When playing roullete, it’s important to understand the odds of different bet types. This will help you maximize your winning potential. Many betting systems claim to beat the odds of roulette, but they are often based on unsound theory.
A basic strategy is to choose outside bets. These are wagers that the winning number is in the first or last dozen on the table layout (1-18 or 19-36). There are also special even-money bets called dozens that offer higher payouts.
Bets
There are many different types of bets available in roullete. Some are more conservative and others offer a higher payout if you win. The simplest and most common is the Straight up bet, which covers 17 numbers and costs 9 chips. Another option is the Voisins bet, which covers a number of numbers on either side of it and pays 35 to 1. The final option is the Neighbours bet, which places your chips around a particular number and the adjacent ones. This bet offers a much lower payout of 2 to 1 and has a higher risk.
Other outside bets include the Split Bet, known as a cheval in French and the Six Number Bet or Six Line Bet. This bet requires you to place your chip(s) so they straddle the line between two rows on the layout and pays 17 to 1.
Origins
The game of roulette has many fanciful origin stories. The most prevalent is that it was invented by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal in the 17th century as he worked on an unsuccessful attempt to create a perpetual motion machine. Other historians think that it evolved from earlier games such as portique, hoca, bassette, and roly poly.
These earlier games incorporated elements that would become important to roulette, such as the use of a wheel and betting on numbers. As the game evolved, it eventually made its way to America where it was influenced by European immigrants who brought with them some of their favorite gambling games. In 1860, the Blanc brothers introduced a single-zero version of the game to their casino in Monte Carlo, thus giving birth to modern European roulette as we know it today.