Best Online CasinoRoulette is a casino and gambling game named after the French word meaning "small wheel". In the game a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular surface running around the circumference of the wheel. The ball eventually falls on to the wheel and into one of 37 (in European roulette) or 38 (in American roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel. Players place bets on the winning number and the color of the pocket, whether the number is odd or even, etc.

Wheel layout

The main pockets are numbered from 1 to 36 alternating between red and black, but the pockets are not in numerical order around the wheel, and there are instances of consecutive numbers being the same color. There is a green pocket numbered 0, and in American roulette there is also a second green pocket marked 00.

Betting

Players can place a variety of 'inside' bets (selecting the number of the pocket the ball will land in, or range of pockets based on their position), and 'outside' bets (including bets on various positional groupings of pockets, pocket colors, or whether it is odd or even). The payout odds for each type of bet is based on its probability. There table usually imposes minimum and maximum bets, and these rules usually apply separately for all of a player's 'inside' and 'outside' bets for each spin. Players can continue to place bets until the dealer announces "No more bets."

History

Early roulette table, ca. 1800The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. The roulette wheel is believed to be a fusion of the English wheel games Roly-Poly, Ace of Hearts, and E&O, and the Italian board games of Hoca and Biribi, and then the name roulette from an already existing French board game of that title. The game has been played in its current form since as early as 1796 in Paris. The earliest 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 book was published in 1801. An even earlier reference to a game of this name was published in regulations for French Quebec in 1758, which banned the games of "dice, hoca, faro, and roulette." (ref. Roulette Wheel Study, Ron Shelley, 1986.)[1]

In 1842, fellow Frenchmen François and Louis Blanc added the "0" to the roulette wheel in order to achieve a house advantage. In the early 1800s, roulette was brought into the U.S. where, to further increase house odds, a second zero, "00", was introduced. In some forms of early American roulette wheels as shown in the 1886 Hoyle gambling books, there were numbers 1 through 28, plus a single zero, a double zero, and an American Eagle. The payout on any of the numbers including the zeros and the eagle was 27 to 1. In the 1800s, roulette spread all over both Europe and the U.S., becoming one of the most famous and most popular casino games. Some call roulette the "King of Casino Games", probably because it was associated with the glamour of the casinos in Monte Carlo. (François Blanc actually established the first casinos there.)

A legend tells François Blanc supposedly bargained with the devil to obtain the secrets of roulette. The legend is based on the fact that the sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel (from 1 to 36) is 666, which is the "Number of the Beast."

Types of bets

Inside bets

Straight: a single number. The chip is placed entirely on the middle of a number square.

Split: a bet on two adjoining numbers, either on the vertical or horizontal (as in 14-17 or 8-9). The chip is placed on the line between these numbers.

Street: a bet on three numbers on a single horizontal line. The chip is placed on the edge of line of a number at the end of the line (either the left or the right, depending on the layout).

Corner (or square): a bet on four numbers in a square layout (as in 11-12-14-15). The chip is placed at the horizontal and vertical intersection of the lines between the numbers.

Sixline (or 'sixaine'): a bet on two adjoining streets, with the chip placed at the corresponding intersection, as if in between where two street bets would be placed.



Outside bets

Even Money Bets: a bet on 18 numbers. This is placed in the box representing the attribute (black/red/low/high/even/odd) that you wish to bet on.

Group Bets: a bet on the first, second, or third group of twelve numbers.

Column: a bet on all 12 numbers on any of the three vertical lines (such as 1-4-7-10 on down to 34). The chip is placed on the space below the final number in this string.

Play Roulette online for FREE - just one click here.