What is Roulette?

Roulette is a game of chance where you bet on the number a ball will land in after it has been spun around a wheel. It is a very popular casino game.

The roulette wheel has 38 sections, numbered red and black alternately, plus a green division marked 0 and, on American tables, a second green division marked 00.

Origins

The game of roulette has its origins in several games that were similar. It was likely first played around the same time as other popular gambling games such as portique, hoca, bassette and roly poly.

While fanciful theories claim that seventeenth-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the game by accident as a result of his search for a perpetual motion machine, it is more probable that roulette developed spontaneously from some other wheel-based games. Roulette as we know it today was first introduced in the 18th century and became a popular game in Paris.

It is believed that roulette made its way to America with the influx of French immigrants. They brought the game to their new home, modifying it to its current form.