Roulette Guide

Roulette Guide - How to Play Roulette

The origin of American roulette was the European roulette wheel, with only one major difference – while the European roulette has only a single 0, the American wheel contains two slots of zero – 0 and 00. Although some would think "the more the merrier", this is not the case with American roulette. The winning odds of European roulette are a little higher than the American one, since 37:1 is still higher than 38:1 (single zero vs. double zero).

When first looking at a roulette wheel, one may think the location of the numbers on the wheel is completely random, but this isn't true. The high-low and even-odd numbers are quite balanced on the roulette wheel, mathematically speaking. The zeroes, in American roulette, are located on opposite sides and colored in green; the odd and even numbers are also arranged to be fair, and alter between red and black. All numbers get the same winning odds, no tricks involved.

The roulette croupier spins the wheel to one direction with one hand, while holding the roulette ball in the other hand. At some point, the ball is rolled into the roulette wheel, in the opposite direction of the spin. When the ball stops at a certain slot of the wheel, that slot number wins. Before the betting takes place, you should notice the table spread (minimum & maximum bets) which are usually something like $1 min, $500 max.

The chips of the roulette tables in casinos are different than the chips used for the other casino games. The roulette chips have different sets, each set colored in a different color, in order for the dealer to know which set of chips belongs to which gambler in the roulette table.

There are two types of roulette bets – "Inside bets" (bets on the actual 36 numbers or any zero on the table) and "Outside bets" (on the outer layout).

Roulette Guide - Roulette Tips

Track the Numbers

When you see a specific number that comes up more often than the others within 100 roulette spins, you may have found a biased roulette wheel. Once you know the wheel is biased, it might just work in your favor. This is one of the two ways to get the house edge working for you.

Croupier Signature

A very experienced croupier tends to spin the wheel and release the ball at almost the same speed and angle every time. If there's no deflection from the wheel's metal stops, one can predict the area in which the roulette ball is going to drop on the wheel. This is a second way to get an edge in roulette.

Visual Tracking

If the gaming conditions are ideal, the player has to determine only 2 things – the number of rotations the ball makes until it stops on one of the roulette slots, and the wheelhead's position when the ball stops.

The number of rotations  that the ball makes on the wheel is determined by an estimated ball speed. One can estimate the speed by observing the ball and noticing how much the ball slows before dropping off the track. You'll see that after a few spins, you will also be able to tell quite accurately when the ball is going to drop. The thing is that once the ball drops, there's no more betting, meaning you have to predict the drop about 3 turns in advance.

Martingale System

This money management system is very dangerous for use, and might get you into a very deep hole in almost no time if you have just a few losses in a row.

Martingale is an easy to understand system, with lots of logic and almost no profits involved.

The first step is defining a unit. You define yourself a unit according to what you are willing to spend. A single unit will be $1, $5, or anything you wish, just don't make it too big. Now, you gamble a single unit and hope to win. If you win – great! You keep betting a single unit, safely. If you lose, though, you double the betting amount on the next round – instead of a single unit, you put 2, instead of 2 units, you put 4, etc., and when you win you actually cover your entire loss in one successful bet. It actually sounds pretty amazing, until you get the trick – you cover your losses, but you don't actually win anything. No matter how many units you gamble using Martingale system, you'll always come out either a loser or with a profit of a single unit. Don't you think it's a little odd to spend $400 in order to win $5?

Beware of the 5 Numbers Bet!

Don't ever take the 5-number bet. This bet, on 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3, which exists in American roulette only, has the highest online casino house edge of all roulette bets (7.89%).