Ruling The Wheel Of Fortune

Between the shows, fantastic restaurants, and amazing nightlife, we recommend you take a little time to learn how to play roulette in a casino, so when you approach the roulette table you can confidently place your bets and understand the game.

Often featured in James Bond movies, there is an aura of glamour, mystery and romance surrounding roulette. Some have said winning the game requires a pact with the devil because the numbers on the wheel add up to 666.

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Walking up to a Las Vegas casino table game can be intimidating even for those who actually play once in a while and especially for those who have never rolled the dice. The casino floor’s variety of fast-paced games, each with their own rules, minimums and tricks, can be confusing and overwhelming. But what if you could learn enough basics to play a few rounds and win big? As we got you covered!

ROULETTE

Roulette is not only one of the most exciting, adrenaline-inducing games, but it’s also the fastest to pick up: just place your chip on your lucky number(s), or bet a column, group, red or black color, or odd or even numbers and watch the wheel spin.

Roulette is one of the most enjoyable games in a casino. No time-consuming learning curve, a variety of bets, not too much math, and a social atmosphere where fortunes can be won if Lady Luck smiles. Roulette, like many Las Vegas-style casino table games, has its own set of slang terms.

For example, when you bet on an individual number in roulette, it’s called a “straight-up” bet. A bet between two adjoining numbers is called a “split.” You can also make a “street” bet, which is a bet on three numbers in a single horizontal line. Depending upon the table’s layout, a street bet is made on the line at the end of the three numbers, either to the right or left. (Ask your dealer for help.)

A “trio” bet is on made on three numbers at once.

A “basket” bet is a bet on five numbers, and is placed at the intersection of 0,00,1,2,3. This bet, by the way, has a house “edge” (or advantage) of 7.89 percent, whereas others have an edge of 5.26 percent, so it’s not the best bet in roulette, but hey, if you hit a lucky streak, there are no bad bets.

A “snake bet” zig-zags across the layout, covering the numbers 1, 5, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 23, 27, 30, 32 and 34.

Now that you've learned more about how to play roulette in a casino, it's time to put those skills to use at which roulette wheel and table layouts would be most beneficial for in Las Vegas. Have a look!

American Roulette

American Roulette is the worst possible roulette variation due to low chance to win but some of its derivatives are actually pretty nice. There are great games that also have an additional slot on the wheel, making them 38 in total, but instead of that being a double zero slot, it might be a bonus or a jackpot slot. A great example for that is the Key Bet Roulette which has the special ‘bonus’ slot that, if won, will take you to a bonus game. In the bonus round, there is the chance to multiply your bet by 50 times or win the Pot – the jackpot which can reach up to 100 times the bet you’ve placed.

The American version of roulette is known for having the second-highest casino advantage of them all, two of these pockets (0, 00) are house-friendly, peaking at 5.26% house edge (2/38). This is all because of the extra green slot, labelled ‘double zero’. With its addition, the total number of pockets on the American roulette wheel become 38.

European Roulette

First of all, the European Roulette game is a single-zero roulette. This means that there is only one zero slot on the wheel, something that sets it apart from American Roulette which has two zero slots. The more popular version of the roulette wheel features 37 pockets, including the numbers from 1-36, and only a single green zero pocket. Due to that, the house edge is significantly lower than that of the American version – European roulette has an average casino advantage of only 2.7%.

Something else that sets the EU roulette apart from the US one is the number sequence on the wheel. On the European roulette wheel, the number on the right side of the single zero is 32 while on the double zero roulette it’s 28. European Roulette has 37 numbers on the roulette wheel – one zero and the numbers from 1 to 36. The great equaliser, as we call it, are the roulette online bonus which improves your chances of winning, irrespective of the game version you like to play. Even some of the top casino bonuses in the UK can be used for roulette play.

French Roulette

French roulette is a variation of the game of roulette, which gained popularity in the years following the French Revolution. French roulette allows for the so-called French or Call bets to be placed. While French roulette is also a single-zero game, similarly to its European counterpart, it features a different table layout.

The French variation of the game is played on a standard European wheel which has a total of 37 pockets. One of the pockets is coloured in green and contains the zero. The remaining pockets are coloured in red and black and contain numbers 1 to 36. The numbers on the wheel are not displayed in a consecutive order. In fact, the pattern they follow is seemingly random and differs from that on the American roulette wheel.

However, it does not take long for one to notice that the red and black numbers on the wheel alternate. Additionally, each pair of even numbers is followed by a pair of odd numbers.

From the May 2023 issue of FHM India.