For those who want to learn how to play roulette, learning the rules and the intricacies of how to play roulette may help players hold onto their money and enjoy the game in the most effective way possible. The game is not complicated, and it is easy to play roulette online to hone betting strategies and figure out what works best.

The Basics of the Game

It's quite easy to learn how to play roulette as the game itself is very straightforward. There is a single ball that is dropped into a spinning roulette wheel. When the wheel stops, the ball lands in a red or black numbered slot. There are 37 pockets in European roulette and 38 available pockets in American roulette. The key to the game is trying to predict where the ball is going to land and betting accordingly.

The Odds

Learning how to play roulette, then, is really about the betting strategies involved in the game. Players can bet on the color of the pocket the ball will land in, the number, and any combination of these factors. Straight bets have the lowest odds and the highest payouts; these bets are where the player bets on a single number and is, thus, the most narrow bet possible. A safer bet with a correspondingly lower payout is betting on the color of the pocket or betting on odds versus evens. The more possible numbers in the roulette bet, the higher the odds of winning money, but the lower the payout. The more narrow bets have much higher payouts because the odds are much lower.

Learning to play roulette online, then, is a matter of figuring out different types of bets and their corresponding odds. Players can easily learn these odds and develop their own strategies for maximizing wins and minimizing losses.