Roullete, also known as Roulette, is a casino game where a small ball is released in the opposite direction of a revolving wheel and players place bets on which red or black or numbered compartment it will come to rest in. Bets are made by placing chips on a betting mat, which has precise locations for the different bet types. Those who make bets on six or less numbers are referred to as Inside bets while those on 13 or more are called Outside bets. The payouts for winning bets are determined by the number and the location of the number on the betting table and the payout amounts vary depending on the type of bet placed.
The origins of roulette are a bit of a mystery, but the game certainly became popular in the late 18th century and spread rapidly from France into Europe where it was played in casinos and gambling dens. Some historians have credited French mathematician Blaise Pascal with inventing the game, while others claim it was an adaptation of the Italian games Biribi and Hoca or the Chinese games of hoca and portique.
There are a number of rules and systems that have been devised for playing the game, and some have even claimed to beat the house edge. However, most of these systems are based on faulty assumptions and are generally considered to be deceitful.
The roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape with a series of metal partitions around its rim that spin. Thirty-six of these compartments are painted alternately red and black and numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. There is a single green compartment on European-style wheels and two green ones on American wheels, and these additional pockets are what makes the US version of the game a worse proposition financially than the European one.
