Roulette is the casino wheel everyone pictures. Drop chips on single numbers or groups of them, the ball spins, and every bet that covers the winning pocket gets paid.
Look at the wheel before anything else
The first thing to clock at any roulette table is the wheel. A single-zero wheel has 37 pockets and a 2.7% house edge. A double-zero wheel tacks on a 38th pocket and nearly doubles that edge to 5.26%. Same game, a very different price tag.
Beyond that, roulette is about picking your pace. A single number pays 35 to 1 but rarely lands; red or black pays even money and comes in almost half the time. Neither shifts the edge — they only change how fast your balance swings.
How a single round of roulette runs
- Choose a chip value and tap the table to lay your bets.
- Inside bets cover single numbers or tight groups and pay the most.
- Outside bets — red/black, odd/even, dozens — come in more often for smaller returns.
- Spin, and the winning bets are settled automatically.
Inside and outside bets
The layout splits into two zones. Inside bets go on the numbers themselves — a single number (straight up), two neighbours (split), a row of three (street), a block of four (corner) or two rows (six line). Outside bets ring the edge: red or black, odd or even, 1–18 or 19–36, a dozen or a column.
Inside bets pay more precisely because they land less often. On a single-zero wheel a given number turns up about once in 37 spins, or 2.7% of the time, while red comes in 18 times out of 37, which is 48.6%. When the ball drops into 0, every outside bet loses — and that lone green pocket is the source of the house edge.
Roulette payout chart
Spot the pattern: the fewer numbers a bet covers, the bigger it pays, yet the house edge holds at 2.7% across every one of them. A straight-up bet is not a worse deal than red or black — only a bumpier ride to the same place.
A calmer way to approach the wheel
No betting system bends the odds of a roulette wheel. Outside bets just drain or build your balance more slowly while you learn the ropes.
18+ only · real money · every result is random.
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Frequently asked questions
Can a betting system beat roulette?
No. Systems such as doubling up after a loss only change how you bet, not the odds of the wheel itself.
What does a straight-up bet pay in roulette?
A single-number bet pays 35 to 1, and on a single-zero wheel it lands roughly once in every 37 spins.
What happens to red or black bets when 0 comes up?
On most tables they simply lose. Some European tables apply a "la partage" rule that returns half of any even-money bet when zero hits, and the table rules will spell that out.
