Roulette is one of the most popular casino games. There are many stories about its origin, including one from 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal.
The game consists of a wheel with 36 red and black spaces plus a green zero. Each space corresponds to a betting area on the table. Each bet type has a different payout and odds of winning.
Origin
There are many fanciful stories about the origins of roulette. However, the game as it is played today appears to have originated in France. It is based on older games such as hoca and portique. The wheel used in roulette has 38 (or 37 on modern European/Latin American tables) divisions numbered from 0 to 36. Players place bets by laying down chips on a betting mat that corresponds to the numbers of the wheel.
The most plausible theory is that Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French mathematician and physicist, invented the game while staying at a monastery in 1655. He was experimenting to create a perpetual motion machine, but the primitive version of roulette that emerged from his work was surprisingly similar to its modern-day counterparts.
