Roulette is a game of chance. Players place chips on the table until the dealer announces “No more bets.” Each player has his or her own color, and bet types are grouped into categories of inside and outside bets.

Inside bets have higher payout odds but lower chances of winning. The outside bets are the opposite.

Origin

The exact origin of roulette is not clearly known, although it is generally believed to have been invented in 1655 by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal. He came up with the idea while working on his unsuccessful quest to create a perpetual motion machine, and the game quickly became a popular pastime in Paris.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the game was adopted by casinos and gambling houses across Europe and achieved its present layout and wheel structure about 1790. At this point, it emerged as the aristocrat of all gambling games, offering a range of betting scales and dramatic swings in fortune.

The game is based on a spinning wheel with 38 (or 37) pockets, including a single zero and a double zero pocket. It is played on a special table with a betting cloth, and players place chips to wager on which number they think will appear next.