How to Play Roulette

Roulette is one of the most iconic casino games of all time and has mass appeal to casino players both in person and online.

Named after the French word meaning little wheel, Roulette has everything you want in a casino game – simplicity, speed, anticipation, excitement and decent payouts. It is also lots of fun too.

Many people play Roulette like a guessing game, picking their favourite numbers and moving around the board trying out different bets. However, others apply strategy and mathematical processes to try to maximise their payouts.

Either way, Roulette offers the chance to do both and has multiple variations to keep things interesting too.

So, let's take a look at Roulette in more detail; how to play it, what variants you can find, what the house edge is and which strategies you can use when playing.

What Is Roulette?

In a standard single-zero roulette game there is a wheel with 37 different segments, or pockets as they are sometimes referred to, and a corresponding board.

The wheel segments are numbered 0 – 36 and each has a colour. Almost half of the numbers (18 of them) are red, another 18 are black and the number ‘0’ is green.

Before the wheel is spun, players place bets on which number they think the wheel will land on. They do this by placing casino chips on the board and there are various bets they can choose to place.

We’ll go into this in more detail below but, as an example, you can choose specific numbers, whether it will land on a red or black number, whether it will be odd or even, or if it will fall within a number range laid out on the board.

Once all bets are placed, the croupier spins the wheel in one direction and throws a small ball in the other direction around the tilted track on the outside of the wheel. When the wheel stops spinning, the ball will land in one of the numbered pockets and this is the winner.

What Roulette Bets Can Be Placed?

Let’s look at a standard European Roulette board in order to understand the different bets that can be placed.

As you can see from this image, a standard Roulette board, which can be referred to as the ‘layout’, has a green cloth background and includes the green, red and black numbered segments which correspond exactly to those on the wheel. You will also see other boxes where specific bets can be placed.

Roulette bets are split into two different types – inside bets and outside bets. Inside bets are those that are more precise, which means they are harder to get right but pay better when they land.

Outside bets are less precise and give you a better chance of winning but pay much lower when you do.

Inside Roulette Bets

Here’s a list of the main inside Roulette bets you can place, where to place your chips and what payout you can expect.

Because inside bets involve you focusing your predictions on anything from one to six numbers, the payouts are higher ranging from 5-1 for a Double Street Bet to 35 – 1 for a Straight Bet.

Outside Roulette Bets

You may want to spread your bets a little more by placing outside bets over a wider selection of numbers to give you a better chance of winning.

Possible outside Roulette bets, their chip placement and payouts are below:

Because outside bets aren’t as precise as inside bets and include you betting on a range of 12 – 18 numbers, the odds are much lower ranging from 1-1 to 2-1.

The important thing to remember about outside bets is that although they cover a wider selection of numbers and therefore have more chance of winning, no outside bets cover the ‘0’. This means that if the wheel lands on zero, all outside bets lose.

Additional Roulette Bets

There are a series of additional bets which are sometimes used in Roulette, which are commonly referred to as ‘French Bets’.

These aren’t available in all versions of Roulette and, truthfully, would only ever be used by more experienced gamblers. While most bets in Roulette are centred around the layout of the numbers on the board, these bets are based around the layout of numbers on the wheel.

For example, the Voisins du zero bet which means ‘neighbours of zero’ refers to the 17 numbers that lie either side of the green ‘0’ on the wheel. This series of numbers would be 22-18-29-7-28-12-35-3-26-0-32-15-19-4-21-2-25.

The Le tiers du cylindre (third of the wheel) bet, more commonly known as just ‘tiers’ is a series of 12 adjacent numbers on the wheel opposite to the zero which are 27-13-36-11-30-8-23-10-5-24-16-33.

Meanwhile, the Neighbours bet, refers to a five-chip bet that covers one number and the two numbers on either side of it on the wheel. For example, ‘0 and the neighbours" is on 3, 26, 0, 32, and 15.

These examples are given only as a reference for those who may want to seek out further details about more intricate bet sequences that are available in some versions of Roulette.

Betting On Roulette

Roulette betting, as with all table games, is done with casino chips. Think of chips like getting currency to travel abroad. You convert your cash to chips to play in the casino and then you convert chips back to cash, if you’re lucky enough to have any left.

Just like currency, chips come in all different denominations. When playing in a real casino, the lowest chip denomination is usually £1 although it can be as low as 10p in an online casino.

When you place a chip on a Roulette square, you are betting the value of that chip. So, if you place a £1 chip, it’s a £1 bet and a £10 chip is a £10 bet. Always ensure you know what chips you are placing as it can be easy to place the wrong chip by accident. Often chips have different colours for varying denominations to help you distinguish between them.

