How To Play Roulette (Basic)

Roulette is one of the simplest casino games you can play, but also offers opportunities for more advanced players to try out different bets / strategies too. Gameplay on Roulette is also slower than for other games, particularly when you play it in a land based casino, which is helpful when you are just starting out.


Here is what a European roulette table looks like:-

This is a very commonly used roulette table for gamblers. Another table often seen is the American Roulette table, which looks the same apart from having two green zeros (which makes your odds of success much lower, but we'll come to that later - just know for now that European tables are better).

This is a roulette wheel:-

In a land based casino, the roulette wheel is spun around. Whilst it is spinning, the croupier will launch a small white ball around the outside of the wheel, spinning in the opposite direction. After a few moments the ball will slow down and then bounce into the inner part of the wheel and settle on a number.

Although it looks fairly complicated, it is infact very simple. The easiest to understand bets on the table are the ones we see on the "outside" of the table (1to18, Even, red, black, odd and 19to36). All of these bets offer 1 to 1 payouts. For example, if i put $5 down on red, and then the roulette wheel spins a red, i "win" $5 on my bet and get the original bet returned to me too - $5 goes on the table, $10 comes off. If the roulette wheel was to spin a black then i would just lose that bet.

Here are all the basic bets on a roulette table and their payouts:-

Even-Money bets pay 1 to 1. Bet $5, Win $5
Dozens or Columns pay 2 to 1. Bet $5, win $10
Six number bet pays 5 to 1. Bet $5, win $25
Four number bet pays 8 to 1. Bet $5, win $40
Three number bet pays 11 to 1. Bet $5, win $55
Two number bet pays 17 to 1. Bet $5, win $85
One number bet pays 35 to 1. Bet $5, win $175

The "house" (casino) always wins in roulette because of the added green zero spot. The even money bets could be pretty well likened to flipping a coin with a 50-50 outcome. However, adding in that single extra number to the roulette table which is neither green nor red has a profound effect on our expected results and shifts the benefit in the favour of the casinos.

The advantage the house gains (aka "house edge") in European roulette is 2.7%, and on American roulette 5.26%. Taking the European game as an example, this means that in a statistically perfect situation we can expect to lose $2.70 for every $100 we put down on the table. It is of course very rare to get statistically perfect sessions when you play roulette and it would take many thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of spins before the figures will show a true evening out and the house edge will become apparent.

The best way to learn about roulette is to just dive in and "have a go". Nearly all online casinos offer a demo, play money mode where you can learn the bets and test out your strategies without risking any real money at all. It really is much more simple when you sit down and do it rather than read about it.