Roulette is an old casino classic that depends solely on chance for its success. While not as widely played as slots or video poker machines, roulette still draws crowds and remains one of the most recognizable casino games globally.
Roulette involves spinning a ball around a circular wheel containing numbered slots, bets are placed on where it lands within the 36 sections and odds calculated based on how often certain numbers or groups of numbers occur. Though many believe certain numbers (such as 7), will appear more frequently than others, this is not actually the case.
Roulette was first invented by French physicist Blaise Pascal during his pursuit of creating perpetual motion machines in 17th-century France. Pascal realized that chances of striking gold on any particular number on a Roulette wheel did not depend upon whether or not it had already been spin, therefore making a Straight Bet (betting on just one number) less likely.
Players place bets by placing chips onto a betting mat with clear instructions for every type of bet written out on it, along with odds that do not depend on past results or any other variables. Roulette can be an intensely fast-paced game and the betting table may quickly fill up; to help reduce clutter quickly place bets only after winning bets have been cleared from the table by the dealer.
Avoiding straight bets should not be your main goal when playing roulette; rather, remembering that this game of chance requires skill or strategy alone to beat its built-in house edge is key to successful gameplay. Furthermore, players should stay within their budget when gambling and refrain from trying to outwit the system by watching other player actions or thinking they know something which might elude the dealer.
Traditional roulette balls were traditionally constructed out of ivory, while modern balls are usually manufactured out of plastic or resin that mimics its color and feel. Size and weight have an impactful influence on how smoothly and quickly a roulette ball rolls and jumps from number to number when spinning wheels; for instance, small light ceramic balls make more revolutions on them before appearing unexpectedly than their larger ivorine counterparts.