If you’re new to roulette, consider this Lemons & Sevens guide to roulette for beginners your new favourite resource. We’ll cover all the rules and bet types you need to know if you want to play this classic casino game.

If you’re here to find out if there’s any skill involved in playing roulette, or any strategy you can use to improve your chances of winning at roulette, the short answer is - unfortunately - no. Roulette is completely a game of chance.

If you’d like to learn some more about roulette anyway, keep reading. It’s one of the most fun casino games around, even if there’s not much thinking behind it. We’ll go into every aspect of roulette’s rules and play, so this can essentially become your roulette for dummies guide.

What is roulette?

Roulette is a game of chance played at essentially every online and brick-and-mortar casino in the world - so it’s worth knowing a thing or two about. Though the game employs a board and wheel that may look intimidating to a complete novice, the objective of roulette is quite simple - bet on the number (or group of numbers) that the ball eventually lands on.

Some bets have higher odds than others, based on their likeliness of winning. The house edge on roulette is about 2.5-5%, depending on the casino and the rules used. (But more on that later.)

You can play roulette almost anywhere you can gamble, including:

• Online (on your computer, phone browser, in-app roulette, or live streamed video roulette)

• In casinos (table roulette)

• Fixed odds betting terminals (at your local bookies, in the casino or at the pub)

• There’s even tombola roulette at special terminals

How do you play roulette?

Roulette is played with a board and a spinning roulette wheel with numbers in partitions around the edge. When playing live roulette at a roulette table in a casino, the croupier will spin the roulette wheel in one direction, and spin a ball into the wheel in the opposite direction. As the ball spins in the wheel, it will slow down and eventually fall into one of the numbered partitions (called frets). The number it falls on is the winning number, and anyone who has bet on that number wins.

Once someone has won, there will be a brief respite from play as the croupier adds up and dishes out the winnings, before spinning the ball back into the wheel for another game. Once the losing bets have been cleared from the table, you can begin placing bets with your chips again.

Placing a bet in Roulette

When betting in roulette, you place chips or cash on the area of the table that represents the bet you’d like to make, which you can do until the croupier announces “no more bets”. When playing online roulette, or at a roulette terminal, you can choose the amount that you would like to bet (usually represented in incremental amounts at the bottom of the screen) and then select which numbers you would like to place bets on.

The roulette table

The numbers on a roulette table run from 0-36, with 1-36 numbered in alternating red and black, with zero the only green. Some tables have a double zero (00) or even triple zero (000). Extra zeros change the odds on your bet -- the more ‘0’s a table has, the worse your odds are (the house edge is higher).

Whether you’re playing live or online, bets are made by placing chips at various points on the table which correspond to different bets, on different numbers, with different odds.

Types of Bet in Roulette

You can place bets in a number of ways. Every type of bet in roulette is classified as either an inside bet, or an outside bet. Inside bets are bets which are placed inside the grid of numbers in the centre of the table, and outside bets are bets which are placed around the edges of the table.

Inside Bets:

• Straight up (betting on a single number, e.g. 5)

• Square (also known as a ‘corner’, this bet covers 4 numbers in the shape of a square, surprisingly - e.g. 5, 6, 8, 9)

• Split (also known as a ‘cheval’ - a bet that covers two adjacent numbers, e.g. 5 & 6, or 5 & 8)

• Street (an inside row of 3 numbers, e.g. 4, 5, 6)

• Six line (also known as a ‘double street’ this bet covers two rows of numbers, e.g. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9)

• Trio (A three number bet involving a zero, e.g. 0, 1, 2 or 00, 2, 3)

• First four (the first four numbers on a single-0 layout only - i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3)

Outside Bets:

• Low/Manque or High/Passe (a bet on numbers 1 to 18 inclusive or on numbers 19 to 36 inclusive) 

• Red or Black (a bet on either all the red numbers, or all the black numbers)

• Even or Odd (a bet placed on all the odd numbers, or all the even numbers)

• Dozen bet (a bet placed on the first, second, or third 12 numbers, e.g. 1-12)

• Column bet (a bet placed down one of the vertical columns, e.g. 2-35)

• On triple zero tables, you can also bet on ‘Green’ (a bet placed on all three zeros)

What are the odds of winning at roulette?

The casino pays 35 to 1 on winning bets, and your chances of winning are 37 to 1 if you’re playing at a table with double 0, or 36 to 1 if you’re playing single zero.

The payout of each individual bet are as follows:

Roulette Sucker Bet

On tables with a double zero, you can also place a bet on 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3 - this is called a Basket Bet. A  Basket Bet pays 6 to 1, but has a house edge of 7.89%, making it the worst bet to play at the whole table.

