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Pick your online Roulette Guide with Roulette Geeks

Roulette is the casino game all serious gamblers want to master. We’ll tell you:

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We at Roulette Geeks aim to provide our visitors with transparent information about roulette strategies. We also tell them where to find interesting roulette offers online.

This means that our team of writers and researchers is always browsing the web to provide you with the data you need. You may need it in your search for the roulette offers that work best for you.

In the end, the final decision is always yours! You decide which casino you find the most promising. What we label as “best” here always reflect our subjective opinion, so take your time and browse Roulette Geeks to find the offer you like best!

If you would like to begin with the simplest strategy of the roulette strategies, we recommend that you start with Martingale system.

Pro tip: set yourself limits based on how much you would like to win. Test your chances of winning using our simulator.

Below, you’ll learn:

  • the science behind winning at roulette,
  • the different versions of the game,
  • the highest rated online roulette sites,
  • bonus tables and academic guidance collated from the leading roulette minds in the world.

Read it thoroughly and give yourself the chance of gaining an edge over the house. If you want to jump right at the strategies here are our recommendations:

STRATEGYLIKELIHOOD
OF GOING BUST
LIKELIHOOD
OF BIG WIN
MartingaleLowLow
Reverse MartingaleHighHigh
D’AlembertHighLow

Remember, good luck comes from having the edge and knowing where to stop. Knowledge is your natural advantage.

The Basics of Roulette – a Quick Guide

The basics of how to play roulette illustration

The key elements weather you play roulette online, in a casino or on a mobile device, are

  • The wheel
  • Roulette ball
  • Betting table
  • Gaming chips

In a land based casino you’ll also have

  • A croupier

This role is automatic in the online Random Number Generator (RNG) and Live Dealer versions of the game.

The aim of roulette is to predict which numbered pocket the roulette ball will end up in once the wheel stops spinning. You bet using chips which you place on numbered spots, lines, boxes or junctions on the gaming table. In roulette, players bet against the casino (known as ‘the house’), not against other players.

The rules of roulette are there for a reason: to give the house an edge (or help you get an edge if you know how to exploit them).

It should come as no surprise that the house has the edge when it comes to the odds of winning. You can check out roulette game odds in the player vs. house odds infographic.

How to Play Roulette – Our Strategy Guide

The aim of the game – What to do if you want to increase your chances?

  1. The objective for you, the player, in the game of roulette is to predict where the roulette ball will land in the slotted wheel.
  2. This prediction could be the exact number, the red or black color segment, whether the number is high or low or if it’s even or odd.
  3. Most games involve a combination of these roulette types of bet.

Step-by-step Guide to Roulette

The game of roulette works as follows:

Step 1: You (and other players) lay their chosen value of chips as bets on the table in a numbered, colored or even/odd box.

Step 2: You can additionally select a line or intersection of lines to spread the bet wider (see the graphic below). The total win will be reduced but the chances of winning increased.

Read more about bet options, win rates and payouts in the Roulette Betting Types section below and also the Roulette Glossary at the bottom of this page.

The Broader Rules of Roulette graphic

Step 3: When all bets are placed, the wheel is spun one way with the ball sent in the opposite direction. Online roulette games allow the player to click a spin button to initiate the game.

Step 4: You (and other players) can move your chips to change bets even after the ball has entered the wheel in every roulette game.

Step 5: When the ball moves from the outer rim towards the numbered wheel pockets, the croupier (or in online roulette the table instructions) then calls “no more bets”. At this point, no bets can be changed nor new bets placed.

Step 6: Once the ball stops in a numbered pocket the croupier or RNG software will place a marker on the game grid indicating the winning number.

Step 7: The croupier or software collects all losing bet chips from the table and pays out all winning bets. In online roulette, this happens automatically.

Too much to remember? Not a problem. We created a ‘cheat sheet’ as an aide memoir for the basic roulette bets, odds and table positions.

