02.16.2026
Chris Mwangi creates educational content focused on roulette rules, bets, odds, and payouts. At Roulette77, he works with an international team to ensure clear explanations, accurate localization, and responsible gaming standards for the US and other regulated markets.
Welcome to the ultimate guide on how to play American roulette, including European and French roulette. This guide will catch you up on everything you need to know about the game to get started. We factor in some of the basic variants that it’s good to understand and also which ones to choose. Refer to our FAQ section to really catch yourself up to speed in no time at all.
What’s the Goal of Roulette?
The goal of the game is actually very simple. You need to guess where the ball will lend in the wheel, where 36 numbers are based. They are denominated from 0 to 36 and come in red and black colors. The zero is a bit of an outlier as it comes in green. This is really it. You just need to predict where the ball will end up by placing bets or combinations of bets. Each of these has a different chance and payouts. We will talk more about this momentarily.
Since this is your first time with roulette, we have found it best to just guide you gently through the entire process. The game is played indefinitely – for as long as you like. You just place a bet, try to predict the sector by placing chips on the table and then the wheel spins, producing an outcome. You collect your money as per the result displayed by the wheel. Here is a closer look.
The first step is clearly the one where you actually place a wager. There are many betting options – in fact up to 36 straight bets (the bets on a single number) you can do here. There are many chips that come in different denominations and signify the amounts you are willing to risk per each wager. One small thing to know is that you don’t know how much the bet is supposed to pay. This should be taught beforehand or referenced somewhere. Put simply, a straight bet pays 35:1 and an odds/even bet pays 1:1.
It’s important to understand how Announced Bets work. They are also referred to as “French bets” and they are made by simply telling the dealer what sector you wish to be covered, picking from those special bets. Then, the live dealer will note down that the place has been bet but won’t take chips from the player. Even though no chips have been placed, the bet is still very much on and players may win or lose chips depending on the outcome. This is usually the etiquette in live casinos. In online casinos, the Announced Bets will always be noted down by placing actual chips on the selection that players made. It’s just the way these things work.
It’s good to find out about this as early on as possible. Each real money roulette table will have an actual betting limit, which is actually pretty generous. Essentially, the game has a minimum and maximum bet you can place. It’s important to note that not all games of roulette come with the same betting limits (which enables you to pick a table and a game that is better adjusted to your budget).
The minimum bet is the minimum amount you can bet to enter a round. The maximum is the maximum amount you can ever bet on a single round – either as a single bet or a combination of other wagers. These limits are important to players because it’s always best for players to pursue betting opportunities that actually reflect their wagers more accurately. If you are playing with a strategy, such as Martingale, for example, you want to make sure that the progression of bets won’t leave you without options too soon! You only want to go after the high maximum bet limit roulettes.
But table limits are not all there is. Tables may come with their own specific ranges. For example, a roulette table may have limits set from anything between $1 and $5,000. But this betting limit may change depending on whether you are betting on the Inside or Outside Bets. Outside Bets usually have reduced maximum bets for example if such rules actually apply. To better grasp how this works, we thought it best to offer you a quick insight into the table.
| Bet | European Roulette (Gaming1) | Golden Chip Roulette (Yggdrasil) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 100 Max |
| Split | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 200 Max |
| Street | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 300 Max |
| Corner | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 400 Max |
| Six Line | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 600 Max |
| Column | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 1000 Max |
| Dozen | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 1000 Max |
| Even/Odd | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 1000 Max |
| Red/Black | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 1000 Max |
| High/Low | 0.1 Min | 80 Max | 0.1 Min | 1000 Max |
You do nothing during this step because it will be the live dealer who will announce “No more bets” which is the phrase which means that betting is closed and you cannot place any more wagers or try to sneak one in after the fact. Players are never allowed to touch the wheel – if this happens, the round is not valid and all bets are refunded.
As you wait for the wheel to stop spinning, you are preparing to either collect or lose your stakes. Once the wheel comes to a stop and the ball does its last bounces, it’s time to see what the outcome is. Collect your money based on the outcome or consider betting again if you want to in case you have lost. A payout is based on the amount you wagered ($100) multiplied by the payout, for a straight bet that’s 35. So a potential payout from betting and getting a straight bet would be $3,500. The chances are slim though.
| Bet | Payout | Example (initial bet $10) |
|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 35:1 | 10+35*10=360 |
| Split | 17:1 | 10+17*10=180 |
| Street | 11:1 | 10+11*10=120 |
| Corner | 8:1 | 10+8*10=90 |
| Basket | 6:1 | 10+6*10=70 |
| Six Line | 5:1 | 10+5*10=60 |
| Column | 2:1 | 10+2*10=30 |
| Dozen | 2:1 | 10+2*10=30 |
| Even/Odd | 1:1 | 10+1*10=20 |
| Red/Black | 1:1 | 10+1*10=20 |
| High/Low | 1:1 | 10+1*10=20 |
If a straight bet is not what you are after, then you can simply refer to any of the other combinations of bets and see what payout they offer. No need to look elsewhere, just check out the table below.
As mentioned before, there is no obligation for you to play or not play. The game runs indefinitely, but you can only join those rounds you want to. So, when you see the result in Step 3, make the decision that feels best to you.
Essentially, there are three main versions around which all others are built. This includes American, French and European. These three games are the basis for all other game rules.
Did you know? Roulette actually features a number of other cool rules. Let’s take a look at this.
In American Roulette, you can actually “Surrender” which means that half of your bet is returned if you hit 0 and 00 but haven’t bet on those.
If you are playing French roulette and the ball lands on zero without betting on zero, you will have an extra round to play without losing the wager (but also without changing it).
La Partage is a rule where you are refunded half of your bet if you bet on an outside bet and the bet fails to win. It’s a good way to boost the house edge to around 1.35%.
The house edge is your chance to win in a game of roulette. Roulette basically tells you that you have a chance of failing with each spin – how much will depend on the house edge. But if you bet $100 on roulette with a house edge of 2.70% you can in theory only expect to win back around 93.30%. This is in theory.
The RTP is similar to the house edge. It’s basically what you win back. So an RTP of 97.30% means that the casino has a house edge of 2.70%. You win $97.30 for every $100 you bet.
You just multiply the bet’s payout by the number of units you have a bet. A 35:1 bet means that you multiply 35 by the amount you have a bet. If this is $1, you can expect $35 + your wager as the final outcome of the bet.
French roulette. This is the most worthwhile roulette you may play because of the La Partage rule which reduces the house edge to just 1.35%. It’s a great game and one you may want to try it first.
Hot and cold numbers in roulette are numbers that haven’t come in a while or they have come too often when talking about “hot numbers”. However, no matter what the cold and hot roulette numbers are, there is no reason to believe they actually will appear because they haven’t appeared – or appear again because they have appeared multiple times before.
An Even Money bet is a bet that pays 1:1. These bets are red/black, low/high and odd/even. That is pretty much all.
It’s a straight bet – 35:1. Meaning that if you bet $10, you get 35x10 = $350 back.
The roulette wheel works based on pure chance. The table in physical casinos is perfectly balanced to provide completely independent outcomes for each role. The online roulette is predicated on a Random Number Generator.
Quantum roulette is predicated pretty much on the standard European roulette wheel. The difference here is that it’s played in a live setting and that some of the pockets are enhanced by adding multipliers to the straight-up bets. If you choose a straight-up bet and the bet wins, you will get a multiplier that exceeds 35:1, namely 500:1
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