Roulette (General)

Players place chips on the betting layout. The dealer spins the wheel and launches the ball, calls "no more bets", and once the ball settles pays the winning bets and clears the losing ones. Online, the same sequence runs on a timer, either with a real wheel streamed from a studio or with an RNG game.

Inside bets cover specific numbers:

• Straight up (one number) pays 35:1.
• Split (two adjacent numbers) pays 17:1.
• Street (a row of three) pays 11:1.
• Corner (four numbers) pays 8:1.
• Six line (two rows) pays 5:1.

Outside bets cover larger groups:

• Dozens and columns (12 numbers) pay 2:1.
• Red or black, odd or even, and 1–18 or 19–36 pay 1:1.

The zero, and on American wheels the double zero, is neither red nor black, odd nor even, so outside bets lose when it comes up.

Payouts are calculated as if the wheel had 36 pockets, and the zeros create the house edge: 2.70% on a single-zero European wheel and 5.26% on a double-zero American wheel. The edge is the same on almost every bet on a given wheel, so the choice of bet changes volatility, not the expected loss. The exception is the American "top line" or five-number bet (0, 00, 1, 2 and 3), which has a 7.89% edge.

Roulette is a pillar of the live casino category. Studios stream standard tables, auto-roulette with no dealer, fast-spin tables and multiplier variants, and often run dedicated tables for particular markets or languages. RNG developers supply digital versions, and wheel manufacturers supply the physical wheels used by studios and land-based casinos. Wheel choice matters commercially: American wheels earn nearly twice the margin but are less popular with experienced players.

A player puts 10 on number 17 and 10 on red. The ball lands on 17 red: the straight-up bet pays 350 and the red bet pays 10, so the player collects 360 in winnings plus both stakes.

• European roulette — the single-zero wheel, and the La Partage and En Prison rules.
• House edge — why the zeros set the margin.
• Live dealer — how roulette is streamed from studios.
• Volatility — why inside bets swing more than outside bets.

Compare the studios that stream roulette in the live casino provider directory, RNG versions from game developers, and wheel manufacturers under hardware and equipment.