American Roulette

You only need to watch American Roulette once to notice two obvious features. The game is fast and it is played with colour chips, two things that are closely related. The table is not very big, and the maximum number of guests that can play at one time is eight or nine. This gives the players more room and always enables them to place their own bets without help from the dealer, which in turn results in a rapidly paced game.

American Roulette is played with colour chips that do not represent a specific value. There are eight or nine different colours depending on the number of players. Each player selects a colour and decides the value of the colour, within the maximum and minimum betting limits that apply at the table, of course.

You buy colour chips from the dealer and also tell him the value that your chips shall represent. The dealer then places a cash chip equalling the value you selected at a visible spot next to a chip in your colour on a board over the roulette table to prevent any misunderstandings.

Since each player has his own colour, there is never any doubt as to who has bet what. So you can safely place your chips on top of other chips of a different colour when placing your bet on the cloth's numbers, such as for straight or corner bets.

The terminology is "Place your bets, please" and "No more bets, please".

After the ball comes to rest in one of the pockets, the dealer announces the winning number and colour and places a small plastic block called a dolly on the same number on the table.

The chips are pushed through a slot in the table leading down to a machine that sorts them by colour. The winnings are then paid according to colour. American Roulette also has a tronc, of course. And just about every game ends with a "Thank you on behalf of the staff".

As soon as you stop playing, you must remember to cash in your colour chips with the dealer. The cash chips can then be taken over to the Cashier's Cage and exchanged for cash.

The reason you should remember to exchange them right away is that if you wait an hour or a day, the dealer will have forgotten the value you were playing with. If this happens, you are paid the table's minimum value per chip.

It also goes without saying that you cannot move on to another American Roulette table and continue playing with the same chip colour. Therefore, do not leave the table until you have changed the colour chips into cash chips.