If you are looking to play roulette online, whether you want to play for fun or for real, you will need to choose an online casino. There are certain aspects of an online casino that you need to check out before playing—this is especially important if you are going to playing with money.

Casino License and Supervision:

This is highly important. When an online casino is licensed it has a government body that it answers to. This helps to protect you and other players from an online casino being unethical. The licensing body is supervising the casino to make sure that bets are honored and paid in a timely manner; that funds are deposited securely; that players information is protected; that the casino operator are working under integrity; and that the gaming software remains fair and tested.

A couple of common supervising bodies are eCogra and the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC). Licensing bodies that issue are independent of all online casinos and are a part of a country’s government. Supervising bodies are also independent but are not a part of any government organization. In most cases seals of approval will appear along the bottom of the casino’s website. And you can always contact their customer support if you would like to know who they are licensed and supervised by. And it is also advisable to check with both bodies to verify who a casino is licensed and supervised by.

Casino Software and Fair Play:

You will want to make sure that an online casino’s software has been tested for randomness and fairness. This means that the games cannot be predicted nor can their results be controlled by the casino—they are not rigged in other words.

The most common and widely accepted fairness testing company is Technical Systems Testing (TST). In fact you will often see TST referred to when software providers are discussed. Fairness testing companies are also independent of online casinos as well.

You can always visit TST’s website to see a list of online casinos whose gaming software has be approved for fairness and randomness.

Secure Financial Transactions:

This is especially important if you are going to play with money.  You will of course want to know if your money is secure, both while it is being transferred and once it reaches the online casino. This is your financial information after all. You can look for an encrypted system like those used in online banking. Or you can look in the address bar on the screen where you would enter your financial information, and check to make sure the address starts with https://. The ‘s’ stands for secure.

If you want to really make sure, contact the online casino’s support staff and ask them how they guarantee the safety of your financial information and your funds.

Customer Support:

An online casino’s customer support staff is very important. You need to know that you can contact them any time of day should you encounter any problems. Imagine that you are playing for real and it is the middle of the night, and some technical hiccup happens in the game, how do you know that you haven’t lost money? Because this is your money, you will want to contact them right then. You need to know that they are available and there for you.

Check for phone numbers and email support. Some online casinos also offer live chat help. You can test how quickly they respond and how easy they are to work with by sending them a couple of questions, such as who they are licensed by and how they guarantee the security of your financial information

Even if you are only playing for fun you at least want to make sure the online casino you are considering is reputable and that their games are fair. How much fun is it to play games that might be rigged? If you are someone who wants to play for real you should defiantly check out the above information about any online casino that you are considering.

With the increasing popularity of online gaming, it is no surprise that casinos would take to this outlet. One of the exciting advantages to online gambling is that software providers can create variations of classic casino games—and roulette is no exception. Software providers have created a couple of variations to be offered along with standby favorites such as American Roulette and European Roulette.

Here we will take a look at how roulette stacks up online in terms of variations and their house edges.

Mini Roulette

This is a newer version created by software providers, and is not to be found in land-based casinos. This wheel only features the numbers 1 through 12 and 0. As a base rule in roulette, meaning it really is not roulette without certain base rules, if the ball lands in 0 all other bets lose. The small number of alternatives for the ball to land in cause the ball to land in 0 more often. Because of the greater chance of landing on 0, this variation has earned itself a house edge of 7.69%. This is a variation to avoid.

American Roulette

 This is the closest variation to standard roulette. In fact it is this variation that most refer to when they are referring to roulette. This is version of online roulette is pretty much the same as its land-based counterpart in that it uses a thirty eight pocket wheel with 0 and 00 pockets. And also like its land-based counterpart, the online version carries the same house edge of 5.26%. If there are other versions to play, other than Mini Roulette, avoid this one.

European Roulette

Online European Roulette is the same also pretty much the same as its land-based counterpart, and it still carries a house edge of 2.7%. It still has thirty seven pockets and only one 0 pocket. The house edge is lower for two reasons: 1. There are more options for the ball to land in instead of 0 than Mini Roulette, and 2. There is only one 0 that would wipe out all other bets, whereas Online American Roulette has two zero pockets to ruin all other bets. Since American and European can be found at most online casinos, this version of online roulette is the most advisable version to play.

French Roulette

While there is a non-computer game version of French Roulette, it is not really to be found in land-based casinos anymore. It has experienced a bit of a revival online. It still is not widely found but that is probably because of the incredible house edge it carries: 1.35%. This lower house edge is from a variation-specific rule called La Partage. Under this rule, if the ball lands in 0, half of all even money bets are returned to the players who made those bets. Even money bets are wagers placed in the following betting spaces: 1-18, 19-36, Red, Black, Even and Odd. So if you can find this variation of online roulette it would be advisable to play it. If you cannot find it, stick with Online European Roulette.

