ROULETTE

(from French: small wheel), gambling game in which players bet on which red or black numbered compartment of a revolving wheel a small ball (spun in the opposite direction) will come to rest within. Bets are placed on a table marked to correspond with the compartments of the wheel. It is a gambling game universally played in the gambling casinos of Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa. Roulette is a banking game, and all bets are placed against the bankthat is the house or proprietor of the game. As a big-time betting game its popularity has been superseded in the United States and the Caribbean Islands by others, notably Craps and Blackjack. Fanciful stories about the invention of Roulette include its invention by the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal, by a French monk, and by the Chinese, from whom it was transmitted to France by Dominican monks. Whatever its antecedents and origins, Roulette emerged only in the late 18th century as a glamorous attraction in the casinos of Europe, where it has long been associated with the gaming rooms at Monte-Carlo.