If you are playing in a real-life casino, you may also be given your own coloured chips. For example, you may play with red chips, while fellow players have blue and white chips. This is just to help the croupier distinguish between the players and who placed which bet on the board.

In some cases, Roulette tables have a minimum bet level, and this applies separately to inside and outside bets. For example, if the bet minimum is £5 at the Roulette table, you can’t place a mixture of inside and outside bets up to the £5 value.

You would normally have to place £5 worth of bets on either inside or outside bets. If you want to place bets on both, you would have to bet £10 minimum (£5 on inside bets and £5 on outside bets).

Roulette Variations

So far, we have focused on the single-zero Roulette game which is usually referred to as European Roulette. However, this is the most basic and also the most player-friendly version of Roulette you can find.

Other versions include a double-zero Roulette game, triple zero Roulette game, plus lots of other weird and wonderful variations.

Double-zero Roulette, or American Roulette as it is often referred to, has become much more common in both brick-and-mortar casinos and online. The reason is because it gives more advantage to the casino and less to the player.

American Roulette Board

As discussed earlier, outside bets already don’t cover when the wheel lands on the single 0. By also including a double zero ‘00’, it means there is double the chance of wiping out all outside bets.

Even worse than that, triple zero Roulette is becoming more common in places like Las Vegas, which gives the casino an even bigger advantage.

In terms of other Roulette variations, there are far too many to go into in detail. However, here’s a brief summary of three of the most popular online Roulette games and how they differ from the basic format.

Quantum Roulette

This is an online live dealer experience, although the host does not have any involvement with spinning the wheel or ball. Bets can be placed from 50p up to £500 and once betting is finalised and the wheel starts spinning, random multipliers ranging from 50x to 500x are allocated to five numbers. If you place a straight up bet on any of those numbers and it wins, you will have your win multiplied.

Mega Roulette and Lightning Roulette are similar to the above offering random multipliers to numbers on each spin.

Speed Roulette

This is a quick online version of Roulette which only has 25 seconds from one spin to the next. There is no down time for betting, as soon as one number lands, the wheel is spun again and betting happens during the spin. It enables an extra 50 rounds of betting per hour over normal live Roulette games.

Cash Collect Roulette Live

This version offers a single-zero Roulette game and on each spin up to five numbers are randomly chosen as the lucky numbers. When chosen, the number is allocated a symbol – diamond, spin coin or multiplier coin.

If the wheel lands on one of these numbers, a bonus game is triggered, which can be anything from a multiplying progressive wheel to a Cash Collect game grid.

Live Roulette v Electronic Roulette

There are four options when it comes to playing Roulette in the UK. You can physically go to a casino where you’ll find live Roulette tables with a croupier who spins the wheel and other players at the table.

You can also choose to play electronic Roulette in a casino, as most of them offer it now. This involves sitting at a machine in the casino, selecting your Roulette bets on the screen and an automated wheel will spin either on the screen or physically beside you.

Alternatively, you can play Roulette online, and once again, you can select a live dealer online game or an electronic game too.

It really depends upon what your own personal preference is. For many, nothing beats a live croupier and playing with other players in person for that social interaction, but for others this would be too pressuring or time-consuming.

Playing online does have its advantages in terms of being able to play whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to have some social element by playing live online Roulette games which come with an interactive croupier and a chat function.

The point is, really, that Roulette is now available in so many forms and formats and so many variations that you can take your pick of when and where you play it. Just always remember to do so safely and responsibly within a set budget.

Roulette House Edge

We’ve already mentioned some of the different variations of Roulette that are available, but we haven’t yet touched on House Edge and how that works.

Many people believe that some of the bets in Roulette are 50/50 such as red or black, odd or even, and the number ranges 1-18 and 19 – 36. Because most of the numbers fall into one or the other of these bets, the common misconception is that they are 50/50.

However, what they aren’t taking into account is the green ‘0’ pocket. If one player bets on red and another player bets on black and the wheel lands on zero, then both players lose.

The single zero therefore gives the casino an advantage, which is called the House Edge.

If you bet on red rather than having a 50% chance of winning, you actually have a 48.65% chance. Meanwhile the casino has a 51.35% chance of winning as it could land on black or the green ‘0’.

The difference between these two numbers (51.35% and 48.65%) is 2.70% which is the House Edge for European Roulette.

If we then apply the same mathematics to double zero and triple zero Roulette, it explains why casinos are keen to offer more of these games to players.

Double zero Roulette has a house edge of 5.26% while it goes up to 7.69% in triple zero Roulette.

The higher the house edge, the less chance the player has of winning. So it pays to try to stick to single zero European Roulette if you have the choice.