Putting together a strategy for roulette is a bit harder than putting one together for games like blackjack and poker. The reason being is that while blackjack and poker are games of skill, roulette is a game of chance.

This means that there is nothing a player can do to influence the outcome of the game. And there is no magic number of games that you have to lose before you win—each game is independent of the one before it.

So what can you control in roulette? Looking at that will give you a way to begin building a roulette strategy.  You can control how you bet. In fact, as a player, that is all you do in this game.

An option is to use a betting strategy. In most cases this means a progressive betting strategy. You can always develop your own betting strategy or check out other ones.

The one thing that you have to remember when using any betting strategy is that using one does not guarantee that you will win. Many players believe that using one will make them invincible from losing more money than they started with. No one is invincible. So if the wheel you are playing at is cold, just walk away. Better to have some money left than none at all.

That being said, you can use a betting strategy. Probably the most commonly used strategy is one in which you double your bet each time that you lose, only returning to your original betting amount once you have won a round.

If you do use such a betting strategy in roulette it is advisable to start out by betting small amounts. That way if you end up on a fairly long losing streak and you have not walked away from the table, you will not run through your money too quickly.

Also do not use any betting strategy on inside bets—stay off the number grid. Inside bets are the most risky bets and it is easy to lose money quickly. It is safer to bet on outside bets with a payout of 2-1. Those 2-1 bets are the Column bets, and the groups of twelve. In this way you are covering more numbers but will still receive more than your bet should you win.

Since roulette is a game of chance there is not a lot of room for strategy. But, like with any casino game, there are some tips that you can keep in mind when playing roulette.

Roulette Tips for Choosing a Game

Since you cannot influence the outcome of a round of roulette, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to choose a roulette table with a lower house edge. The two most commonly offered roulette games are American Roulette and European Roulette.

The difference in these two games in minimal. The European wheel has one less pocket than the American wheel does. This small difference has a dramatic impact on the house’s edge. European only carries a house edge of 2.7% while American carries an edge of 5.26%.

That’s a big difference. Some slots games have a better edge than American Roulette, whereas European Roulette’s edge is better than slots games. So roulette tip number one: play European Roulette whenever possible.

Roulette Tips for Betting

In most casino games, players can only make a wager that they will win the round. This is because in those games you can only win or lose. Take blackjack for example. In that game you can only bet that your hand value will be higher than the dealer’s.

In roulette there are many different outcomes. The ball could land on 4 or 2 or 33. It could be an even number or a red number. You get the idea. As a result there are many different ways to bet. And not all roulette bets were created equal.

Some of the bets you can make in roulette offer a higher payout than others; the trouble is that the higher the payout, the riskier the bet is. Betting on a single number offers the highest payout: 35-1. If you are playing with a European wheel, the ball could land on the number you have wagered on…or it could land in one of the other thirty six pockets.

The payout ratios in roulette will range from 35-1 to 1-1. Probably the best way to bet is on the 2-1 betting spaces. This would include the columns and each of the twelve sets of numbers. The reasoning for this is that you are still covering a third of the numbers on the wheel, so you have a decent shot at having bet on the number the ball will land on. But with a payout of 2-1 you can still make some profit in winning.

You want to cover a fair amount of the board, but you want to do it in a smart way. You could easily pick and place individual bets on a third of the numbers on the grid. But the ball can only land in one pocket, so you would only win one of those twelve individual bets you placed, causing you to lose more money in the long run. Betting on one of the 2-1 spaces will cover the same amount of numbers as twelve individual bets, but without costing you nearly as much. Think of it as getting more bet for you money.

So roulette tip number two: be smart in your betting, and stick with 2-1 betting spaces to maximize your betting potential.

Because of the basic nature that makes up roulette there are not a lot of variations of the game. There are two versions of the game that can usually be found in online and land-based casinos.

The Law of Independent Trials is a statistical term which says that any event is as likely to happen again every time a game is played. In terms of roulette that means that each round is independent of the last round played and the next round that will be played. In other words, the ball could land in any pocket each time.

Roulette is a game of chance because of that ability for an independent outcome each time. And since each outcome is independent, the objective of Roulette is made: to predict where the ball will land.

This translates to a game of chance also because a player can do nothing to influence the outcome. Thus the phrase, ‘Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows.’

Because of that nature it is harder to create variations of roulette.

The two most common and most popular variations are American Roulette and European Roulette.

American Roulette is what people are most often referring to when they are speaking of the game of roulette. This version has a thirty eight pocket wheel with two of those pockets being zero pockets.

European Roulette is played the same way as American Roulette except the wheel is a little different: it only has thirty seven pockets, only one of which is a zero pocket.

But that one pocket difference creates a different house edge for each game. European Roulette only has a house edge of 2.7%, while American Roulette has a house edge of 5.26%. In terms of gambling and house edges, that is quite a difference. It is also why European Roulette is the more advisable game to play.