What is Roulette?
Roulette is a table game that was forged out of the rubble of a failed experiment by the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, in 1655. He was trying to invent a perpetual motion machine, and instead developed one of the world’s most popular casino games.
Pascal’s roulette wheel had 36 numbered pockets: 18 red and 18 black, with a ball in the middle that spins as the wheel turns. Players place bets on the outcome of where the ball will settle before the wheel is spun, and hope that either their number or colour comes up.
As roulette’s popularity started moving across the continent, modifications were made to the wheel to help increase the house’s advantage. In 1842, King Charles III of Monaco commissioned a roulette wheel to be designed with an ingrained house edge, which introduced the single-zero pocket. This pocket belongs to the house, meaning that all bets are lost when the ball lands on it.
When the roulette wheel reached North America, a double-zero pocket was added to further enhance the casino’s house edge. These changes have split the game into different variants, all of which are available to play at the best roulette casinos online.
Although roulette is a game of chance, this hasn’t prevented great thinkers of the game from concocting strategies on how best to approach the wheel. While there are no guarantees in roulette, the logic of these strategists is interesting to trace – check out the systems of Martingale, D’Alembert, and Paroli to get inside the minds of the roulette greats.