Roullete is a casino game played on a table with numbered sections and one or two zeros, affording players a number of betting options. A ball is spun around the rim of a revolving wheel, and when it comes to rest in one of the compartments on the roulette table, the winning bet is announced.
The earliest forms of the game date back to the 17th century, when it was derived from older games such as hoca and portique. It achieved its present layout and wheel structure about 1790, and soon gained popularity in gambling dens across Europe.
A roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape with metal partitions, or frets, surrounding the edge. Thirty-six of these compartments, painted alternately red and black, are numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. A green compartment, called a ‘canoe’ by croupiers, carries the ‘zero’; on American wheels there are two green pockets marked ‘double zero’.
There are many roulette variations available in physical casinos and online. The most popular is European, as it has a lower house edge than its American cousin and allows players to keep half of their even chip bets when the ball lands on zero. Other roulette variants include Mini, Multi-Wheel, German, and English Roulette. There are also a number of roulette strategies that are used to try and beat the odds, including the Martingale and Labouchere systems.
