Roullete is a game of chance in which players wager on which number or section of the wheel a ball will land in. Bets are made by placing chips on a betting mat, the precise placement of the chip indicating the bet being made. The bets may be placed on a single number, various groupings of numbers, colors (red or black) or odds/evens. A single bet wins if the ball comes to rest on one of the numbers or on the 0 or 00, but loses if it stops on any other number.
The roulette wheel consists of a solid wood disk, slightly convex in shape and painted alternately red and black with thirty-six compartments numbered from 1 to 36 in a non-consecutive pattern. There is also a green division on European wheels marked with a 0, while American roulette wheels have two additional green compartments labelled 00.
A single ball is spun around the rim of the wheel and, when it comes to rest, the bets will be paid out according to their odds of winning. A winning bet pays out 35 to 1, a single number wins 37 to 1, and a row of three or more numbers pays 392 to 1.
As with any game, the house edge in roulette is fixed, but there are a variety of methods used by gamblers to try to overcome this edge. Some methods are illegal, while others are not. The basic strategy employed by professional gamblers involves looking for a table with a high percentage of wins and betting against it. Casinos are aware of the problem and do their best to avoid these techniques, but they can’t stop gamblers from trying to win by prediction.