Roulette – How do you play to win?

Roulette, roulette, roulette.

Even if you've never played at a casino, most people associate it with roulette. It's the spinning disc with a small ball that falls down and into an open slot. But how do you play to win? Is it only luck or is there some strategy to the game? Let's go over all of that.

Bets are open. Place your bets. You look at the large board, not sure what to go for, the seconds tick away quickly. Without thinking too much about it you go for number 5, your lucky number. Bets are closed. Good luck. The ball spin quickly and bounces a couple of times with a nice clinking sound. It lands on 33. Why didn't you win?

There are more ways to bet on roulette without going for individual numbers. The wheel that the ball lands on has alternating black and red slots, one or two are green - one for French and European roulette, two for American. These slots have numbers from 1 up to 36 with green being 0 or 00. The numbers seem to be randomly spaced out but are actually placed the same on every roulette wheel.

Roulette is a game of chance, but that doesn't mean that every bet is equally as random. So, a well-thought-out bet will give you much better odds than just guessing a number.

The bets

As we said, there are more ways to bet on roulette. Here are the most common ones.

• Odd or Even numbers
• Black or Red numbers
• First, middle, or last 12 numbers
• Full column
• Corner, split, line, five, street bet - your chip is placed on one or more lines so that you cover more than one number or include one of the above options.
• Finally, individual numbers (known as straight up)

Probability and chance

Did you pay attention in math class? If you did, you will have no problem figuring out the best bets on roulette. If you instead were thinking of your crush or what you and your friends were going to do that afternoon, you might want to keep reading.

Whether your bet is good or not depends on the likelihood that the bet you have made will happen and how much the casino pays out on that particular bet. There's a lot of people that talk about basket bets, which is when you split your bet over the two zeros along with 1-3, and the house has an edge of 7.89% when they normally have 5.26%. This is obviously a bad bet because even though the likelihood of you winning is low, the house will not pay you as much as the odds should be worth.

On the other hand, betting on a single number is an incredibly rare win, but you will be paid very well for your bet. A bet on odds, even, black, red or 1/2 of the table is possible, and you have a 50% chance of winning, but you won't win much on this kind of bet. For example, a bet of €5 on red will give you €10 if you win, while a bet of €5 on 22 and winning will give you €180.

French, American, or European Roulette?

The different roulette tables you can play at is to some degree a preference, but we would recommend that you stick to French or European roulette. This is because of the double-zero in American roulette. That gives the house an edge that you don't have in French or European roulette.

Roulette is a game of chance, but that doesn't mean that every bet is equally as random. So, a well-thought-out bet will give you much better odds than just guessing a number. Would you want us to go into more depth about the different bets in roulette and what has more of an advantage over the others? Or do you have the perfect system that you use every time? Let us know what you think below, we read all of the comments and absolutely love hearing from you.