How To Play Roulette

Roulette is a fairly intuitive game. Learning to play roulette isn't tough, but you should read up before placing any real bets down. Fortunately we feature a free roulette game here which wont cost you a dime. Use it to learn to play roulette, brush up on your skill-set, or try out some new systems and strategies.

The basics of roulette are as such. A large wheel with a number of separate compartments along the outer edge, is spun, and a ball is dropped into the spinning wheel. Each compartment corresponds to one number, and the ball must fall into one compartment. An American roulette wheel has 38 compartments, including the numbers 1 thru 36, which are either red or black, and two green pockets corresponding to zero, and double zero.

European roulette wheels are the same, but lack the double zero pocket. This works out to be an advantage to the player, and has propelled the popularity of roulette in Europe.

To play roulette, walk up to the table and have a look at what's currently going on. If other people are currently making bets, it's safe to assume you can too. If you want to bet more than a spin or two, you should 'buy in'. The dealer will ask you which denomination you would like to buy, and then will give you chips. The chips will all be the same color, and will all be worth what you asked the dealer for. You will be the only one at the table using this color chip, and that is how the dealers will identify you.

The bets you are available to you are many, but fall into one of only two categories. A bet is either an Inside bet, or an Outside bet. The difference is easy to see, as on the table you will see a grid of numbers containing black and red squares ranging from 1 to 36, and also the zero and double zero as green areas. This is the inside of the board, and any bets made on these numbers or combinations of numbers on the inside are considered, you guessed it, inside bets. You can also play a number of bets running along the outside of the inside area, including column bets at one end of the inside numbers, and a host of other bets along the players edge of the table. These are collectively known as outside bets. If you want to bet on red for instance, you would pick the red diamond on the outer edge.

When you play roulette, your goal is to simply pick where you think the ball will land on the next spin by the dealer, and place a bet on it. The outside bets let us bet on ranges of numbers (not any range we want, but predefined ranges), or characteristics of the numbers (such as whether they are odd or even, or red or black). All of these bets apply only to the next spin, and if they are not successful they will be swept from the board by the dealer.

To read more about the specific bets available to you when you play roulette, read our roulette rules section.