Roulette – in movies, on TV, and in literature, it's often depicted as glamorous, exciting, and ridiculously lucrative for whichever character is playing. While winning big at the spinning wheel seems like a fantasy reserved for James Bond and other fictional high rollers, it is possible to minimize risk and win big at the same time by knowing the best roulette bets. It all comes down to the numbers, and how you want to play them.
In American Roulette there are 38 numbers – 1 through 36, a single zero, and a double zero. Besides the latter two, half the numbers are red, half are black, half are even, and half are odd. The 0 and 00 are green and obviously not even or odd. Betting on those will earn you a payout of 35:1 – but more on all that later.
Now that we've got the bare bones of the Roulette wheel and the felt laid out, let's flesh out only some of the best roulette bets you have to choose from.
Roulette Bet 1 : Red/Black, Evens/Odds, 1-18/19-36
No other game on the casino floor gives players the chance of close to 50/50 odds on a single bet. With the red/black, evens/odds, or 1-18/19-36 bets, you're giving yourself the chance of hitting almost half the options on the Roulette wheel – the 0 and 00 aren't counted – which gives you a pretty nice chance of winning. Granted, that means that the payout ratio is lower (1:1, bet $10 win $10) but by the numbers, it's one of the safest and best roulette bets you can go with when playing the wheel.
Martingale – Fan-Favorite among the Best Roulette Strategies. Many professional gamblers make. Roulette is a drain on your wallet simply because the game doesn't pay what the bets are worth. With 38 numbers (1 to 36, plus 0 and 00), the true odds of hitting a single number on a straight-up bet are 37 to 1, but the house pays only 35 to 1 if you win!
Payouts for this can be surprisingly rewarding if you're willing to risk more money on each bet. Take Ashley Revell – he once bet $136,000 on a single spin of the Roulette wheel. If throwing down that sum of money on a single bet doesn't sound impressive or at least make you sweat a little, know that the sum was the entirety of Revell's life savings and the entire event was televised. So if Revell won, he'd double his money and evoke envy and admiration from his spectators; if he lost, he'd lose everything and earn deserved pity.
Revell laid all his loot on red, and the wheel delivered – the ball landed on the red 7, and Revell walked away having doubled his life savings. However, we can't honestly recommend betting your entire net worth on a single spin of the wheel since we wouldn't exactly characterize that as successfully minimizing risk.
Roulette Bet 2 : Columns
If a 1:1 payout isn't exciting enough to motivate you to lay down some chips, you can slightly up the ante and the payout to 2:1 by betting on the columns. By going with this second best roulette bet, you're bringing your option of numbers down to a little under a third, but betting on a column still covers a significant chunk of the felt while doubling your winnings – a $10 bet will win you $20.
Columns don't contain consecutive numbers – for example, the first column has 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, and 31 – and the number of red and black numbers differs between each column, a fact that we'll cover in a moment. And remember, the 0 and 00 aren't included in any of the columns because they're special and too good for all the other numbers.
Roulette Bet 3: Black and third column/Red and second column
This third best roulette bet was specifically designed for people who like to hedge their roulette bets, or at least attempt to. The Roulette board is an interesting creature and when studied thoroughly, it may help you score big bucks. On the third column of the board, there are 8 red numbers and 4 black, whereas the second column is reversed, holding 8 black numbers and 4 red.
You, the savvy Roulette player, can take advantage of this layout for some slow but steady gains. If you bet on the red-rich third column and double your bet on the black ($10 on the third column, $20 on the black), you give yourself a solid chance of breaking even or making gains.
Here's why: the third column contains more red numbers than any other column, giving yourself a good chunk of red on the wheel. At the same time, you're betting on black, which gives you a little under half the wheel. The third column has a payout of 2:1, and the black has a payout of 1:1, so your column bet should be half the black bet to break even. This is because if a red number shows up on the third column, you win double your bet, but lose your black bet, which is the same amount – it's considered a push, since you're even. It's the same when a black number comes up: you win your black bet, but lose your column bet. But when a black number on the third column comes up, you pull ahead. This system of betting minimizes the risk while giving you a solid chance of steadily padding your bankroll.
The same thing applies to the combination bet of red and the second column – red gives you just under half the numbers, and the second column has 8 black numbers. Be patient, and this roulette bet could help you earn big gains.
Roulette Bet 4: Straight up
If you care way more about the payout than you do about minimizing risk, your best option is to go with the straight roulette bet. This involves betting on a single number and hoping that Lady Luck is on your side. The risk is extremely high, but the payout – 35:1, $350 for a $10 bet – is pretty freakin' sweet. Plus, this is the only category that includes the 0 and 00 tiles.
If you've got a bankroll of $350, you could technically go through 35 $10 bets in a row before you're out of the game. And if you win once, you're up $350. The chances of you hitting the exact number you're going for is about 2.7% or 1 in 37, but what's a big reward without bigger risk?
Roulette Bet 5 : Split bet
If you want to go big but the straight bet gives you the cold sweats, you can still go for a higher reward with a lower risk and choose the split bet instead. This involves placing chips on any two numbers that are next to one another on the felt. This can be either horizontal or vertical placement, and to place the bet you put a chip on the line between the two numbers.
The payout of 17 to 1 is lower than the straight bet, but the chances of hitting your numbers are 1 in 18, which is way better than the 1 in 37 the straight roulette bet offers.
