Roulette is a casino and gambling game (Roulette is a French word meaning "small wheel"). A croupier turns a round roulette wheel which has 37 or 38 separately numbered pockets in which a ball must land. The main pockets are numbered from 1 to 36 and change between red and black, with number 1 being red. In addition there is a pocket numbered 0 of green color. In most roulette wheels in the United States but not in Europe, there is a second zero compartment marked 00, also colored green.

If a player bets on a single number and wins, the pay is 35 to 1. This means the bet is multiplied by 35, while also the bet is returned, in total it is multiplied by 36. (In a lottery one would say 'the prize is 36 times the cost of the ticket', because in a lottery the cost of the ticket is not returned additionally.)

There is a common misconception that the green numbers are "house numbers" and that by betting on them one "gains the house edge." In fact, it is true that the house's advantage comes from the existence of the green numbers (a game without them would be statistically fair) however they are no more or less likely to come up than any other number.

A player can bet on numbers, combinations, ranges, odds/evens and even colors.

Types of roulette
Generally, there are two types of roulette, the American roulette and the European roulette. The basic rules of the game are the same in both, the main difference being that in American roulette there are two "green numbers", zero and double-zero, thus increasing house odds, whereas in European roulette there is only the zero. There is also a difference in using chips in the two versions; American roulette uses so-called "non-value" chips, meaning that all chips belonging to the same player are of the same value determined at the time of the purchase and all chips belonging to one player are of the same value, and the player has to cash in the chips at the roulette table. European rulette uses standard casino chips of differing values as bets, which makes the game a little bit more confusing for the croupier and the players.

In traditional European roulette, the table is also much larger than in the American version, and the croupier uses a long tool called a rake to clear out the chips and to distribute winnings, whereas in American roulette the croupier does this by hand.

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