Roulette
What is "roulette"?
Roulette could be the second-oldest game ever developed by human beings, and started with Roman soldiers spinning their shields, and asking the gods what would happen. The modern casino version is where they take a big wheel, with either 37 or 38 numbers, spin it and drop a ball into it to determine what number wins. That's roulette.
What are the basics of roulette?
Roulette is a very interesting game. Roulette has a lot of bets. The roulette dealer spins the wheel, spins the ball, and the players place their chips on the table, determining what they're going to bet. As the ball spins around, it drops into one of the pockets on the roulette wheel. Now, in that pocket there will be a color, red or black, or green if it's the "0", or "00" on an American roulette wheel. The number will be either odd or even. It'll be high (over 18) or low (18 or below), or it will be red or black. That's the basic game of roulette.
How soon before the wheel stops can I make a bet?
One of the interesting things about roulette is the fact that the dealer can spin the wheel, spin the ball, and even as this is going on, you can bet. Generally speaking, after two or three turns of the ball around the wheel, the dealer will make a gesture and say, "No more bets." At that point, you cannot place anymore bets.
What is the house advantage in roulette?
There are two types of roulette games: the American roulette game, which has 38 numbers - 1-36, , a zero and a doube-zero, and there's the European roulette game, which has 37 numbers1-36 and only one zero. The "house edge" on the American game is 5.26% and 2.7% on the European. The European-style roulette is a far better game.
What are the odds of a specific number coming up in roulette?
If you take a look at the game of roulette, there are 38 numbers in the American wheel. The odds of one of them coming up is 37 to 1, or 1 chance in 38 spins to hit your number.
If I play a number long enough in roulette will it come up?
One of the typical gambling systems in roulette is to look at numbers that have not hit, and say, "well if I bet the number that hasn't come up, sooner or later it'll come up" - this is a fallacy. That number may not come up for 2, 3 spins or it might come up on the very next spin. Roulette is random, and betting in this way is risky.
What is an "on red" or an "on black" bet mean in roulette?
There are certain bets at the roulette table that are called even money bets. One of these is on red or on black. Your betting that the color of the number that's going to come up next will be either red or black. If it's red you win, if it's black you lose. However, you have two green zeros if either one of those zeros come up, you lose.
What are the odds of winning a color bet in roulette?
In roulette you have certain even money bets, a bet that pays exactly what you've wagered: odd-even, red and black, or high and low. Now, the odds of winning those colour bets are 20 to 18. You have 20 ways to lose a colour bet, 18 ways to win a colour bet, or, 10 to 9, which is about my bedtime.
If I bet on a specific number in roulette and it hits, what do I win?
In roulette, if you bet on a specific number, a win gives you 35 to one. While 35 to one might seem great, the casino are actually shortened the odds down from 37 to one, in order to maintain their "house edge".
What are the various bets I can make on a roulette table?
There are a multitude of bets in roulette: the "straight up" bet, that's where you bet directly on a number, it pays 35 to 1; "even money" bets, like high-low, red-black, or odd-even, those bets pay even money; you can bet on specific "dozens", and they pay 2 to 1; you can bet on several numbers on the table and you can place "even line bets", where you put a bet on a line between two numbers. One of the bad things about the game is that every roulette bet has a 5.26% "house edge".