Best Roulette Bets To Make
The 5 best roulette bets summarized:
- Red/Black, Evens/Odds, 1-18/19-36
- Columns
- Black and third column/Red and second column
- Straight up
- Split bet
Put these winning roulette bets to the test
So you've read and digested all the best roulette online real money bets we've laid out here, and now you want to put them to the test. Great! Try these roulette bets at our online casino real money usa and see how they work out for you, or come up with your own winning combination bets and let us know how it goes!
One of the most fascinating things about roulette is the variety of bets that you can place. Before you play roulette, especially for real money, it is best to have a clear understanding about the different bets and their payouts.
On this page, we're going to go through every single bet type, including the more advanced Call/Announce Bets. If you want to see a quick 'cheat sheet' with all of the different payouts in a graph for quick reference, you will find it on our page on roulette payouts.
Outside Bets
Outside bets can be found on the 'outside' of the roulette table and the cover a large portion of the wheel, but the payouts are low.In total, there are 5 different kinds of outside bets which are the following:
Red and Black – There are 18 red numbers and 18 black numbers.
Odd and Even – There are 18 odd numbers and 18 even numbers.
1-18 and 19-36 – Pretty self explanatory, both of them cover 18 numbers.
The three above bets are 'even money bets' because you double your money if you win e.g. bet £2 on black, win £4 back. Each of them covers just less than half of the table due to the addition of the 0 and in the case of the American game, 0 and 00.
Dozens – There are three dozens on the roulette table, 1-12, 13-24 and 25-36. Each of them covers 12 numbers which equates to just less than a third of the wheel.
Columns – These are similar to the dozens; there are three columns on the table and each of them covers 12 numbers.
Inside Bets
Inside bets can be found on the 'Inside' of the table and they cover less numbers but the payouts are higher.
Straight Up Bet – This is a bet on a single number.
Split Bet – This is a bet on two numbers that are next to each other on the roulette table (not the roulette wheel).
Street Bet – Bets on three numbers that are a Street on the roulette table. For example, 1,2,3 is a Street, 4,5,6 is a Street and so on.
Corner Bet – A bet on four numbers that make a square on the roulette table. For example, 1,2,4,5 is a Corner bet.
4 Number Bet – Bets on 0,1,2,3 at the same time. Only available on European and French roulette.
5 Number Bet – Bets on 0,00,1,2,3 at the same time. Only available on American roulette. This is also the worst bet in the entire game because of the unfair payout – avoid it.
Double Street (Line Bet) – This is the same as the Street bet except it covers two Streets at the same time rather than one.
Call Bets
The Call bets, or Announce bets as they're sometimes named, aren't available on every roulette game and often they're overlooked by players because they either don't understand them or they would simply rather bet on the more simple bets above.
Before explaining what the Call bets are about, it's worth noting that the layout of the roulette table and the roulette wheel are different. For example, as you go around the roulette wheel, the numbers are seemingly in a random order, they don't go 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc.
The Call bets are a way of betting on sectors of the wheel. If you think of the roulette wheel as a pizza, the Call bets are a way of covering a slice or multiple slices if you want to.
Voisins Du Zero
Best Roulette Bet American Wheel
This is a bet that covers 17 consecutive numbers on the roulette wheel, starting from 25 and working your way around the wheel to 22. They're also known by some as neighbours of the zero because the zero is (almost) in the middle of these numbers.
The actual Voisins Du Zero bet is covered by just 9 chips and it is done like this:
2 chips on 0,2,3 street
1 on the 4/7 split
1 on 12/15 split
1 on 18/21 split
1 on 19/22 split
1 on 32/35 split
2 chips on 25,26,28,29 corner
Tier
The Tier bet is 12 numbers that are next to each other on the roulette wheel. The numbers are as follows: 27,13,36,11,30,8,23,10,5,24,16,33. The bet is covered by betting on 6 split bets at the same time which are: Intertops classic casino 10 codes.
5/8 – 10/11 – 13/16 – 23/24 – 27/30 – 33/36
City On The Rhone River
Orphelins
This is a bet that covers 8 numbers, three that are next to each other on one sector of the wheel, 5 that are next to each other on another sector. The numbers are as follows: 6,34,17 and 1,20,14,31,9. The Orphelins bet is covered in the following way:
Straight bet on number 1
Split bet on 5/9
Split bet on 14/17
Split bet on 17/20
Split bet on 31/34
Neighbours
The Neighbours (sometimes spelt Neighbors depending where you are in the world) are 5 number bets of your choosing. Basically you pick your number and then you bet on that number and the two numbers that are on either side of it, making it a 5 number bet. A very easy way to cover large sections of the wheel. Some casinos will allow you to increase the size of your neighbours, up to eight either side of your number, making it a 17 number bet in total.
Final Bet
You may have a hard to finding this option online because very few casinos offer it. With this bet, you start by picking a number from 1-9. Once this is done, a bet will be placed on all numbers ending with the number that you chose.
Does this sound confusing? If so here is an example. If you picked 6, a bet would then be placed on the following numbers: 6, 16 and 26 because they all end in 6.
One Final Thing On Call Bets
Both online and offline, the Call bets are normally accessible via what's called a Racetrack and in some land based casinos, you 'Announce' the bet out loud rather than placing chips on it, hence why they're sometimes referred to as Announce Bets.
If you would like to see the Call bets and try them for yourself, have a go on our free roulette pro game which has all of them available via a menu in the bottom left hand corner rather than the conventional Racetrack.
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