Play Online Roulette in 2024
‘Round and ‘round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows! Roulette is the classic casino table game. But other than picking a number and watching a ball roll around, many of us don’t actually know how to play. This guide will offer you both information on how to play online roulette, as well as a list of the top casinos you can play roulette for real money. Let’s get started.
The Best Roulette Casinos for 2024
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MORE ABOUT ONLINE CASINOWhy Play Online Roulette for Real Money?
The beauty of roulette is that it is the simplest table game in the casino. All you have to do in roulette is place bets on numbers or groups of numbers and watch to see where on the wheel the ball lands. If you want a game that is slow-paced and easy to understand, roulette is a good option.
There are several advantages to playing online roulette for real money rather than playing roulette in a brick-and-mortar casino:
Play at Your Own Pace – The game only starts when you are ready. You do not have to worry about getting a bet in before the dealer closes the betting. Just casually place your bets and press the spin button.
You Are the Only One Playing – While playing with a group of people at a casino can be exciting, it can also be stressful. Live roulette can be confusing because several players can have dozens of chips on the table at once. But when you play roulette online for real money, it’s just your chips on the table, so everything is easy to see.
Chip Tracking – It is very easy to see how much cash you have on hand, how much money you are currently betting, and how much you won.
Stakes for Your Budget – Online casinos allow much smaller bets than land-based casinos. You aren’t going to find roulette games that permit penny bets in Las Vegas, but in an online roulette game, your bets can literally be as small as one cent.
Bets Are Easy to Place – There are so many places on the table on which to place bets, but certain bets require chips to be placed in very specific locations. Online casinos highlight the numbers you are about to play as you hover a chip over the table, so it is always easy to figure out where to plunk down chips.
How to Play Roulette
As already mentioned, online roulette is an attractive game to many because it is so easy to understand. Playing online roulette for real money is different than playing in a live casino. We will focus on how to play roulette online. Fortunately, it’s even easier than live.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use an American roulette wheel, which has 38 numbered slots: 1 through 36 as well as zero and double zero. The zero and double zero slots are colored green, while the rest are split in half, red and black.
There are just a few steps to playing roulette online
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1
Pick a good online roulette casino. Our top roulette casino list is a good starting point. They’re all safe casinos that will give you a great casino experience.
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2
Place your bets. If you’re not sure of which bets to place, we have it all covered in the next section.
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3
Hit the Spin Button. Press spin, and watch the ball as it settles on a number. You can repeat the same bet and spin again.
Where to Place Chips for Outside Bets
These are the easiest bets to make – so they’re an ideal starting point for a beginner player. For the “outside bets,” also called “proposition bets,” there are areas marked off and visibly labeled. These areas include red or black, odd or even, low or high, column, and dozen. The only one that might not be completely obvious is the column bet – for this, just place your chips in the “2 to 1” space corresponding to the column on which you want to wager.
All the others are self-explanatory. If you want to bet on black, put chips on the black area, if you want to bet on an odd number, put chips in the box labeled “odd,” so on and so forth.
Where to Place Chips for Inside Bets
Some bets require more exact chip placement. If you want to bet on a specific number, that’s easy. Just place chips on that number’s designated space on the table.
Split (two numbers) and corner (four numbers) are the next simplest easiest inside bets to make. Place your chips on the line between the two numbers for split bets. For corner bets, put a chip at the corner where all four numbers come together (hence the name).
Street bets must be placed on the line at the top or bottom of the row of three numbers, depending on how the online casino lays out the table. Fortunately, as noted earlier, the internet casinos make it easy by highlighting which numbers you are betting on as you hover your mouse over the corresponding spot on the table.
A six-line bet needs to be placed at the junction of two lines of three numbers. It essentially connects two street bets.
The first five bet might be the trickiest to place. The chip needs to go at the intersection of either 00/3 or 0/1, depending on the table. Just position your cursor and see if all five numbers light up.
Neighbor Bets
A neighbor bet is a wager placed on an individual number and the numbers adjacent to it on the roulette wheel. To place a neighbor bet, click on the “racetrack” button (it looks like an oval-shaped racetrack) to pull up an oblong diagram of the roulette wheel.
On the racetrack, select a number on which you wish to bet. Next, choose the number of “neighbors” you want. The game will then place a bet on the number you chose plus the numbers to both sides of it, corresponding to the quantity of neighbors you selected.
For example, if you pick 6 and two neighbors, your bets will be placed on the numbers 6 as well as 21 and 33 (the adjacent numbers to one side of 6) and 18 and 31 (the adjacent numbers to the other side). This is just an alternate way to place multiple straight-up bets all at once.
When the ball stops rolling and settles into a slot on the wheel, you will be paid based on the payout table if any of your bets won. You can have multiple winners, as well. For example, if the ball lands on 12, you would win twice if you put a wager on red and on even.
Roulette Bets
Outside Bets
Outside bets are so named because they are placed on areas around the edge of the table, outside the individually numbered squares.
Red or Black – The classic roulette bet. Choose whether the ball will land on a red slot or a black slot.
Odd or Even – Choose whether the ball will land on an odd number or even number.
Low or High – Choose whether the ball will land on a number in the lower half of the 36-number range (slots 1 to 18) or the upper half (slots 19 to 36). This, along with the red/black and odd/even bets are the closest to 50/50 wagers you can make. The reason they are not 50/50 is because of the green 0 and 00 spaces.
Column – Choose a row of 12 numbers, denoted by the “2 to 1” betting area at the end of the row.
