The game looks complicated to the beginner it is actually very easily mastered. In all, there are eleven different types of bets that can be made on a roulette layout. You can bet on the numbers in groups of one, two, three, four, fiver, six, twelve, or eighteen. This variety is more apparent than real. Unlike craps, all the wagers work pretty much the same way, all except one face the same house edge, and very bet is decided on each spin of the wheel.
There are two different versions of roulette, the American style and the European style - which uses a different wheel and a different way of dealing the game. I will first teach you the American form of the game, which is played in Nevada, Atlantic City, and the Caribbean. Then I will explain the differences you can expect to encounter if you should find yourself in a casino overseas. If you want to learn how to play roulette, study the material in this chapter, and I guarantee that within a few minutes of sitting down at the table for the first time, you will be playing as well as the most seasoned veteran.
Roulette is played at a large table surrounded by chairs for the players. The wheel, which is inset at one end of the table, is about three feet in diameter. The outer stationary frame is called the backtrack. This contains the groove in which the ball is spun. Sloping inward and downward from the backtrack is the bottom track, down which the ball slides in reaching the numbers. This bottom track is studded with eight brass barriers spaced at equal distances, alternately vertical and horizontal, to help give the ball a random bounces as it descends. The central portion of the wheel, called the wheel head, is the only part that actually spins. It contains thirty-eight numbered slots: the numbers 1 to 36, half of which are in red slots and half in black, and the numbers 0 and 00, in green slots.
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At first glance, the order of the numbers on the roulette wheel seems random. Actually, it represents an attempt to distribute low, high, red, black, even, and odd numbers in as balanced a fashion as possible. The 0 and 00 are directly opposite each other, with eighteen numbers on each side. The colors alternate. Directly across from each odd number is the next higher even number. (One is opposite 2,3 is opposite 4, and so on.) Pairs of odd numbers alternated with pairs of even numbers, with exceptions occurring just before the 0 and 00. Thus, numbers that are near each other on the layout and might be covered by a single bet are actually far apart on the wheel. The wheel is spun counterclockwise and the ball is spun clockwise in the backtrack. As it loses momentum, the ball begins to descend along the bottom track, and it eventually settles into one of the numbered slots of the wheel head.
