Global Sports: Roulette Etiquette 101

Monday, September 19, 2011

Roulette Etiquette 101

By Sami Donsin


Roulette is a high-speed love affair with colours, chips, dice and a wheel. It's an intoxicating exercise in giving yourself wholly to chance - hoping that the roulette wheel will select your particular combination and make your financial dreams a veritable reality. Think about the implications of a straight-up win: a humble $100 bet could quickly become $3500. Letting it ride and you could garner a good $122 500. Of course, that's an incredible payout, and it's so large because wagering your chips straight-up is an enormous risk: on a European table you have a mere 1:36 chance to win, and on an American table the odds are even higher. It's why many players choose to hedge their bets and thereby spread their risk. Quite obviously, this translates into less of payout but the higher risk the higher potential reward.

So, you've decided that roulette is your kind of game. But it's no use just haphazardly approaching a table without knowing at a very minimum the etiquette of the game: what's acceptable and what's not. These rules could well save you from finding yourself in an embarrassing and awkward situation. They're not game-breaking rules, but they could prevent you from offending the croupier and others playing at the table.

Here are five of the most important rules:

1. Lay your money on the table openly

Never hand it to the dealer directly. Dealers must be open, transparent and above any reproach from either the house or its players. Alert the dealer that you'd like to exchange cash for casino chips, lay it within the dealer's reach, and wait for him to process the money.

2. When the dealer calls final bets, respect it

Final bets really does mean final bets. Dealers will call "final bets" after the roulette wheel has been spinning for a few seconds. If you deliberately try to bet late the dealer is well within his rights to ignore and even remove your chips from the table, asking that you respect his rules in the future. Rather bet early.

3. Wait for your payout before betting any more

This is a pet hate for many dealers. You should be careful to go anywhere near the winning area until the dealer has removed the dolly and paid out all the winnings. The reason for this rule is fairly obvious: fast-handed cheaters could try and quickly worm their chips into the winning area after the roulette number has been selected. It's subterfuge at its most daring and casino won't have any of it.

4. Don't place your hands anywhere near the roulette wheel

The reasons for this rule are much the same as rule #3. Don't show any sense of wanting to mistakenly or deliberately interfere with the spinning roulette wheel.

5. Don't tell other players that their wagers are "wrong"

There's really no such things as a "wrong" in roulette. Some systems of play are safer and more sensible than others. Grand Martingale, for instance, is fairly reckless although potentially very profitable. And blanket betting, whilst safe, can often net an eventual loss to the player.




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