The Basics of Roulette
Roulette is one of the most popular games played at land-based and online casinos. The game is based on luck and can be very exciting, especially when you win. Nevertheless, it’s not for the faint of heart. The game has many rules that must be followed, and a quick Google search will return millions of roulette systems, some easy and others complicated.
Roulette’s history dates back to the 17th century, when the game was first introduced in France. Its popularity grew in France’s illegal gambling dens, and eventually made its way up the Mississippi to New Orleans, where it was modified into its current form. In 1843, French siblings Louis and Francois Blanc introduced a single zero pocket to the roulette wheel, which drastically reduced the house edge of the game. This version, known as European Roulette in today’s world, is now the preferred version of the game at land-based and online casinos.
The Roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape with thirty-six metal compartments or pockets that are painted alternately red and black and numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. A central compartment, called a canoe by roulette croupiers, is painted green and carries the number 0. A double-zero is also found on American wheels, while a second green compartment is marked as a 00 on European ones.
Players may wager on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the color red or black, whether the number is odd or even, and whether the number is high (19-36) or low (1-18). The payout for each bet is determined by the amount of chips required to complete it, with winning bets left up to be placed again.