Roulette

roulette, (from French: “small wheel”), gambling game in which players bet on which red or black numbered compartment of a revolving wheel a small ball (spun in the opposite direction) will come to rest within. Bets are placed on a table marked to correspond with the compartments of the wheel. It is played in casinos worldwide. Roulette is a banking game, and all bets are placed against the bank—that is, the house, or the proprietor of the game. As a big-time betting game, it has had its popularity superseded in the United States and the Caribbean islands by others, notably craps, blackjack, and poker.

Fanciful stories about the origin of roulette include its invention by the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal, by a French monk, and by the Chinese, from whom it was supposedly transmitted to France by Dominican monks. In reality, roulette was derived in France in the early 18th century from the older games hoca and portique, and it is first mentioned under its current name in 1716 in Bordeaux. Following several modifications, roulette achieved its present layout and wheel structure about 1790, after which it rapidly gained status as the leading game in the casinos and gambling houses of Europe. During the years 1836 to 1933, roulette was banned in France.