A croupier (dealer) spins a roulette wheel that has numbered pockets ranging from 1 to 36, plus 0 and 00. The numbers are red and black, except for the 0 and 00, which are green.
Players give the dealer their money and ask for colored chips, indicating what value they want to assign them. Then they place their bets on specific number slots.
Variations
Roulette is one of the most popular casino games, and there are many different variations of this classic game. Some of them offer special betting rules and bets, while others feature additional features that can boost your winning potential. For example, Double Ball Roulette from IGT uses two balls to make bets and offers payouts up to 1:12,000 for a straight bonus win. Other Roulette variants include Lighting Roulette from Evolution Gaming, which offers huge payouts of up to 500x your bet.
Origins
The origins of roulette are a bit murky. Some claim that it was invented by the seventeenth-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal as a byproduct of his work on a perpetual motion machine. Others think it derived from the Italian board game biribi or the English game of Hoca. Still others believe that it was influenced by Chinese board games brought to Europe by Dominican monks.
Whatever its exact genesis, roulette quickly found widespread popularity throughout Europe. As European immigrants migrated to America, they brought with them some of these popular gambling games, including roulette. As the game gained in popularity, it gradually evolved into its current form. For example, in 1860, the Blanc brothers added a single-zero version to their casino in Monte Carlo, which became known as European roulette.