Roulette Rules: What is La Partage?

In the UK, many single zero tables operate on ‘La Partage’(French for Sharing) rules. When playing at a roulette table with La Partage rules, all even money bets are divided when the wheel spins and comes up on 0. Half of the bet is kept for the house, and half is returned to the players. La Partage rules reduce the house edge from 2.7% to 1.35%. Making this one of the best bets available in the casino.

Roulette Rules: What is En Prison?

The ‘En Prison’ rule (which is French for ‘In Prison’, unsurprisingly) is a variant of the La Partage rule. Like La Partage, the En Prison rule results in bets being halved in the event that a 0 comes up. However, ‘En Prison’ rules state that the money which has been bet, must then be rebet on the next spin. 

En Prison and La Partage rules apply to these bets:

• High/Low

• Red/Black

• Even/Odd

How do you play roulette at the casino?

To play roulette in a casino first find a table with a minimum bet that you are happy with. Usually the smallest bet available will be £1.

1. Get Roulette chips

Between spins, give the dealer your money by placing it on the table and asking for “colour”. The dealer will then give you coloured roulette chips equal to the value you have given them. For example, if you gave the dealer £20 at a £1 table, the dealer would give you 20 chips valued at £1 each. Colour chips have a value equal to the table’s minimum bet.

The use of coloured chips is to determine which of the players at the table have placed each bet. Each player is assigned a colour unique to them (you can ask for a specific colour if you like). These chips are only valid at the exact roulette table you got them at - so don’t leave the table with the chips!

2. Place your bets

Once you have your chips you are free to place them anywhere on the layout. Be aware that outside bets usually have a higher minimum. Normally an outside bet will be 5x - 10x the inside bet minimum - meaning that you’d be required to wager at least £5 on a Red/Black bet if you were playing at a table with a minimum inside bet of £1.

To place your bet, you put your chip (or chips, depending on the amount you want to wager) on the square that contains the number you wish to bet on. If you want to bet on a column you should put your chip(s) at the edge of the three numbers you have chosen. If you wanted to make a square bet, you’d put your chips at the intersection of those numbers.

While bets are being placed, the croupier will spin the wheel and spin the ball into it. You can keep putting down chips, or move the ones you have already put down, until the croupier calls “no more bets”. Then no more bets are allowed to be made until that game’s winner has been announced and paid.

Note: If you cannot reach the numbers you want to bet on from where you are at the table, it is completely fine to ask the dealer to put the chips on the number for you. However you must put the chips down and ask him or her to do so. Croupiers are not allowed to take the chips from your hand.

3. Winning at Roulette

Once the ball has landed on a number, the dealer will take their dolly (a small glass ornament designed to mark the winning number) and place it over the winning number on the layout, at this point you are not allowed to touch any of the chips in play. The dealer will remove all losing bets and begin to pay the winners.

Note: The dealers don't always know who is playing which colour so be ready to claim any winning bets. 

Once the dealer has paid all bets and removed the dolly the process starts over again and you may begin betting.

4. Leaving the Roulette table

When you would like to leave the roulette table you will need to cash in your coloured chips as they are no good anywhere else in the casino. Between spins slide your stack toward the dealer and ask for “cash chips”. These chips can now be exchanged for real cash at the casino cash desk.

A note on Announced bets

You may have been at a live roulette table in the past minding your own business when you get shoved out of the way by some ancient little Asian woman shouting “15 neighbours by 5!” This is called an ‘announced bet’.

After making an announced bet, the player will table a £25 chip toward the dealer and he will place it on the layout as shown. This area of the layout is known as the ‘French Numbers’ and can only be used by the dealer for bets of this type. She now has a ‘straight up’ £5 bet on each of the numbers 32, 19, 15, 0, 4. If successful, this bet will win £175 (because it is a £5 on a single number).

Announced bets can be any valid bet where you have the dealer place the chip for you. All you need to do is tell the dealer your bet and throw him a chip. He will take care of the rest. This can be done at any time but is most often used once the ball has started spinning and you are tight for time, just make sure you announce your bet before the “no more bets” call.

Although intimidating at first, roulette is by far the simplest game in the casino with the highest potential win should you get lucky. However, you should always remember that the casino has an edge and you will lose all of your money if you play for long enough. With that in mind, roulette is a fun and exciting game and is always a must-play when you visit the casino.

If anything still doesn't make sense get in touch with us on twitter @lemonsandsevens and we’ll answer all of your roulette questions.

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