Sportsgrid Staff
Host · Writer - Published: 04/29/25
If you’re looking to learn how to play roulette with confidence and a deeper understanding, I can help you. While it might be a game of chance, mastering the rules and implementing basic strategies can stand out in good stead.
Where you play online is also important, and I believe that sweepstakes casinos are the best way to go. On these sites, you can play with virtual currencies, rather than real money, making it better for the risk-averse. My top five roulette sweepstakes casino recommendations are: RealPrize, Stake.us, McLuck, MegaBonanza, and Jackpota - you can find out more below.
In the most simple terms, roulette is a game of chance that involves just three key materials:
The ball is entered into the spinning wheel, and your job is to predict where it will land. There are several predictions that you can make based on the color or the number of the segment in the wheel where you think the ball will end up.
There are two main types of roulette wheel, both of which have alternating red and black numbers from one to 36.
However, the difference is that European roulette has one neutral number, which is zero (0). American roulette, meanwhile, has two neutral numbers: zero (0) and double-zero (00).
Here’s a table to show you:
| Type of roulette wheel | Regular numbers (Red & Black) | Neutral numbers (no color) | Total number of spaces on the wheel |
| European: | 1 – 36 | 0 | 37 (36 + 0) |
| American: | 1 – 36 | 0 & 00 | 38 (36 + 0 + 00) |
Whether you’re playing in-person, on real money roulette sites, or at a sweepstakes casino, this is the basic run of play in three steps:
As with all casino games, roulette has its upsides and downsides, so let’s take a look:
In basic versions of online roulette, there are nine predictions that you can make. In European roulette, the odds range from 1/1 to 35/1.
As the overall odds are simpler, and slightly more in the player’s favor compared to American roulette, I’ve used the European odds as an example in the paytable and prediction explainer guide below:
| Prediction | Winning number combos | Odds/payout |
| 1. Straight up: | Any single number | 35/1 |
| 2. Split: | Any two adjacent numbers | 17/1 |
| 3. Street: | Three numbers in a horizontal row | 11/1 |
| 4. Corner: | Four numbers in a square | 8/1 |
| 5. Line: | Two adjoining rows of three (six numbers) | 5/1 |
| 6. Column (Dozen): | 12 numbers in a vertical column | 2/1 |
| 7. Red or black: | 18 numbers of the same color | 1/1 |
| 8. Odds or evens: | 18 odd or even numbers | 1/1 |
| 9. High or low: | 18 numbers high(19 – 36) or low (1- 18) | 1/1 |
Now that we’ve mastered the basics, here are my five top tips to help you play online roulette with confidence:
As a starting point, you should play on free roulette sites, including sweepstakes casinos. I’ve provided five recommendations for you below.
Even when using virtual currency, you should play each round with a small number of GC or SC. Each round of roulette only takes a few seconds, so you want to make your balance last.
At first, start by only making the three highest probability predictions – Red or Black, Odds or Evens, and High or Low. While these have the lowest payout (1/1), they have the highest win probability (50%).
If you find that your balance has started to grow after a while of playing 1/1 predictions, you can slowly start to make riskier plays backed with a small number of coins. However, you should do this sparingly, and always use low-risk plays as your default.
The fast-paced nature of roulette is one of the reasons that we love it, but it’s also easy to get carried away. Put a maximum time limit on each session and turn the game off once your time is up.
If you’re looking for a great starting point to play free roulette, I’d highly recommend a sweepstakes casino. These sites offer the same roulette games as “traditional” online casinos.
The only difference is that you play with virtual currency instead of real money.
With Gold Coins (GC), you can play purely for fun with no chase to redeem real prizes. With Sweeps Coins (SC), you can potentially redeem real prizes if you meet the playthrough and minimum balance requirements specified on the site
Here are my top five sweepstakes casinos for free roulette games in February 2026:
| Sweepstakes casino | Welcome offer | Promo code | No. of roulette games | Live roulette |
| 1. Real Prize | 100k GC + 2 SC | N/A | 5 | Yes ✅ |
| 2. Stake.us | Up to 56 SC + 560k GC + 5% rakeback | ‘SPORTSGRID’ | 10 | Yes ✅ |
| 3. McLuck | 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC | N/A | 5 | Yes ✅ |
| 4. MegaBonanza | 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC | N/A | 1 | Yes ✅ |
| 5. Jackpota | 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC | N/A | 7 | Yes ✅ |
At RealPrize, there are five variations of roulette that you can play for free when you sign up and claim your 100,000 GC + 2 SC welcome offer. In particular, I recommend that you try out the three live roulette games by Iconic21 – Live Roulette, Auto Roulette, and Gravity Roulette. These games bring roulette to life with a live-streamed dealer and other real-time players.
When you register at Stake.us, you can get up to 56 SC + 560k GC + 5% rakeback in bonuses over 30 days if you register using our ‘SPORTSGRID’ promo code. You can use these bonuses to play 10 roulette games, including six live dealer versions and Stake Roulette, which is a house version that you can’t play anywhere else.
This top-rated sweepstakes casino has five roulette games, all of which are live dealer versions from the Iconic21 games studio. McLuck has a top-rated app that you can download from the App Store and Google Play, making it the ideal option if you want to play roulette on your smartphone. When you register and download the app, you will get 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC free.
MegaBonanza is a fun Wild West-themed social casino with a live roulette option in its lobby. If you’re looking to shake things up a bit, “Spin & Win” is another live game offered on this site that’s not quite a traditional roulette game, but bears a lot of similarities. Like at McLuck, new players get 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC for signing up here.
There are seven versions of live roulette that you can play for free at this social casino with your 7,500 GC + 2.5 SC sign-up offer. If you’re playing roulette on a low-spec device or with a poor signal, the Roulette Lite allows you to enjoy live online roulette without lagging.
There you have it, guys – the basics of roulette alongside some simple strategies so that you can play with confidence. So what’s next? You can pick one of my top five recommended sweepstakes casinos, register, and play roulette for free right now once you’ve claimed your welcome offer.
The basics of roulette are simple. A spinning ball is put into a wheel, and you must predict where it lands. For beginners, I recommend making low-risk, two-way predictions, such as odds/evens, high/low, and red/black.
Roulette is, at the end of the day, a game of chance, so there’s no precise winning formula. However, conservative plays, bankroll management, and knowing when to stop are basic strategies that can help.
Like all casino games, roulette is a game of chance. However, having even a basic understanding of the rules can help you.
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