Roullete (or roulette, French for little wheel) is a casino game that is played with a spinning wheel and a ball. The game is popular worldwide and is available in many casinos, both online and offline. There are many different betting options, with different odds and payouts for winning bets. The game is easy to learn for newcomers, but it also provides a surprising level of depth and strategy for serious players.

There are a few things that every player should know before playing roulette. First, choose a table within your budget. Each roulette table carries a placard describing the minimum and maximum bets allowed. This information can help you determine the maximum amount of money that you want to spend on a single bet or on a series of bets. Each bet type has a different maximum, so you should choose the one that fits your bankroll.

The history of roulette begins more than 300 years ago, with 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal being credited with inventing it. It was probably derived from older games such as hoca and portique, and achieved its present layout and wheel structure around 1790. Early wheels had red for the zero and black for the number slots, but the color green was introduced in the late 1800s to reduce confusion.

While there are a few ways to play roulette, the most common is to place bets on individual numbers or groups of numbers. These bets are called inside bets and outside bets. There are also special bets that cover a group of numbers or a section of the roulette wheel, known as announced bets.

The roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape and with 37 or 38 metal partitions (called a pocket) on its rim. The pockets are numbered from 1 to 36, with one or two zero pockets. In addition to the numbers, there are two other important symmetries: The low red and black numbers are on one side of the zero, while the high red and low black numbers are on the other side. This creates a so-called second dozen, which can be bet on with a probability of 2-1. There are a few other symmetries, but these are less important for the average gambler.