Roulette is a game that involves spinning a ball around a wheel. Players place their chips on a roulette table and the croupier (dealer) spins the wheel and places the ball in one of the compartments.

To maximize your chances of winning you should choose bet types that have the lowest house edge. These are usually outside bets like odd/even or red/black.

Origins

There isn’t any real evidence that roulette has a long history, but it seems likely that gamblers have spun wheels for centuries. Roman soldiers spun chariot wheels on their side and ancients played games that were very similar to modern roulette, including a game with shields that had symbols drawn on them and were placed on the ground face-down with an arrow next to them.

It’s thought that seventeenth-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the roulette wheel as a byproduct of his quest to create a perpetual motion machine. Other theories say that the game was invented in China and brought to France by Dominican monks, who then spread it throughout Europe. In 1842, Francois and Louis Blanc made roulette what it is today by eliminating the double zero pocket and creating the single-zero European roulette wheel that is so popular in casinos.

Bets

There are a number of different betting opportunities on roullete. The most risky of these is the Street bet, which costs 9 chips and covers 17 numbers and pays out 11 to 1 if the player correctly anticipates where the ball will land. There is also the Voisins bet, which covers the same number as a Street bet but includes two numbers either side, and this has a payout of between PS18 and PS24. There are also the Dozens and Columns bets, which have lower odds and pay out 2-1.