Deciding Whether to Play Inside or Outside at the Roulette Table

Author: Neha Agrawal

The odds of a Roulette game are set up very carefully and fairly. Whatever bet you are making, the small house edge for each game is the same. For European Roulette,, with one zero, the house edge is about 3%. When there is both a zero and a double zero, the edge is more like 6%.

The 36 numbers on the Roulette wheel make for very level payoffs. Odd or even, for example, pay even money, as do red or black. So if your bet is £18 on red and it wins, you would win £18 plus have your £18 wager returned.

The odds would be exactly the same if you decided to play and you put £1 on all 18 of the red numbers. If you win, you’re paid off at 35-1 on your one winning bet, plus have the one chip of that bet returned. You would lose the other 17 Roulette bets you made.

The return on the 18 inside bets would be exactly the same as the one outside bet on red. Either way, you get back 36 chips. There is no advantage to one bet or the other.

The same thing is true of the other outside bets. Playing one of the dozens bets will pay 2-1. Play it for £12 and if you win, you collect £24 plus get back your £12. Playing the same dozen numbers inside for £1 each will again get you 35-1, plus your £1 back. Again, the odds are perfectly balanced and there is no advantage to one bet over the other.

The only way to change the odds would be to make changes to the inside bets. The advantage to playing the numbers with inside bets in Roulette is that you can “tweak” your wagers in ways which will change your payoffs and give you either more or less risk. For instance, If you decide to leave off one or more numbers in your dozen, of course you risk the chance that one of them will come in, but if one of the numbers you played wins, you will get a better return.

You could also continue to play all 12 numbers in your dozen, but you might play extra chips on one or more of them. There are also risks to this approach, but if one of your numbers comes in, your Roulette payoff will be greater.

These are just some of the many possibilities in the game of Roulette, which has many mathematical angles while offering fair return for your money.