Roulette is a casino game of chance, glamour, and mystery that has entertained players since the 17th century. The game is easy to learn and provides a surprising depth of strategy for those who are serious about it.
The wheel consists of a solid wooden disk, slightly convex in shape, with metal separators around its circumference and compartments or pockets between them (called frets by roulette croupiers). Thirty-six of these compartments are painted alternately red and black and numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. A second green compartment carries the number 0. Two more green compartments on American-style wheels have the numbers 0 and 00. The spindle is perfectly balanced and rotates smoothly in an almost frictionless manner.
Each player receives a set of roulette chips that are unique to the table. They have no value outside of the roulette table and are used only to make bets during a roulette session. When the dealer clears the table of losing bets, the winning ones are paid and the process begins again.
There are many different betting systems that people use when playing roulette. Some are simple and some quite complicated, but all of them try to beat the house edge. The most popular of these are the Martingale system and the Labouchere technique. Both of these require you to place even only chip bets and increase your stake each time you lose.
Roulette is a great casino game to play and is a must for anyone visiting Monte Carlo. It is recommended that novices play the European version of the game as it has a much lower house edge than the American variant. This means that your chances of winning are magnified. The European game also has a couple of rules that are good to know; la partage and en prison.