Online Roulette

Roulette is the simplest table game to play and one of the easiest to play badly — you bet on where the ball lands, the wheel spins, and that’s it. But two quiet decisions decide whether you get a long, watchable session or a fast bleed: which kind of bet you make, and which wheel you sit at. Get the wheel right and you halve the house edge before you’ve placed a single chip. Here’s everything that matters.

Inside bets versus outside bets

Every roulette bet falls into one of two camps, and the split tells you exactly what you’re trading.

Inside bets sit on the numbered grid — a single number, or a small group of two to six numbers. They pay big and land rarely. A straight-up single number pays 35 to 1 but comes in roughly once every 37 spins. Exciting, and the worst value on the table over time.

Outside bets cover the broad sections — red or black, odd or even, the high or low half, the dozens and columns. They pay small but hit often. Red or black pays even money and lands just under half the time. These are where steady players live, because the swings are gentle and the edge bites slowest.

The payout table

The payout always reflects the odds — bigger payout, rarer hit. Here’s the full spread on a single-zero wheel:

Read it top to bottom and the lesson is plain: the long-shots at the top thrill you and cost you; the even-money bets at the bottom are where the value sits. None of them beat the house long-term, but the outside bets get you closest.

The wheel is the bet that really matters

Here’s the decision most casuals never make on purpose. A European wheel has 37 pockets — numbers 1 to 36 plus a single green zero. An American wheel adds a second green pocket, the double zero, making 38. That one extra pocket doesn’t change a single payout, but it changes everything about the maths.

Same bets, same payouts, nearly double the edge on the American wheel — for no upside whatsoever. Always pick the European (single-zero) table. It’s free money to do so, and it’s the single most valuable thing to know about roulette.

A worked example, in rand

You’ve got R200 and you bet R20 on red each spin at a European wheel. Red hits just under half the time, so you’ll win roughly as often as you lose; the 2.7% edge means that over a long run you’d expect to give back about R5.40 for every R200 cycled through. The session is long and the swings are small.

Now run the same R20-on-red on an American wheel: the bet, the payout and the feel are identical, but the 5.26% edge means your expected loss over that R200 doubles to roughly R10.50. You won’t feel it on any one spin — but across a night, the double-zero wheel quietly takes twice as much. That’s why the wheel choice beats every betting “system” people try to sell you.

Will a roulette win actually pay out?

Yes, the instant the ball settles — roulette is fixed-odds, so a winning bet credits your wallet straight away with no review. Withdrawing from Scorebet runs on the usual local rails, paid once your account is FICA-verified. The spin itself is governed by a certified random number generator, so no past run of reds makes black “due” — every spin is independent, and any system built on patterns is selling you noise. The honest line stays the same: the green zero is the house’s edge on every spin, so bank a win and play it as entertainment.

Roulette rewards the player who picks the right wheel and the right bet and ignores the rest. Sit at a European table, lean on the outside bets, and enjoy it — live at Scorebet. Compare it with the decision-led blackjack or the low-edge baccarat, or step back to table games. 18+.