Roulette is a classic casino game. It’s easy enough for beginners to enjoy, but has a surprising level of depth for serious betters. It’s also a fast-paced, fun game with high rewards. You can find it in any casino that offers table games, and it’s one of the few gambling games where the house edge is known.
Once players have placed their bets, the croupier (that’s what the dealers are called in roulette) will throw a ball into the spinning wheel. The table still accepts bets until the dealer says, “No more bets.” Then everybody watches as the ball bounces around the wheel and finally settles into a pocket that marks a specific number. If your bet was on that number, you’ve won!
The roulette wheel is a solid wooden disk, slightly convex in shape. Its rim contains metal compartments, or pockets, painted alternately red and black. Thirty-six of these are numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36, while the last two pockets, on European-style wheels, are green and carry the symbols 0 and 00.
Each roulette table carries a placard describing the minimum and maximum bets allowed. It’s best to choose a table that allows bets within your budget. It’s also a good idea to start with outside bets, which cover groups of numbers rather than individual digits. These are cheaper, and the odds of winning are higher.
It’s tempting to try to beat the maths by looking for hidden patterns in the results or betting opposite the biggest bets. However, these systems have not proven to be effective. A simple search of the Internet will return many (possibly millions) of systems for playing roulette, but none can improve your odds more than luck.