Roullete (French: Roulette) is a casino game in which a ball is dropped into a spinning wheel with numbered holes and players bet on which hole the ball will land in. It is one of the most popular casino games worldwide, renowned for its glamour and mystery. Like other casino games, the game has a multitude of bets and betting systems that have been developed over the years. Some are simple, others complex and supposedly effective at beating the house edge.
Before the dealer spins the roulette wheel, players place their bets by laying down chips on a betting mat, the precise placement of the chip indicating the bet. Players may bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the colors red and black or whether the number is odd or even. There are also bets on the symmetry of a dozen, such as the first, second or third dozen.
The Roulette wheel consists of a solid, slightly convex wooden disk with thirty-six compartments containing alternately red and black and numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. A 37th compartment, painted green on European wheels and 00 on American ones, is reserved for the zero. The compartments are separated by metal partitions known as “separators” or “frets” and the whole wheel is mounted on a spindle.
Roulette is played with specialized chips that differ from normal casino chips in color and value. When a player cashes in his winning bet he tells the dealer how much he wishes to receive and she indicates that amount on her ‘wheel’ of chips and gives them to him. The losing bets are cleared from the table and the dealer resets the roulette wheel for the next round of play.
When playing the game, players should separate their roulette chips from regular casino chips to avoid confusion when placing bets. Roulette chips have no value away from the roulette wheel and cannot be redeemed for their original value. Likewise, if a player wishes to leave the table, he must leave his roulette chips on the betting area and tell the dealer that he would like to cash them in.