Experts call this the ‘snake’ or the ‘red snake’ roulette bet – and the name comes from the chip placement. They also say that the payout average for this bet is 2:1 because of the way the wagers are placed, they snake the whole way down the table and cover a multitude of possibilities. As you probably already know, roulette is a random number game and this bet covers a total of twelve numbers in a zig-zag kind of pattern; 1, 5, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 23, 27, 30, 32 and 34. If you look at these numbers on a roulette table, you will see how they snake across the baize. It also only covers red numbers – hence the name ‘red snake’.

This is a single number bet, and winning on the single numbers offers the greatest return in roulette; this specific wager will therefore have a return of 35:1 if you win – we can only win on one number at a time! The snake does not split any bets and the normal way to wager on this is to bet equal amounts on each number. For example place a penny or a pound on each straight bet. It will cost twelve betting units for a possible return of 35 plus 1.

Although this is popular bet for online roulette players, we don’t actually know of an online casino which offers a snake bet button, so each wager will have to be placed manually. However if you make this a popular choice, find an online casino which offers a betting layout which can be saved for future use. This way you get to save your own custom layout even if you devise other patterns that also work for you. This is actually one of the really nice things about playing at online casinos. For example, custom bet features may be found at Unibet, Sky Vegas, Casino Club and Intercasino. There are probably many more sites which also offer this feature.

Chinese punters are very fond of this wager and there is a very good reason for it; it was probably invented by the Chinese as the colour red symbolises joy and good fortune and a snake is a member of the Chinese zodiac. The “Year of the Snake” comes around once every twelve years.