few variations that are only seen at specific tables, but essentially you can bet on 13 things:

• Straight Up (Anyone number that appears on the wheel)
• Color
• Even or Odd
• High or Low (1-18, 19-36)
• A range, or groups of numbers
  • Columns (1 full horizontal row)
  • Dozens (1st 12, 2nd 12, 3rd 12)
  • Split (2 numbers)
  • Street (1 verticals row, 3 numbers)
  • Corners (4 numbers)
  • Lines (2 verticals rows, 6 numbers)
  • Five-Bet (00,0,1,2,3)
  • Basket (0,00,2 or 0,1,2 or 00,2,3)
  • Snake (1,5,9,12,14,16,19,23,27,30,32,34)

Once bets have been placed and the dealer rolls the ball, they will call “no more bets” signaling the beginning of the spinning round. Once the ball stops in space and the winning number is called all losing bets will be removed from the table. The dealer will then pay out the winning bets, clear the table, and betting starts again.

By far the most complicated part of the game is understanding bets and payouts, but even these are simple- especially online- as a dealer will always calculate your winnings for you. Each of the 13 standard bets falls either outside the table layout (outside bets) or inside the table layout (inside bets).

 

Play Roulette – Outside Bets

Outside bets are essentially any bet whose chip is placed outside of the grouping of numbers on a table layout. This includes Red/Black, Odd/Even, High/Low, Columns, and Dozens. The even-money bets (red/black, odds/even, high/low) pay one to one. Which means you will win back what you place down. Columns and dozens pay 2:1, or you win double your original bet.

 

Play Roulette – Inside Bets

Inside bets are those that occur within the numbered section of a roulette table layout. Within this rectangle, you will see all of the numbers and their corresponding colors. Straight, Split, Street, Corners, Lines, Five-Number, Baskets, and Snake bets all are considered inside bets and pay according to the probability of winning. A straight bet, for example, has a very low probability of winning, so it pays 35:1, where a snake bet has a much higher probability of resulting in a win and pays 2:1.

 

Alternate Versions

There are essentially three versions of roulette: American, European, and French. Each with a different table layout and a few bets that are unique to each version. The European table layout is almost identical to the American layout, except European versions do not have the 00. Making European play slightly more advantageous to the player, and American slightly more advantageous to the house.

In French roulette, there are additional rules and betting systems, as well as a different table layout. Where the wheel is in the middle of the table and the betting layouts appear on either side of it. The internet, however, staying true to fashion, has brought out a number of different roulette variations that generally play off of an American roulette version. Mini-roulette and multi-wheel roulette are probably the two most popular options online.