Roulette is a game of chance in which players place bets on numbered pockets on a roulette wheel. A ball is then spun around the wheel and if it stops on your bet, you win.
The odds of winning vary between bet types. Inside bets, which involve betting on individual numbers or small groups of numbers, have lower odds but higher payouts.
Origins
Roulette has a long and varied history. It is thought to have originated in France in 1655 when the French mathematician Blaise Pascal inadvertently invented it while trying to create a perpetual motion machine. However, similar games with a wheel and slots – including portique, hoca, bassette, roly poly, and even-odd – were played for centuries before this.
The name roullete, which means “little wheel,” suggests its French origins, but other websites point to supposed ancestors in English — notably, the game of Roly Poly and the game of Even-Odd — and Italian, such as Hoca. Interestingly, the word also appears in philately as a term for the wheel used to perforate sheets of postage stamps.