Roulette is a fast-paced casino game that features a spinning wheel and numbered pockets. When a ball lands on a number or section, you receive a payout based on the odds of your bet.
To play, you must first purchase chips from the dealer. Each player gets a colored chip that indicates their value.
Origins
It is hard to say with certainty where the game of roulette originally came from. However, most historians believe that it was invented by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal in 1655. During his experiment to produce the world’s first perpetual motion machine, he inadvertently developed the weighted wheel that would become the centerpiece of roulette. Other historians argue that the game originated from a series of games similar in structure, including one popular at carnivals in the 1500’s. It could also have come from a game that was played by Dominican monks in the end of the 17th century.
Whatever the case, it is true that roulette as we know it appeared in Paris in 1796. It was then a game for the elite, playing in gilded gambling parlours of pre-revolutionary France.
Variations
Roulette has several different variations that each offer a unique flavor and experience. Each one has its own rules, house edge, payouts, and betting options. Some of these variants include: European Roulette, which only includes a single-zero and offers the lowest house edge of 2.7%; French Roulette, which contains more 0s but allows players to benefit from the En Prison and La Partage rules to lower the edge to 1.35%; and Lightning Roulette, a game from Evolution that offers payout multipliers up to 500x. There are also several games that offer the biggest payouts, including Triple Bonus Spin Roulette from IGT, which pays up to 1:12,000 for a straight bonus win.