A game of chance where a ball rolls around a wheel and people place bets on its landing on specific numbers. There are also outside bets, which involve betting on a large group of numbers. The payouts for these bets are lower, but the odds of winning are much higher.
Origin
Despite the many legends that surround its history, the game of roulette actually evolved from older games such as hoca and portique. The modern version of the game was first recorded in 1716 in Bordeaux. The earliest wheels were similar to those used today and featured numbered slots from 1 to 36 as well as red and black sections.
The fanciful stories about the origin of roulette include its invention by the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal, who was trying to create a perpetual motion machine and instead invented the wheel that is now known as roulette. Other theories suggest that the game originated in China, where it was then taught to Europeans by Dominican monks.
The name of the game may be derived from French words for little wheel or small toothed device, or from English rouleau (“little wheel”). A rouleau is also a wheel that engravers use to mark a plate with rows of dots. Philately, a rouleau is a tool used to make short cuts in sheets of postage stamps so that they can be separated easily.