Dozen – Bet on a set of 12 numbers, labeled “1st 12” (1 to 12), “2nd 12” (13 to 24), and “3rd 12” (25 to 36).
Inside Bets
Inside bets feature wagers on specific numbers or groups of numbers.
Straight-Up – A basic bet on an individual number that appears on the roulette wheel.
Split – A bet on two adjacent numbers on the betting field. A split bet is indicated by placing a chip on the line separating the two numbered spaces.
Street – A bet on a series of three consecutive numbers. Only specific combinations of three numbers are valid, starting with 1-3, 4-6, etc.
Corner – Also known as a Quarter Bet or Square Bet, it’s a bet on four numbers that come together on the table in a square shape.
First Five – Also called Top Line or Five-Number bet, it is a bet on the first five numbers: 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3. It is the worst bet on the board with the highest house edge. The house edge of all other bets is the same.
Six Line – Also called a Six-Number bet. Covers groups of six numbers.
American Roulette Payout Table
| Bet | Payout | Probability |
| Red | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| Black | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| Odd | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| Even | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| 1 to 18 | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| 19 to 36 | 1:1 | 47.37% |
| 1 to 12 | 2:1 | 31.58% |
| 13 to 24 | 2:1 | 31.58% |
| 25 to 36 | 2:1 | 31.58% |
| Six line (6 numbers) | 5:1 | 15.79% |
| First five (5 numbers) | 6:1 | 13.16% |
| Corners (4 numbers) | 8:1 | 10.53% |
| Street (3 numbers) | 11:1 | 7.89% |
| Split (2 numbers) | 17:1 | 5.26% |
| Straight-up (1 number) | 35:1 | 2.63% |
Roulette Game Variations
American Roulette
The American roulette wheel features a double zero.
European Roulette
The European roulette wheel does not feature a double zero.
French Roulette
This variant is very similar to European roulette but features two additional rules.
American Roulette
The roulette wheel has 38 slots numbered 1 to 36, zero, and double zero. All of the above bets can be made at an American Roulette table. Some sites that offer online roulette for real money add a couple other bet possibilities, but the ones detailed above are the standard wagers. House advantage is 5.26%.
European Roulette
The wheel is the same as in American Roulette except that there is no double zero slot. Because the payouts are the same, the house edge is only 2.70%. Therefore, if you have the option, always choose European Roulette over American Roulette. European Roulette games also add a racetrack option that affords the opportunity to place special bets called “Tiers,” “Orphelins,” “Voisins,” and “Zero.” These are just shortcuts to place groups of straight-up bets. Racetrack bets can also be found on many American Roulette tables online.
French Roulette
French Roulette is effectively the same as European Roulette, though the table is laid out a bit differently and betting areas are labeled with French words. Fortunately, most real money online roulette casinos also include the English betting terms, so the game is easy to pick up.
The game is even better than European Roulette because of two specific rules. “En Prison” allows a player a “mulligan” of sorts if the ball lands on the zero space after placing an even money bet (red/black, odd/even, etc.). If the player implements this rule, the bet remains on the table for the next spin. If that spin is a winner, the player’s stake is returned.
With “La Partage,” rather than keeping the bet on the table, the player simply gets half the stake back on an even money bet when the ball lands on zero. Even money bets have a 1.35% house edge, so if you are planning on only playing such bets, stick with French Roulette.
Multi-Wheel Roulette
As the name implies, more than one wheel is used in Multi-Wheel Roulette. One ball is launched, but multiple wheels spin. When they stop, the slots line up, so the ball lands on three different numbers at once. Each bet is placed three times, one for each wheel, and payouts are determined for each bet separately.
Some multi-wheel games at online casinos offer a bonus bet that pays out when the wheels create certain combinations, like all zeros or a pair of numbers. Multi-Wheel Roulette games tend to use a European Roulette wheel, but they do not have to.
You’ve got the knowledge. If you feel it’s time to put that knowledge to the test, sign up at one of our best casinos to play online roulette for real money.
Roulette FAQs
What is the best online casino for roulette?
There is no definitive answer to that question, as everyone’s tastes differ. We can point you in the right direction, though. Just check out our reviews of what we believe are the best places to play roulette online for real money.
Can you make a living playing roulette?
No. There are a handful of people who claim to be able to read some brick-and-mortar dealers’ spins and predict where the ball will land with high enough accuracy so as to profit in the long-term, but that’s fantasy land for nearly every person on the planet. That can’t occur online, as the roulette spins are determined by a random number generator. Roulette is truly a game of chance; you can’t make a living at it.
What is the payout on roulette?
Please refer to the Roulette Bets section above for information on roulette payouts.
Is it legal to play roulette online in the US?
It depends on the state. Some states have legalized online casino games. Most have not. Please verify the gambling laws in your state before attempting to sign up to play online roulette for real money
What number comes up most in roulette?
Every number has an equal chance of coming up.
Is roulette all luck?
Yes. You have no control over where the ball lands. None. The only thing you control is your wagering. So, in that sense, one might say there is skill in wagering, but even then, the house edge will always beat the player in the long run.
Anthony Nguyen
Having worked as a croupier in some of the biggest casinos in the North East, Anthony has been exposed to over ten years of gambling experience. More recently Anthony has transitioned away from working in casinos to apply his expertise to the world of writing. Whether it’s explaining the odds of every hand of poker or knowing the best plays at blackjack, Mr. Nguyen’s knowledge of casino games is unbeatable.