Straight up bet in roulette

Straight up bet roulette: the quick answer

You put a chip squarely inside one number box, anything from 0 to 36 (or 00 on an American table). If the ball settles in that pocket you are paid 35 times your stake and keep the stake, so £1 returns £36 in total. If any other number comes in, the chip is lost. It is the purest of the inside bets and the one most people picture when they think of roulette.

Wizard of Odds’ roulette basics page (opens in a new tab) lists ‘any one number’ at 35 to 1 on both single-zero and double-zero wheels. Because the payout does not change while the number of pockets does, the wheel you choose matters more than the number you pick.

Straight up odds, payout and house edge by table

French rules are worth a note. La Partage halves the loss on even-money bets when zero lands, but a single number is never an even-money bet, so a straight up costs exactly the same at a French table as at a European one.

Why 35 to 1 falls short of the true odds

On a 37-pocket wheel, one pocket is yours and 36 are not. Fair odds would therefore be 36 to 1. The casino pays 35 to 1, one unit short, and that unit is where its margin comes from. Over a perfect cycle of 37 spins at £1 a spin, you would win once (+£35) and lose 36 times (−£36): down £1 on £37 staked, or 2.70%.

On an American wheel there are 37 losing pockets for every winner, so true odds are 37 to 1 while the payout stays at 35 to 1. Two units short out of 38 gives the 5.26% edge. Our page on true odds against payouts shows the same gap across other games.

For the record, 35 to 1 is the highest payout for a standard roulette bet. Bigger numbers only appear in branded multiplier games or special bets, covered in our answer to what is the highest payout in roulette.

How long a single number can stay away

‘Once in 37 spins’ is an average, and averages hide a lot. The chance that your number turns up at least once in a run of spins is 1 − (36/37) raised to the number of spins. The results surprise most people.

So it is roughly a coin flip whether your number appears within 25 spins, and about one session in three goes 37 spins without it. At live speeds of around 60 to 80 spins an hour, a number staying away for an hour is completely normal. That has nothing to do with the number being ‘cold’, and nothing makes it ‘due’ afterwards.

Backing several numbers straight up

Plenty of players spread single chips across a handful of favourite numbers. Each extra number raises the chance of a hit but lowers the profit when one comes in, because the other chips on the layout are lost. With £1 on each of k numbers, a win returns £36 against a total stake of £k.

The last row is a useful warning. Covering 35 numbers wins £1 almost 95% of the time and loses £35 the rest, yet costs more per spin than any other row simply because more money is on the table. The edge is 2.70% of whatever you stake, every time.

Several racetrack bets are built from straight ups. A neighbours bet is five single chips on a number and the two either side of it on the wheel, and jeu zéro includes a straight up on 26. Wizard of Odds’ sector bets page (opens in a new tab) gives both the usual 2.70% edge.

How to place a straight up bet online

1. Open the table’s limits panel and note the minimum and maximum for a single number, which can differ from the limits on outside bets.
2. Select a chip value from the chip tray.
3. Click or tap the centre of the number you want, making sure the chip is not touching a line (that would make it a split or corner).
4. Add more chips on other numbers if you wish, then check the total stake shown on screen.
5. Confirm before betting closes. If your number wins, 35 times the stake is added to your balance along with the original chip.

Straight up bets in Lightning and other multiplier games

Modern live roulette often adds random multipliers, and almost all of them attach to straight-up bets only. Evolution’s Lightning Roulette rules (opens in a new tab) strike one to five Lucky Numbers each round with multipliers from 50x to 500x. To pay for that, a plain straight up that wins without a multiplier pays 29 to 1 rather than 35 to 1. Every other bet pays as normal.

UK operator game pages list Lightning Roulette at 97.10% to 97.30% RTP, so the overall cost is roughly in line with a standard single-zero table. The shape is very different, though: most single-number wins are smaller than usual, and a rare few are far larger.

• XXXtreme Lightning Roulette: Evolution adds Chain Lightning and Double Strikes, taking the top multiplier to 2,000x; a multiplied win needs a straight up on a struck number.
• Gold Vault Roulette: Evolution places five to twenty 50x Gold Bars on random spots each spin, and only straight ups on those numbers collect them.
• Mega Roulette: Pragmatic Play applies one to five multipliers of 50x to 500x to straight-up bets each round.

Where a developer does not publish the plain straight-up payout or RTP, check the game’s help screen before you play rather than assuming 35 to 1.

What a £20 budget looks like on single numbers

Say you bring £20 to a single-zero table and stake £1 a spin on one number. Over 20 spins your expected loss is 20 × £1 × 2.70% = 54p, but that average almost never happens. The likeliest single outcome, at about 57.8%, is that your number never lands and the whole £20 is gone. If it lands once, you collect £36 and finish £16 ahead. Two hits in 20 spins is rarer still.

That lumpiness is the trade-off for the big payout. If you want a £20 budget to last a whole evening, a lower stake or a bet that covers more numbers spreads the outcome more evenly. Our session budget calculator lets you test different stakes.

Single-number myths: hot numbers, sleepers and biased wheels

Results boards showing ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ numbers are entertainment, not information. Each spin is independent, so a number that has not landed for 100 spins still has a 1 in 37 chance next time. Our hot and cold numbers page explains why the board can look streaky even on a perfect wheel.

Physical wheel bias is the one theory with real history, but it is far harder to spot than people think. Wizard of Odds reviewed one reader’s data where a number landed 278 times in 8,672 spins against about 234 expected, and still found a 1 in 466 chance that luck alone explained it (Ask the Wizard: roulette (opens in a new tab)). Online, the Gambling Commission’s RTS 7 standard (opens in a new tab) requires random outcomes and bans compensated games, so a random number generator does not ‘balance up’ numbers either.

Straight up bets at UK online casinos: the rules

Roulette is outside the £2 and £5 slot stake limits, so maximums on single numbers are set by each table. Since 17 January 2025, Gambling Commission rules require at least 5 seconds per game cycle on non-slot games, ban autoplay on all casino games including live tables, prevent playing more than one game at once, and require net spend and time played to be shown on screen. A re-bet button is still allowed. You must also pass age and identity checks before depositing, and you cannot fund play with a credit card.

If single-number chasing ever starts to feel like a way to win back losses, stop and use the casino’s time-out tools, or read our guide on chasing losses.

Where to play straight up roulette bets

None of our partners’ welcome offers is a roulette offer: they are slot-focused, and table and live games are often excluded from bonuses or contribute less to wagering. If you want single-zero roulette, look in each casino’s table and live lobby and read the bonus terms first. 18+ and terms apply.

Casumo: 50% bonus up to £100 for new customers who opt in and deposit at least £20; wager the bonus 10x within 7 days, £5 maximum bet while it is active, game, play and payment restrictions apply. 10bet: 100% match up to £25 for new UK customers who choose the casino welcome bonus at sign-up and deposit within 7 days; 10x wagering on slots within 3 days, maximum bonus winnings £1,000, Skrill and Neteller excluded. Coral: deposit and bet £10 or more on slots to get 100 free spins at 10p on selected games, accept within 48 hours, use within 7 days, no wagering on winnings; Neteller, PayPal, Paysafe, Skrill, prepaid cards and certain debit cards do not qualify.

18+. Every casino game has a built-in house edge, so over time you should expect to lose what you stake. Set a budget before you play and stop when it’s gone: safer gambling tools and support. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.