Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number, various groupings of numbers, the colors red or black, whether the number is odd or even, or if the numbers are high (19–36) or low (1–18).
To determine the winning number and color, a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the other direction around a tilted circular track running around the outer edge of the wheel. The ball eventually loses momentum and falls onto the wheel and into one of 37 (in French/European roulette) or 38 (in American roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel.
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The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. A century earlier, Blaise Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine. The game has been played in its present form since as early as 1796 in Paris. An early description of the roulette game in its current form is found in a French novel La Roulette, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee, which describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris in 1796.
The description included details such as the house pockets, “There are exactly two slots reserved for the bank, whence it derives its sole mathematical advantage.” It then goes on to describe the layout with, “Two betting spaces contain their two zeros and 28 other spaces number from 1 to 36 inclusive.” The book was published in 1801.
The roulette wheels used in the casinos of Paris in the late 1790s had red for the single zero and black for double zero. To avoid confusion, color was selected for the zeros in roulette wheels starting in the 1800s.
The Eagle slot, which was a symbol of American liberty, was a house slot that brought an extra profit for casinos. Soon after 1800, when gambling was outlawed again in France and Germany except for state-sanctioned casinos like those at Baden-Baden (the only legal casino operating between 1809 and 1838), Monaco and Spa (Belgium), most European casinos adopted both American style roulettes with both 0s and American style chips with alternating red and black colors along with single 0 European style chips with green color for use on 0 only European style wheels.
The double zero wheel is found in U.S. casinos. The sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel (from 0 to 36) is 666, which is considered by some Christians to be “the number of the beast”.
Roulettes have been present since before recorded history but it wasn’t until roughly 1655 when Blaise Pascal attempted to create a perpetual motion machine by way of what we now know as an early version of roulette that things really took off. Pascal’s design couldn’t quite get over that pesky reality hump but it did give rise to one of mankind’s most popular forms of gambling entertainment which we still enjoy today. .
Roulette wheels come in two main varieties – European wheels with 37 pockets (numbered 0-36) and American wheels with 38 pockets (0-36 plus 00). The extra 00 pocket on American wheels nearly doubles your chance of losing money on any given bet but also nearly doubles your chances of winning any particular bet too so it all comes out evens money-wise over time if you’re playing on a fair wheel with random spins.
There are also hybrid wheels with both 0/00 and 1-36 numbers available which are becoming increasingly popular outside America where 38-pocket American wheels are less common than their 37-pocket European cousins.
