Overview of Roulette
Nothing symbolizes gambling as much as the roulette wheel. This game of pure gambling makes no bones about the fact that when you drop your ball on the wheel, it’s pure luck, baby. There are no cards, dice or dominos to make it feel like you have some affect on the outcome of the game. When you’re in the gambling mood and want to cut past all the pretense, roulette is the perfect game.
In case the name doesn’t spark an image in your mind, roulette is the casino game that involves a ball dropped into a spinning wheel. Before the ball is dropped, roulette players place bets on where the ball will land. After the bets have been placed, the ball is dropped and it spins around the inside of the roulette wheel. The wheel eventually comes to a rest and the ball falls into one of the numbered slots on the wheel.
The roulette wheel is made up of 36 numbered slots that alternate in color between red and black. There are also one or two additional green slots marked with a zero. American roulette wheels have a 0 and 00 slot while European wheels just have a single 0 slot.
There are different types of bets you can make, such as a bet on the ball landing on a certain number or certain color. These bets have differing odds and payouts based on the likelihood of you correctly guessing them. A bet on a single number, for example pays 35 to 1. A bet on red or black pays 1 to 1 because it’s basically a 50/50 shot.
The House Advantage
The house has to get its share too, of course. The house has an advantage in roulette because it pays slightly less than true odds on winning bets. Let’s go back to that bet on a single number. A winning bet pays 35 to 1 but the odds of you guessing are slightly lower than that because there are actually 37 or 38 slots (depending on if you’re playing on a 0 or 00 wheel).
The existence of the green 0 and 00 slots also contribute to the house advantage in 50/50 bets such as red/black, even/odd and high/low. These bets pay even money but you are slightly less than even money to win that bet. Any time you place one of those bets, you automatically lose if the ball lands on one of those green 0 slots.
The house advantage for most bets on an American roulette wheel is 5.26%. The European version offers an advantage of just 2.70% because it only has a single green 0 slot.
Placing Your Bets
Before you can place bets on roulette, you first need to buy in to the game and get your roulette chips. The roulette wheel in many casinos uses separate chips that are reserved specifically for betting on roulette. All you have to do is wait for a break in the action and let the dealer know you would like to buy in.
Once you have your roulette chips, you can then place bets by placing them on the appropriate place on the roulette layout. This layout is printed on a table next to the roulette wheel. The layout is pretty self explanatory – all you do is place your chips on the spot you wish to bet on. Each number is printed on the roulette layout and you can even bet on multiple numbers by placing your chips on the lines that intersect two or more numbers.
Let’s say you wish to place a $5 bet on a group of four numbers. You can place that bet by laying your $5 chip on the intersection between four numbers. If the ball lands on any one of those numbers, you’ll be paid 8:1 on your money.