As a comparison to other casino games, Blackjack has a House Edge of between 0.42% - 2% which is considered the lowest, while slots have a House Edge of between 1.2% - 14% depending on which game you choose and its RTP.

Roulette Strategies

For every casino game, there are a dozen strategies that players swear by. Of course, there is no winning formula. If there were, we’d all be millionaires and the casinos would be out of business!

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t play Roulette strategically to either minimise your losses or cover the most numbers on the board.

The key to using strategies is to know when to stop playing. We can all hit a lucky streak or a lucky spin, in the case of Roulette, but if you continue to play then the chances are that the casino will win overall.

That’s exactly what House Edge is, and why it is achieved over a huge sample of players over a long period of time.

Below we’ll take a look at a few of the most popular Roulette strategies for you to consider.

Martingale Strategy

This is a very well-known strategy for Roulette and other casino games. With Roulette it’s focused on the outside even money bets of red/black, odd/even etc.

The strategy centres around doubling up your bet size after a loss. So, say you have bet £5 on red for your first bet and it wins, you will receive £10 in return (£5 stake plus £5 winnings).

However, say you didn’t win and the wheel landed on black so you lost £5. With the Martingale Strategy, your next bet would be £10 on red. If it lost again you would then bet £20 on red and if it lost again then £40 on red. However, if you then won, you would receive £80 back (£40 stake plus £40 win).

This would cover all of your previous bets (£5 + £10 + £20 +£40) plus give you £5 profit.

In this strategy, after a win, you reset back to the original stake and start again with a £5 bet.

There are several negatives with this strategy, firstly it assumes you have an unlimited bankroll to begin with so that if you have a long period without a win, you have enough money to continue betting.

If you start with a low bankroll, you can be wiped out before you even implement it. It can also be very tedious betting on the same thing over and over again with different stakes.

Finally, if it gets to the point where you are betting significant amounts, Roulette tables often have bet limits so you could find that you then can’t place the bets you need to recoup your losses.

Parlay/Parole Roulette Strategy

This is basically the opposite of the Martingale Strategy in that you double your bet when you win, not when you lose. You then reset back to the original bet when you lose.

The advantage of this strategy is that if you go on a winning streak, you can really maximise your wins. However, there’s also a big downside, in that if you keep winning and doubling up your stake, then when you inevitably lose, it could be a significant amount.

You, therefore, have to be very controlled when playing this strategy and set a limit as to how many wins in a row you will go before deciding not to double up to try and minimise losses.

D’Alembert Roulette Strategy

Similar to the Martingale Strategy, this also involves betting on the even money outside bets but doesn’t require such a big bankroll.

The strategy is to lower your bet by one unit when you win and add one unit when you lose. Say for example you have a £100 bankroll and each unit is £1.

If your first bet was £5 on red, and it won, your next bet would be £4 on red. However, if it loses, your next bet would be £6 on red. You continue betting on red, reducing it by one unit when you win and adding one unit when you lose.

The benefit of using the D’Alembert Strategy is that it will likely keep you playing for a long time. The downside of course, is that it can be extremely boring and take all the fun out of playing Roulette in the first place.

Double Street Quad Strategy

This strategy allows for more excitement with betting on inside bets rather than just even money bets. Of course, the downside to that is that it comes with added risks.

The Double Street Quad strategy is betting on two double streets which at six numbers each means you cover 12 numbers. You then place a separate corner bet over four numbers and one straight bet on a single number.

This means that 17 numbers in total are covered, which is only one less than an even money bet. But the potential payouts are much higher with them being inside bets rather than outside ones.

In an ideal scenario, the straight bet is the one that hits and you get a 35-1 payout, but there should be enough lower value wins to keep the fun going even if it doesn’t. Of course, there’s also a chance that you could go several rounds without hitting a single win so you do need a bigger bankroll to cover this, especially if the table minimum bets are high.

Casino Offers Strategy

The most successful and strategic option for playing Roulette is through using casino offers. This is where you take advantage of promotions and bonuses offered by casinos in order to turn the edge in your favour.

This strategy provides a way for you to have the edge instead of the casino and is based on calculating the expected value of a casino offer.

Casinos are always offering a range of bonuses such as freeplay, free spins, deposit matches and ‘Bet and Gets’ to entice new and existing customers to play. Casino advantage play which is similar to a Matched Betting strategy shows players how to get the best return on these offers, and in some cases guaranteed profits too.

Outplayed provides not only a daily list of these offers and where to find them but also step-by-step guides on how to complete them to make them as profitable as possible, therefore putting the advantage firmly in your hands.

To find out more about Matched Betting and the Casino Offers strategy, check out our guide.