European Roulette is played by a small ball being spun around an already spinning wheel containing 37 numbered slots. When the ball comes to rest in one of these slots and the wheel stops the number of the slot is the winning number. The object of all forms of roulette is to correctly predict the winning number. There are many ways of betting which number is the winning number and the payoff is determined by how you bet.

European Roulette has 37 slots with numbers 1 through 36 and a single 0 (zero). The numbered slots are coloured red or black with 0 being green. European Roulette offers a better chance of winning than American Roulette as an American Roulette wheel has an extra slot, 00, giving a total of 38 slots.

History of Roulette

Unlike most casino games Roulette has a well known and written about past. Roulette was first devised in France in the 17th century. In 1842 the Blanc brothers added a 0 (zero) to the Roulette wheel giving the house an edge on the players.

In the early 1800’s Roulette spread to the USA where an extra slot, 00 (double zero), was added to give the house an even better edge.

One other point of interest here is the urban myth that one of the Blanc brothers sold their sole to the Devil to acquire the knowledge of how to create European Roulette. This stems from the fact that if you add up all of the numbers 1 to 37 they add up to 666, the ‘number of the beast’.