Roulette

How To Play Roulette Online

Google “how to play roulette” and you’ll find over 400,000 of roulette pages come up. That’s a lot of roulette advice. You might think that roulette is complicated and hard to learn. Actually, learning how to play roulette is relatively simple and straightforward.

Roulette 101

In American-style roulette, players bet on the outcome of a wager on where a steel ball is going to land on the roulette wheel. The roulette wheel has 38 numbers on it - or the numbers 1 through 36, as well as the 0 and 00. Roulette players place their bets before the dealer (known as the “croupier”) sets the ball spinning on the wheel, or just after the dealer spins the ball and before he calls an end to betting.

Once the ball ends its spinning, the croupier pays out winning bets and collects losing bets. Because there are so many different ways to win in roulette, this may take a few moments. It’s as simple as that. Of course, you’ll need to learn a few roulette rules before you begin to play. Most of those rules have to do with roulette betting.

Roulette Rules - Roulette Bets

Roulette bets come in many different forms. You can make roulette bets on 1 number, 2 numbers, 3 numbers, 4 numbers, 5 numbers, 6 numbers, 12 numbers and 18 numbers. Even among these options, there are different ways to make these bets. If you want a full roulette betting list, you should check out our “How to Bet on Roulette” article. Here’s the quick recap.

1 Number Roulette Bets

These are called “straight bets” or “straight up bets“. In American roulette, the odds of hitting this bet are 37 to 1 against you. If you win, you win 35 times the original bet.

Multiple Number Inside Bets in Roulette

2-number bets are called split bets. 3-number bets are called street bets, because they are made on a “street” of numbers. For instance, a street might be 1-2-3 or 4-5-6. You can also make a 3-number bet on one of two number combinations: 0-1-2 and 2-3-00.

4-number bets are known as corner bets, because you place them in the box corners of the four adjacent number you’re betting on. Basket bets are 5-number bets: essentially the numbers 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. Don’t bet on this number combination, because your odds will be really bad.

The 6-number bet is our final inside bet. The six-number bet is essentially two adjacent “street” bets - for instance, the 6-7-9 combined with the 10-11-12.

Outside Bets

Outside bets are for larger betting blocks, either of the 12-number or 18-number quantity. These roulette bets have better odds of hitting, but don’t pay off nearly as well. The 12-number roulette bets include the “third” bets and the column bets, which are columns of 12 numbers on the inside boxes of roulette numbers. The third bets are the first third (1-12), the second third (13-24) and the third bet (25-36).

The 18-number bets are roughly 50-50 propositions which pay off at 1-to-1. You can bet on high/low (1-18 or 19-36), black/red or even/odd. Since either side of this bet loses if the ball lands on either the “0″ or “00″, this isn’t really a 50/50 proposition.

Play Free Online Roulette

Finally, if you want to practice roulette, use one of the free online roulette tutorials. Many roulette websites offer tutorial software for roulette. You can practice your roulette skills by making imaginary roulette bets. Roulette tutorials give a “monopoly” bankroll that you can wager on roulette. You can learn how to make roulette bets and every other part of a roulette spin.

Once you play on a free roulette site, you’ll be able to walk into a casino and play live casino without hesitation. There’s no need to be avoid a game like roulette because you don’t want to embarrass yourself by learning roulette on the fly in the casino. You’ll already know by playing roulette from your computer at the house.