Roulette is a casino game that’s played on a spinning wheel. It’s one of the most popular games in casinos, and it’s also available for play online. The wheel is a wooden disk that spins around a spinning ball, and it’s divided into compartments numbered from 1 to 36 in red and black, plus one green division on European wheels.
The game originated in France, where it was first mentioned in a gambling regulations document in 1758, although it is thought to have originated from an earlier French version of Roly Poly and Even Odd. It was later introduced to the US in 1843, and its popularity rapidly spread throughout North America, Europe, and the world.
Unlike most games of chance, there is some skill to roulette. You can choose which numbers to bet on, how much to bet, and what type of bets you want to place. But most people assume that the game is a pure exercise in luck.
While there are many types of roulette games, they all share the same basic mechanics and rules. Before the wheel is rolled, players place chips on the betting mats. They tell the dealer how much their bets are worth and she will indicate that value on her “wheel” of chips. Once she’s finished, the winning bets get paid out and the losing ones are cleared off the table.
In roulette, each player gets a unique color of chip to distinguish them from other players at the table. Unlike normal casino chips, which have no value outside of the wheel, the roulette chips are worth their face values on the table before they’re placed.
Once the spin is complete, the ball will settle on one of the divisions. The dealer will then remove the marker that indicates which number was hit on the last decision, and the betting begins again.
If you’re betting on a single number, the odds are 35 to 1. In contrast, if you’re betting on an outside bet, the odds are 1 to 1. This is because there’s no house edge in an outside bet, so it doesn’t matter what the numbers are or how large your bet is.
Roulette is a relatively simple game to learn, but it does require some skill. It’s easy to get confused by the different bet options, and some people make mistaken choices that cost them money. But if you use some basic strategies, and know the rules of the game, you can minimize your losses and maximize your wins.
There are three main variations of the game: American, European and French. Each version has a different layout on the wheel.
The most popular roulette variant is European, which has a lower house edge than American. It also has a higher probability of winning.