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In the United States roulette has never gained the popularity it has in Europe. The game is played at a relatively slow pace, and the house advantage of 5.26 percent makes it a difficult game to beat. Another drawback to roulette is the American-style wheel, which has 36 numbers plus 0 and 00. In Europe, roulette wheels have just a single 0. However, if you're a die-hard roulette player, you'll find a few European-style wheels in Las Vegas casinos. When you play on a single-zero roulette wheel, the house advantage drops by almost half to 2.7 percent. The game is simple to play; a roulette dealer spins the wheel and waits for the ivory ball to land on a number. Bettors have the option to guess which number out of the possible 38 the ball will land on, bet on a combination of numbers or pick whether the number will be red or black. The various roulette bets and their payoffs are listed below:

Basic Strategy

Roulette bets can pay handsomely. Pick the right number and your $5 bet, at odds of 35-1, is worth $175. But coming up with a winner takes tremendous powers of intuition, or blind luck. Neither lends itself to a sound betting strategy. Serious players – the few who actually exist – like to bet "zones" of numbers, that is, groups or columns, rather than a single number, and hope the winning number falls within their zone. The most popular zones are the first, second or third 12 numbers, or a column of 12 numbers. Also popular, perhaps because of the increased action, is betting red or black. A word of encouragement for color bettors: Lord Jersey once won 17 consecutive, maximum bets on black while playing in Monte Carlo, or so the story goes, and retired to the English countryside and never gambled again in his life.