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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:
- why you should never play American Roulette,
- give you intricate strategies for European Roulette,
- tell you where to play
- and describe tactics professional players employ to get an edge over the house.
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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:
STRATEGY | LIKELIHOOD OF GOING BUST | LIKELIHOOD OF BIG WIN |
---|---|---|
Martingale | Low | Low |
Reverse Martingale | High | High |
D’Alembert | High | Low |
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 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?
- The objective for you, the player, in the game of roulette is to predict where the roulette ball will land in the slotted wheel.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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 Type | Bet Name | Winning Spaces | European – Probability Win | American – Probability Win | Payout |
Inside Bet | Straight Bet | Any single number | 2,70% | 2,63% | 35 to 1 |
Inside Bet | Split Bet | Any two adjoining numbers vertical or horizontal | 5,41% | 5,26% | 17 to 1 |
Inside Bet | Street Bet | Any three numbers horizontal (1, 2, 3 or 4, 5, 6 etc.) | 8,11% | 7,89% | 11 to 1 |
Inside Bet | Corner Bet | Any four adjoining numbers in a block (eg. 17, 18, 20, 21) | 10,81% | 10,53% | 8 to 1 |
Inside Bet | Double Street Bet | Any six numbers from two rows (eg. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33) | 16,22% | 15,79% | 5 to 1 |
Inside Bet | Basket Bet | 0, 1, 2 or 0, 2, 3 | NA | 13,16% | 6 to 1 |
Outside Bet | Low | 1-18 | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | High | 19-36 | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | Red | Any red number | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | Black | Any Black number | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | Even | Any even number | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | Odd | Any Odd number | 48,65% | 47,37% | 1 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 1st Dozen Bet | 1 through 12 | 32,43% | 31,58% | 2 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 2nd Dozen Bet | 13 through 24 | 32,43% | 31,58% | 2 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 3rd Dozen Bet | 25 through 36 | 32,43% | 31,58% | 2 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 1st Column Bet | 1, 4, 7 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34 | 32,43% | 31,58% | 2 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 2nd Column Bet | 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 35 | 32,43% | 31,58% | 2 to 1 |
Outside Bet | 3rd Column Bet | 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 | 32,43% | 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.
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 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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