Roulette Cheat Sheet from Roulette Geeks

House Advantage & Payout Rates

On European single zero roulette tables the house edge is 2.7%. On an American double zero roulette table, it’s 5.26%. The house edge is gained through these zeroes – otherwise you would simply be able to coin flip ‘red or black’, ‘high or low’ and ‘odd or even’ to get even money. You can see the odds of winning different types of bets in American and European roulette in the table below.

Bet TypeBet NameWinning SpacesEuropean – Probability WinAmerican – Probability WinPayout
Inside BetStraight BetAny single number2,70%2,63%35 to 1
Inside BetSplit BetAny two adjoining numbers vertical or horizontal5,41%5,26%17 to 1
Inside BetStreet BetAny three numbers horizontal (1, 2, 3 or 4, 5, 6 etc.)8,11%7,89%11 to 1
Inside BetCorner BetAny four adjoining numbers in a block (eg. 17, 18, 20, 21)10,81%10,53%8 to 1
Inside BetDouble Street BetAny six numbers from two rows (eg. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)16,22%15,79%5 to 1
Inside BetBasket Bet0, 1, 2 or 0, 2, 3NA13,16%6 to 1
Outside BetLow1-1848,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside BetHigh19-3648,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside BetRedAny red number48,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside BetBlackAny Black number48,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside BetEvenAny even number48,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside BetOddAny Odd number48,65%47,37%1 to 1
Outside Bet1st Dozen Bet1 through 1232,43%31,58%2 to 1
Outside Bet2nd Dozen Bet13 through 2432,43%31,58%2 to 1
Outside Bet3rd Dozen Bet25 through 3632,43%31,58%2 to 1
Outside Bet1st Column Bet1, 4, 7 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 3432,43%31,58%2 to 1
Outside Bet2nd Column Bet2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 3532,43%31,58%2 to 1
Outside Bet3rd Column Bet3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 3632,43%31,58%2 to 1

To better understand the house edge in terms of roulette win percentage and probability, it’s worth referring to this well researched website by Jacob Kanzen.

Roulette Odds & Betting Types

What are your options?

There are two main types of bet in roulette: inside bets and outside bets.

Inside bets are any bets placed on the numbered segment of the game grid, including bets on lines and intersections.

Outside bets are those placed in the boxes outside the numbered game grid, including red or black and odd or even boxes. You can see inside and outside bet segments in the table graphic below.

Roulette bet types chart

Inside Bets in Roulette

An inside bet is any bet placed in the numbered game grid on the roulette table, including:

  • Straight up bet: 35 to 1 – bet is placed on a single number
  • Split bet: 7 to 1 – betting splits 2 numbers
  • Street bet: 11 to 1 – bet covers 3 numbers in a row
  • Corner bet: 8 to 1 – bet covers 4 numbers
  • Base bet: 6 to 1 – Bet covers 1, 2, 3 and one or both zeros
  • Line bet: 5 to 1: bet covers 6 numbers in 2 rows
  • Column bet: 12 to 1: bet covers 12 numbers
  • Dozen bet: 2 to 1: bet covers 12 numbers

Outside Bets in Roulette

An outside bet is any bet placed in the outer boxes of the roulette table. These bets include:

  • Low: betting on all numbers from 1 to 18 giving near to even money odds
  • High: betting on all numbers from 19 to 36
  • Red: betting on the ball landing in any red pocket.
  • Black: betting on the ball landing in any black pocket.
  • Odd: betting on the ball landing on any odd number (1, 3, 5, 7… etc.)
  • Even: betting on the ball landing on any even number (2, 4, 6, 8… etc.)
  • Dozen: betting on either 1 to 12, 13 to 24 or 25 to 36, thirteen through twenty four, or twenty five through thirty six .
  • Column: betting on a whole vertical column and if the ball lands in any number in that column you’ll win
Roulette probability chart

Roulette welcome bonuses

If you are interested in playing roulette online, you will certainly be interested in welcome bonuses, too. Learn more about roulette bonuses, or go straight to the information about some casinos, such as:

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