Inside Bets in Roulette: Best Bets for Bigger Wins

Chances are, you know the very basics when it comes to roulette. There’s the famous roulette wheel with the pockets numbered from 1 through 36, half of those Black, the rest Red, plus the zero (“0”) marked in green, and if you’re playing American Roulette, the double-zero (“00”). You place your bet, the wheel spins, and the tiny white roulette ball goes skittering across, eventually falling into one of those pockets.

Because this is a game of pure chance, you don’t need to learn about complicated betting strategies when you learn how to play roulette. However, it can still be a bit confusing when you first step up to the roulette table and look at the layout on the felt where you place your bets. There are spaces for 1-36, plus however many zeroes are included (some live casinos in Las Vegas now have Triple Zero Roulette), then there are more spaces surrounding those numbers.

Roulette Inside Bets VS Outside Bets: Key Differences Explained

To make this all easier to understand, the bets you can place in roulette are commonly divided into two categories: “inside” and “outside.” Inside bets are the ones involving the numbered spaces on the inside of the layout. The rest, like the popular Red/Black, are outside bets. Simple, right?

We've written a comprehensive roulette outside bets guide for you here at . Today, we’re looking specifically at the inside of the layout; this is where you put your money down on one or more of those 36-plus numbers on the wheel. Once you master the inside bets in roulette, you’ll be well on your way to dominating the felt or the screen.

The most basic of roulette’s inside bets is the Straight (aka Single) bet. All you have to do here is pick one of the numbers, which can include the zeroes, although some purists will put 0 and 00 in their own category and place your chips directly in the middle of the designated betting space. Don’t let the chips touch any of the edges; we’ll explain why in a moment.

Once you’ve made your Straight bet, the roulette ball will be put in motion, moving in the opposite direction of the wheel, and it will land in one of those numbered pockets once it loses momentum. Did you pick the right number? Congratulations: You just earned a 35-1 payout, the highest there is in roulette.

Every other type of inside bet will involve more than one number on the roulette wheel. Think you’ve got a handle on the Straight bet? Let’s add a second number. The “Split” bet covers any two adjacent numbers (horizontally or vertically) on the layout, like 4-5 or 29-32. This wager will pay out at 17-1 if the ball lands on either of your two numbers.

If you happen to be playing American Roulette, there’s one more inside bet involving two numbers: the Row bet, which covers both 0 and 00. This also pays out at 17-1. Many roulette players treat this as a Split bet, but like the “0” and “00” bets, the Row does have its own name.

Now it’s time to bet on three roulette numbers at once. The “Street” bet is where you pick three numbers from the same row on the layout, like 7-8-9 or 22-23-24. You’ll earn 11-1 on your bet if any one of your three numbers comes up; include at least one adjacent zero on the layout, like 0-1-2 or 0-00-2, and your Street bet technically becomes a “Trio” (aka Basket).

Why stop there? The next rung on the inside bet ladder is the “Corner” (aka Square) bet, where you pick any four numbers on the roulette layout that share a common corner, like 22-23-25-26. The payout is 8-1, and again, if you use 0-1-2-3 as your numbers (European Roulette only), this Corner bet is properly referred to as a “First Four” (aka Top Line).

You can also make the Top Line bet when you play American Roulette online, except this time you’ll be betting on five numbers: 0-00-1-2-3. This is a unique bet with a 6-1 payout, resulting in a higher house edge of 7.69%, compared to 5.26% for all other American Roulette bets (and 2.70% for European Roulette).

Finally, you have the mother of all inside bets: the “Six Line” (aka Double Street). As the name implies, this is where you choose two adjacent rows of three numbers each, like 1-2-3-4-5-6. Since this bet covers the most numbers for this category, it also has the lowest payout at 5-1. And there’s no way to include any zeroes in a Six Line bet, although you can always place a “0” bet and five Straight bets if you like. The roulette odds and payouts work out the same either way.

Best Inside Bets in Roulette: Where to Place Your Chips for Big Wins

The inside bets in roulette are easy enough to comprehend, but figuring out exactly where to place your chips can be daunting at first, especially when you’re playing at a live casino. If you want to master the felt, you need to master the layout; it’s not all that complicated when you look at how everything is designed to make betting run smoothly.

Each of the inside bets we mentioned above has a spot on the roulette layout where you can put your chips. The Straight bet is the simplest to make; every other bet (aside from the zeroes) requires you to place your chips somewhere on an edge or corner of the inside layout, rather than directly within a numbered space.

As with the inside bets themselves, the chip placements get a bit more complicated the more numbers you bet on at once. Here’s the list:

– Split/Row: the shared edge
– Street: the left or right edge of the row
– Trio: the common corner
– Corner: the common corner
– First Four: the outer corner shared by 0-1 or 0-3
– Top Line (American Roulette): the outer corner shared by 0-1 or 00-3
– Six Line: the corner shared by the left or right edges of the two rows

Notice how each of these inside bets corresponds to the roulette layout; it’s even in their names. When the croupier sees you place your chips on the edge shared by the numbered spaces for 1 and 4, they can instantly tell you’re placing a Split bet on 1-4. Drop those chips slightly to the left where those two rows end, and you’ve got a Six Line bet on 1-2-3-4-5-6. As long as you identify the shared edge/corner first, you’ll know where to place your roulette bets, and you can take all the time you need when you play online roulette.

Tips to Win with Inside Bets in the Roulette Game

While you’re chasing down those big wins, it’s important to remember that all the standard bets for your chosen roulette game (except for that Top Line bet in American Roulette), whether they’re inside or outside bets or even those fancy “Call” bets using the racetrack oval on the European layout, work out to the same house edge for every spin. There’s no way to turn the odds in your favour by changing your betting pattern or your bet size.

That hasn’t stopped people from trying. There are dozens of roulette betting systems out there, from the simple Martingale (double your bet each time you lose) to the Fibonacci system (like the Martingale, but using the Fibonacci sequence instead of doubling). But they’re basically all the same; they assume you have a big enough bankroll to withstand every losing streak possible. It’s like you’re getting trapped in your own pyramid scheme.

Those losing streaks can add up, too. On August 18, 1913, at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, that pesky little roulette ball kept landing on Black, over and over again. Many of the curious onlookers who gathered around the wheel thought Red must have been “due,” so they kept betting on Red until they ran out of money, and watched in horror as Black hit 26 straight times.

Don’t let this happen to you. If you’re looking for the biggest wins at the roulette tables, the best you can do (not including multipliers) is the 35-1 payout you get for a winning Straight bet. Those bets will only win one out of 36 times on the European wheel, and one out of 37 on the American wheel, so if you wager, say, 10% of your bankroll every spin, chances are you’ll go bust in short order. Consider making each bet 1%, or less instead, and try more of those Street and Corner bets for smaller, but more frequent wins that will help keep you going for longer.

Congratulations: You are now fully up to speed on roulette’s inside bets. But we haven’t even touched on the most popular bets of them all: the outside bets, including the world-famous Red/Black. Check out our comprehensive betting guide here at Bodog for more, and we’ll see you at the wheel.