Roulette – Some Basic Rules
Roulette is more a game of chance. It is also rigid and non-interactive. Other than keeping the house edge down, there is little else you can do in terms of strategy. Casinos often have special rules which have a direct effect on the edge. Listed below are some of the rules that you should be aware of.
The Surrender Options
In Roulette, this rule applies to outside bets which pay even money only, such as odd/even, red/black, and high/low. If the balls lands on the 0 or the 00 you only lose half your bet. Since it is the 0 and the 00 which account for the high house edge, this can affects the house edge considerably. Although the payoffs for outside bets may not be as good, playing on a table with the ‘surrender' rule will help improve your odds greatly.
The single 0 Option
The roulette table with only on 0 is called the European Roulette and offer a much more attractive house edge from the player's point of view. If you can find a European table to play on, you are reducing the house edge from 5.26% to 2.7%.
En Prison Rule
The third rule is the En Prison Rule. This is when the ball lands on 0 and applies to only even-money outside bets. In this situation, the player does not immediately lose his bet, but instead the bet remains on the board and is said to being ‘in prison'. The fate of that bet is decided on the following spin. If the previous bet wins, the money is returned to the player, but with no extra winnings. If it loses, the money is swept away and if 0 appears again the bet remains ‘in prison'.
There truly are no strategies in Roulette. When evaluating any system you come across it doesn't matter if the number 12 hasn't come up in the last hundred spins, the odds of 21 coming up on the next spin are the same as all the rest of the numbers. That is a statistical fact, and must not be forgotten. The only strategy that one can employ at roulette is to play more European Roulette than American. The American roulette wheels have the extra double zero which only serves to double the house odds in their favor.
