The Odds of Winning at Roulette

Whether you’re new to roulette or an experienced player, it’s important to understand the odds. It also helps to know which bet types offer the best chances of winning.

Players place bets on a roulette table by laying down chips on a betting mat before the dealer spins the wheel and drops a ball. Each bet type has its own unique house edge.

Origin

There are many fanciful stories about the origin of roulette, with one widely accepted version saying that it was invented by 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal. During his quest to create a perpetual motion machine, he inadvertently produced a wheel that would become the centrepiece of Paris’ gambling scene. However, this theory is contradicted by other accounts which claim that roulette was based on Chinese games such as hoca and portique and brought to Europe by Dominican monks. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as roulette evolved from older games and was first mentioned under its current name in the 18th century.