How to Play Roulette

Roulette is one of the most popular casino table games in the world, and a common fixture in nearly every casino you’ll step into. And whilst roulette can look confusing at first glance, it can actually be a quick game to pick up.

So, how do you play roulette? You can start with this guide on how to play roulette at casinos and online. We’ll run through a step-by-step explanation of how the game works. Plus, we’ll detail how to place different bets and how to increase your chances of winning at roulette.

Understanding the Basics

When you first step up to a roulette table or open a game online, it can look a little daunting. But we’ll take you through the steps of how to play roulette at a casino or on your screen.

As you look down at a roulette game, you’ll see two main features:

1. The roulette wheel: Featuring coloured and numbered pockets, from 0 to 36.
2. The roulette table: The grid where you place your chips to bet.

Roulette is played by putting bets on the table (usually as chips), such as betting on the number 13 or betting on red. The roulette wheel is spun and a white ball is dropped into it. As the wheel slows, the ball will end up in a pocket with a number and a colour that’s either red or black. If you pick the right number or colour, you win.

Roulette is a little more complicated than that, but we’ll explain everything you need to know.

How Do I Place Bets in Roulette?

You’ve stepped up to the table or opened a roulette game online, and you’re ready to place your first roulette bet. Here’s what you need to do:

1. If you’re playing in real life, and you don’t already have chips, then change cash for chips with the croupier (dealer), when there’s a break in the game and it’s convenient to do so.
2. The dealer will give players time to place their bets. Put your chips on the table to place your bets (we’ll explain more about the different roulette bets you can make below).
3. The dealer sets the roulette wheel spinning, then he or she sets the ball circling in the opposite direction.
4. You can still place bets as the ball is running, until the dealer calls “no more bets” as it begins to slow.
5. The ball will fall into one of the pockets, revealing the winning colour and number.
6. The dealer will hand winning amounts of chips to successful betters, and will clear the rest of the chips from the table.

European vs. American Roulette?

There are two main versions of roulette played in most casinos and offered online: European roulette and American roulette. They use a slightly different roulette wheel and table:

● European Roulette: The wheel contains 37 pockets, numbered 0 to 36, with an equal count of red and black numbers (the 0 is green). The European roulette table has only the 0 box on it.

● American Roulette: The wheel contains 38 pockets, numbered 00, then 0 to 36, with an equal count of red and black numbers (both the 00 and 0 are green). The American roulette table has both 0 and 00 boxes on it.

European roulette offers better odds to the player, and has a lower house edge. This is because the European roulette wheel has one less pocket, meaning it’s more likely you’ll correctly pick the winning one.

What Kind of Bets Can You Make in Roulette?

Roulette offers you a wealth of betting options, which are broken down into inside bets and outside bets:

Inside Bets in Roulette

Inside roulette bets get their name because they’re made by placing chips on the inside area of the roulette betting grid – the three rows of numbered squares, plus the zeros.

You can place chips on a single number to bet on it, but you can also place chips across two numbers, or four, or more, to bet on multiple numbers at once. The more numbers you pick with a bet, the better your chances of winning but the lower your potential payout.

Inside betting options in roulette include:

Outside Bets in Roulette

Outside roulette bets are made by placing chips on the outside areas of the roulette table, around the numbered squares. The most famous outside bet is wagering on red or black by putting your chips in either the red or black box, but you’ve got plenty more bets you can make.

Outside betting options in roulette include:

Risk Versus Reward in Roulette

Betting in Roulette is all about balancing the risk of your bets with how much you’d potentially win.

Lower risk bets in roulette are more likely to happen, but will payout less. Conversely, risky bets will award higher winnings, but are less likely to occur. You can categorise bets in roulette as follows:

Lower Risk, Lower Reward

 Medium Risk, Medium Reward

Higher Risk, Higher Reward

What is the House Edge in Roulette?

The House Edge is the advantage that the house (the casino) has over the players of casino games.

When you place a bet in roulette, the house is more likely to win. They won’t win every time and you can still win plenty of your bets, but the House Edge is the long-term average of how much the house will win over the players.

The House Edge for European roulette is 2.70%. It’s 5.26% for American roulette due to the extra pocket on the wheel.

Maximising Your Chances of Winning in Roulette

Roulette is a game of chance. You can’t influence where that white ball will fall, and no one can predict where it will either. However, there are still plenty of roulette tips you can follow to help improve your chances of winning, like:

1. Making sure you understand how to play roulette: You should ensure you know the rules of roulette before you bet any money on it.
2. Playing for free at first: You can play plenty of our online roulette games for free in a demo mode. You won’t win real money, but you can use the opportunity to make sure you know exactly how a game works before you place real bets.
3. Placing outside bets: Outside bets offer you better odds. You won’t win as big compared to inside bets, but you’re more likely to win with outside bets.
4. Placing small bet amounts: You’ll be able to play for longer and win more often, if you make smaller bets than sticking your full pile of chips on one number.
5. Setting a bankroll/betting limit: Your bankroll is how much money you give yourself to bet on any given occasion. You should set yourself a bankroll as a limit. Only bet with money you can afford to lose, and don’t try to chase your losses. If you lose your bankroll it’s time to stop playing.
6. Learning about roulette betting strategies: Roulette betting strategies are systematic approaches you can take to betting on roulette to try and improve your chances of winning.

Roulette Betting Strategies and Tips

Once you’re comfortable with how to play roulette, you can experiment with roulette betting strategies to try and maximise your winnings. Betting strategies are structured approaches to betting where you follow different set actions in certain situations in order to try and improve the odds of winning.

Whilst betting strategies aren’t guaranteed to hand you winnings, they may help. Four of the most popular roulette betting strategies include:

1. Martingale roulette betting strategy: A negative-progression betting strategy where you increase your bet each time you lose. With the Martingale approach, each time you lose a roulette bet you double your next bet, with the concept being that you’ll eventually win and recover your preceding losses.
2. Reverse Martingale roulette betting strategy: An alternative positive-progression strategy. Rather than doubling your bets after a loss, you double your bets after a win and half them after a loss, to benefit from winning streaks.
3. Fibonacci roulette betting strategy: Another positive-progression strategy, but this time you increase each successive bet you make by placing stakes that are the sum of your previous two wagers combined. Even if you lose more bets than you win, you may make a profit if you win further down the line.
4. D’Alembert roulette betting strategy: With this strategy you divide your bets into units. You bet on odd or even, red or black, or high or low, and you increase your stakes by one unit after a loss and decrease it by a single unit after a win. The goal is to play conservatively to try and earn a modest profit.

Where Can I Play Roulette Online?

Read our guide on roulette odds to really make sure you understand the implications of each bet. And now that you better understand how to play roulette, you can put theory into practice and start playing roulette online with BoyleSports Games . We offer a variety of roulette games – European and American, and classic and innovative. In our Live Casino, you can even play live-streamed roulette at a real casino table with our Live roulette games.

Sign up with BoyleSports and play online roulette today.