Roulette is a game played with a small ball on a spinning wheel. It is one of the oldest casino games. It was invented in the 17th century by French mathematician Blaise Pascal.
Players place bets on different sections of the table. They can choose to bet on individual numbers or small groups of numbers. The house edge for inside bets is higher than outside bets.
Origins
There are many theories about the origins of roulette, most involving the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal. He supposedly invented the game while working on a device for creating perpetual motion. Other historians have credited Dominican monks with creating the modern version of the game as a way to provide entertainment inside their monasteries. However, similar games based on a rotating wheel had been around for more than a century before the French invented their version of roulette.
Other theories point to a more likely origin in China, from which the game was brought to France by Chinese monks who taught it to the Dominican monks. The game has since spread to casinos and other gambling establishments worldwide. The word ‘roulette’ is also used to describe a variety of other devices, including engravers’ wheels and the holes perforated into postage stamps.
Variations
Roulette games come in many forms. Some variations are more popular than others. Some have unique rules that give them an edge over other games. For instance, European Roulette has 37 numbered pockets on the wheel and includes one zero, which gives it a lower house edge than other versions of the game. Other variants include Double Ball Roulette from IGT, which has a bonus game that pays up to 1:12,000 for a straight bonus win. Other games feature multipliers like Lighting Roulette from Evolution Gaming.
On a more mathematical level, a roulette is the curve described by a point attached to a given curve as it rolls without slipping along another fixed curve. The generators of the two curves must be subject to continuous congruence transformations. The resulting curve is called a roulette and can be any of a number of different kinds of curves, including cycloids, epicycloids, hypocycloids, trochoid, and involutes.