The roulette wheel is one of the oldest wheels in human history. It’s a very fascinating wheel, whose name originates from France meaning ‘little wheel’. Roulette-like games were played long before modern day roulette appeared in casinos across the world.
It is a particularly exciting game, but easy one too. Many are in doubt whether playing roulette requires skill or just plain luck. Well, if knowing the rules and types of bets, as well as strategies and systems can be counted as skill, then yes, it does take skill. But, even if you don’t have such skills, you can still play roulette and win if you are lucky enough.
You probably guessed right by now, roulette was invented in France. It wasn’t invented with the intention of creating a gambling game. It was part of an invention that would give perpetual free energy, a concept still present in the science community. However, when this failed, the wheel found its way into the gambling world as a roulette wheel.
The roulette wheel was invented somewhere around 1796. It differs a lot from today’s roulette wheels because of improvements made in the design and technology to make the outcomes less predictable. But, the concept remained the same: the wheel spins, and players have to guess on which number the ball will fall. A straightforward and easy game…
The first wheels didn’t have the green number 0 or 00 at all. It was later added when the game started being used by casino establishments somewhere in the mid-1800s. It was added as an additional chance for players to win more money when betting on single numbers, thus the European roulette wheel was introduced.
This wheel first appeared in a German casino, whose intention was to steal customers from its competition with this new feature. When the game made it to America, the American wheel was invented which has an additional number, and thus much worse odds than the European wheel. Various roulette wheels were invented in the meantime, but the American and European are the most prominent roulette variations.
There will be a brief confusion the moment you try to learn the betting options in roulette, but when you take a closer look at the betting layout, you realize they are pretty much logical. There are two types of bets: outside bets and inside bets.
The outside bets are:
Inside bets are:
These are the most common bets you will find, but depending on the casino and the game, for example, in French roulette, you will find some additional bets and rules like En Prison, La Partage, as well as Orphelins, Le tiers du cylinder, Voisins du zero etc.
The game starts when all players have made their bets. To do that you have to place your chips on the desired bet according to the ones listed above. Then the croupier (which is the same as a dealer only for roulette) will spin the wheel and drop the ball inside it. When the ball settles on a number, the croupier revises which bets are won and which bets are lost. The winning bets are paid out immediately and the game continues with another round.
It’s common knowledge among roulette players that European and French roulette offer a better house edge than American roulette. This is because they have one number less on the wheel, which automatically cuts the house edge in half.
For example, the house edge in American roulette is 5.26%, which is very high for online casino standards considering there are games that offer an edge twice lower than that. In comparison, European and French roulette have an edge of only 2.7%.
Roulette is one of those games that is fascinating for people that like to deal with numbers i.e. mathematicians. This is why you will find many betting systems that are supposed to work on roulette games like the Martingale, Labouchère and the D’Alembert systems, which are the most popular ones. Today there are even people claiming to have developed software for successful roulette playing, but if they worked they wouldn’t be selling them, right?
The average roulette player has tried more betting systems than any other casino player. The trouble with systems is that most of them don’t provide accurate predictions, nor can be used on short term. Systems are based on a notion that you can hit a pattern in the outcomes, but it simply does not exist. You may be getting ahead with a system, but at one point you are bound to hit a losing streak.
It’s safe to say that roulette betting systems are still sort of a myth, because there hasn’t been a single evidence that they made roulette players successful. There are no due numbers and even if you have been hitting red numbers several times in a row, there is no guarantee that black is due because they have the same chances of appearing.
The only benefit you can get from betting systems is the benefit of control and planning of your betting patterns, which in return minimizes losses. And that is the entire point, to control your losses until you have hit the big win that everybody is waiting for.
Roulette is probably the one casino game that can generate your biggest losses, but biggest wins too. It takes only one rushed adrenaline built-up judgement to make a big single number bet and lose everything or come out as the coolest roulette winner in the casino.
It’s still argued whether roulette is a game of pure chance, which most probably it is because it’s built in a way in which no player can control the outcomes as opposed to, for example, poker or blackjack. Hence, this is not a game for the faint of heart. It can literally kill you instantly!
However, if you are determined to master the game, we would advise for you to spare enough practice time through free roulette games at online casinos. That way you can try the systems for yourself without risking money and determine if they work at all. Try different systems for different roulette games and see what happens.
