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Game Casinos Play Roulette
Players bet on numbers, spreads of number combinations and colors, generated by the fall of a small ivory ball onto a spinning wheel which is divided into 37 or 38 numbered slots, depending on the version being played. American roulette wheels usually have both the “0” and “00” on the wheel. Straight Up Bet - A chip is placed on one of the numbers. Pays 35:1. Dozens Bet - The numbers between 1 and 36 are divided into three dozens. 1-12, 13-24 and25-36. Pays 2:1. Roulette is said by some to have been started or invented way back in 1655 by the French scientist Blaise Pascal, during his monastic retreat, and first played in a makeshift casino in Paris. Still others say it originated in an old Chinese game whose object was to arrange 37 statuettes of animals in a "magic square" of 666 (but they fail to describe the method of play) There are two standard styles of roulette tables found in American casinos. One is the standard table, which has one betting layout with the roulette wheel at one end; the other, called the double-end table, has two layouts with the wheel in the center between them. A roulette table with a single layout is usually worked by two "croupiers". Bets placed on the layout after this announcement are not valid and must be returned to the player(s) The numbers on the American roulette wheel are 1 to 36, 0, and 00. That aside, French roulette is very similar to American roulette. Roulette would be a great game were it not for the highhouse edge - usually 5.26%, sometimes as low as 2.63%, which is still higherthan blackjack, craps, or baccarat. You don't have to make just one kind of bet foreach spin, you can make several, and you win if the ball lands on any of yournumbers. When the ball is gettingready to drop, the dealer will wave his hand over the table, which means "Nomore bets". When the ball falls into a slot, the dealer will announce thenumber and the color, and place a marker on the layout where the winning numberis. " when you're buying chips, to findout whether you're making inside bets (the ones listed in purple in the table,on specific numbers) or outside bets (the ones listed in yellow, on kinds ofnumbers) In other games the color of the chipdenotes the denomination, but in Roulette the color denotes only which playerthe chip belongs to. Roulette chips can in fact be any denomination - $1, $5,$25, etc. " That means it doesn't know what it spunbefore, and even if it did, the wheel can't select what number comes up out ofits own volition. Now let's sayyou've been playing Roulette for a few hours, betting on Red every time, andyou've been keeping track of what numbers have hit. The wheel has no memory. You can certainly switch toanother number if you want, but that won't improve or worsen your chances. Thechances of #27 coming up on a given spin are the same, whether it just come upon the last spin or not - 1 in 38. It's more important to know what the house edge is, than how to calculateit, but here's a quick analysis in case you're interested. On an American wheel,there are 38 spots - numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. The differencebetween the true odds and what they actually pay you is 2/38, or 5.26%. Thelast time we checked, Single 0 Roulette was available at the Stratosphere andthe Monte Carlo on the Vegas Strip. Ifyou win the second spin, your bet is "released from prison" and youget it back. One to six players are seated at the roulette table. Players purchase special roulette chips, each player with his own color, so that the dealer can tell who made a winning bet and pay off that player. A stack of twenty 25-cent chips is valued at $5.00, and a stack of twenty 50-cent chips is worth $10. Usually it takes a minimum of $20 to buy-in at the roulette betting table. Players may bet larger amounts by using $1, $5 and $25 regular. The "outside" betting area consists of odd or even bets which pay even money. A bet on 1 to 18, or 19 to 36, pays even money. Again, your original bet is left on the number or combination of numbers and it is up to you to reclaim that bet. It bounces among the slots and finally falls into one of the numbered slots. That number is the declared winner for that game. You will notice on our illustration of the standard roulette wheel that the numbers are not consecutively arranged around the wheel. The player has a 1 in 37 chance of winning and still gets 35 to 1.
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