How to play roulette: the wheel, the bets and a single spin

How to play roulette begins with an empty layout and a wheel that is about to spin. You buy chips for that table. On many casino tables those chips are a colour assigned to you, so the dealer can see whose bet is whose. You set them on the printed bets while the dealer says betting is open. When the call changes, your hands come off the layout. The ball settles in one pocket. The dealer marks that number, takes the losing chips and pays the winners at the rate for each bet.

A casino wheel has 37 pockets, numbered 1 to 36 plus a single zero, or 38 pockets when a double zero is added. That one sentence is the whole pocket-count point on this page. What those extra pockets do to the price of each bet is the roulette odds chart. This walkthrough stays on the rules: what you may bet, what a win pays, and how to behave at the table.

You must be 18+ or the age required where you play. Roulette is a negative-expectation game under standard rules. A rules page will not change that. If you want a stop written down, use responsible gambling. The pictures of the felt, the columns and the wheel order are on roulette table layout. The cluster for this maths is Games and odds.

Inside bets are the chips you place on the number grid itself. The name tells you how many pockets you cover. The payout is the rate the dealer uses when the ball matches. You do not add the numbers together. You look at whether the winning pocket is inside the group you marked.

A straight chip sits in the middle of a number. A split sits on the line between two numbers, which may be side by side, like 7 and 8, or stacked, like 7 and 10. A street sits at the end of a row, covering that whole row. A corner sits on the cross where four numbers meet. A six-line sits on the outer corner where two rows meet, covering both rows.

Worked example 1. You put $5 straight up on 17 and 17 hits. The payout is 35 to 1, so profit is 35 × $5 = $175. The dealer also returns the $5 stake. The chips in front of you from that bet are $180. If 18 hits, the $5 is taken and the other bets you made are judged on their own. One spin can pay one of your chips and take the rest.

Outside bets use the boxes printed around the grid. They cover more pockets and pay less per win. The rule is still "is the winning pocket inside this box?"

Worked example 2. You put $10 on red and the ball lands on a red number. Even money means profit of $10 and the $10 stake back, so you have $20 from that bet. You put $10 on the first dozen and the ball lands on 8. A dozen pays 2 to 1, so profit is $20 and the return including stake is $30. If the ball lands on 0, both of those bets lose. Zero is not red, not black, not in a dozen and not in a column.

Colour is a bet you can see on the felt. The longer account of what the colours are worth is roulette colors. French names for the same layout, and the announced bets that sit on a racetrack diagram, are French roulette. You do not need those names to play a standard spin.

You may play several bets on one spin. A $5 straight on 17 and a $10 chip on red are two contracts. If 17 is red, both can win. If 17 were a number you only covered straight, the colour chip would still be judged by colour. Check the colour printed on the number before you assume a straight-up hit also hits red. The layout shows it. You do not have to remember a list to follow the rule.

Table minimums and maximums are posted. A $5 minimum means each bet, or sometimes the sum of your bets, must clear that floor. Read the plaque. A maximum stops a single bet from growing without limit. If your chip is below the minimum, the dealer will push it back or ask you to build it up before the ball drops.

Some tables let you bet a number "with neighbours," meaning that number and the pockets beside it on the wheel. That is several straight bets, not a new payout rate. The roulette table layout shows why neighbours on the wheel are not neighbours on the felt. If you did not ask for neighbours, a single chip in the centre of 17 is only 17.

Cash chips and colour chips are different objects on many live tables. You cannot usually take colour chips to another table. You redeem them when you leave. Online, the same idea is a balance and a chip value you select before you click.

The rules of conduct exist so the dealer can see every chip. Keep drinks off the layout. Do not touch chips after the dealer has waved off new bets. Do not reach across another player's stacks. Place a late idea on the next spin.

Speak a bet if you cannot reach the spot, and wait until the dealer repeats it. "Five on 17" should be answered by a chip you can see on 17. If the chip lands on the line, you have a split, not a straight. Point that out before the ball drops. After the drop, the position of the chip is the bet.

Phones and arguments wait. If you think a payout is short, ask for the rate on that bet and count the chips in view of the table. A straight pays 35 to 1. A dozen pays 2 to 1. The dealer is applying a printed rate, not negotiating. Thanking the dealer is manners. Handing over extra chips as a wager you did not intend is still a wager.

Online etiquette is quieter and the same in substance. Confirm the chip value, confirm the spot, then confirm the spin. A mis-click on a line between two numbers is a split. The undo button, if the software still allows it, is the moment that matters. After the ball is released, the bet stands.

Use this once, out loud if you are new, until the loop is boring. Boring is what you want from a rules page.

• You are 18+ and you know the table minimum.
• You know your chip value before it touches the felt.
• You can point to the bet: one number, a line, a row, a colour, a dozen or a column.
• You know the payout for that bet from the tables above.
• Your hands are off the layout when betting closes.
• A result of zero loses the even-money and dozen bets.
• You stop at a loss limit you set before the session.

Practice the pointing on a drawing of the felt, or on a browser picture of a table, until "street" and "corner" are places you can touch. Roulette simulator is the page about using practice spins to see variance. It is not a promise that a pattern of bets will come good. The live table on this site is Roulette, a different wheel from the casino layout this article describes. Learn the casino rules here. Open that page only if you want the game this site actually runs.

Three neighbour pages own topics this one only names.

The layout page owns the order of the numbers on the wheel, where zero sits, and how a French felt differs from a double-zero felt. Go there when you want to know why 32 sits beside 0.

The odds chart owns the price of each pocket count. This page lists the payout rates a dealer uses. It does not turn those rates into a house-edge essay, and it does not ask you to pick a wheel type as a strategy.

Systems, progressions and "what to do after a loss" belong to how to win at roulette. Nothing in the spin loop above raises the payout because you lost the last five. The next spin uses the same rates. If a guide tells you the rules include a recovery sequence, it has left the rules.

That split keeps a first visit short. Learn the loop, the two tables and the zero. Then decide whether you are here to look at a layout, to read a price, or to examine a system someone else is selling. The ball will land in one pocket either way. Your chip is either on that pocket's group or it is not.