Roulette is a casino game of chance that has been entertaining and enthralling gamblers since the 17th century. It is an easy enough game for novices to enjoy and has a surprising level of depth that can bring in big profits for serious betters. It is also a very fast-paced game that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Roulette, French for “little wheel,” involves a spinning wheel with 36 numbers plus 0 (on American tables) and a table where players place chips correlating to the number slots the ball could land in. A croupier then sends the little white ball around and it will come to rest in one of the slots on the wheel. The dealer will then pay out winning bets and clear off the losing ones.
Each Roulette table carries a placard describing the minimum and maximum bets for that particular table. Typically, the minimum bet is $5 and the maximum is $1,000 for outside bets. In between are the “inside” bets, which are placed on a number or groups of numbers. The inside bets pay out at a higher rate than the outside bets, so they carry a higher house edge.
Before betting begins, a player places his or her money on the table and asks for “colour.” The dealer will then parcel out coloured Roulette chips to the player. These chips have a value equal to the amount of money the player has given the dealer.
It is important to remember that while there are strategies for increasing your odds in Roulette, it is largely a game of luck. While some people try to cheat at the game by watching their fellow gamblers, or even attempting to alter the odds of the wheel itself, they are unlikely to succeed.
The wheel consists of a solid wooden disk that is slightly convex with thirty-six metal compartments, called “canoes” by Roulette croupiers, that are alternately painted red and black and numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. The last compartment, on European wheels, is green and carries the number 0. On American wheels there are two additional green pockets on opposite sides of the wheel that are marked 00. The spinning of the wheel and the placement of the balls are controlled by a series of pulleys and levers that make up the Roulette mechanism.