Before the wheel is spun, players place their chips on the betting table. They can choose to bet on a single number, a group of numbers, or colors. Players have until the croupier says “No more bets” to finish placing their chips.
The roulette wheel consists of thirty-six compartments painted alternately red and black, plus two green ones on American wheels that carry the numbers 0 and 00.
Origins
The origins of roulette are not well documented, but it appears to have emerged in the 1700s as an offshoot of older games like hoca and portique. The modern game is based on a revolving wheel with 38 (or 37 on European/Latin American tables) compartments that are marked with the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. A ball is then spun into one of these areas, and players place bets on which number they think the ball will land in by placing chips on a betting mat. Most historians believe that Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French mathematician, invented the first version of the game.