If you close your eyes, you can probably picture a roulette set-up - the table, the wheel and the croupier. We've all seen scenes in the movies where a roulette game is front and center, the main event. In many cases, there are elegantly clad men and beautifully dressed ladies in the scene, too, but, as far as the game itself is concerned, these figures are optional accessories. When you play online roulette, in particular, you can leave the tux in the closet.
The basics of roulette are, as mentioned, the roulette wheel, the table (on which the betting layout can be found), and the dealer (called the croupier). The object of the game is to pick the winning number that the ball will land on when it finishes bouncing around the wheel and when the wheel finishes spinning.
There are two different kinds of roulette wheels: European and American. The European wheel has 37 slots numbered 0-36. (The house edge in European roulette is 2.7%) The American roulette wheel has 38 numbers because of the additional double zero (00). (Because of this extra number on the wheel, the house edge in American roulette jumps to 5.3%.).
The Roulette Wheel is a Work of Art and Science
The roulette wheel looks like a round basin on a spindle. A real, land-based wheel is about 3 feet wide and weighs about 100 pounds (the virtual, online roulette wheel is considerably smaller and a whole heck of a lot lighter). A roulette wheel is a carefully constructed piece of equipment with a perfectly balanced mechanism. The absolute randomness of the spins depends on the precision with which it is made. The perimeter of the wheel is made of polished wood and it is evenly divided between red and black pockets and one or two green pockets (for 0 and 00). (For the record, the pocket is the indentation on the wheel that the ball comes to rest in.)
The numbers on a roulette wheel are not arranged in high-low order, nor are they placed randomly. The numbers are ordered in a way as to achieve a mathematical balance between high and low, red and black and even and odd, with red and black numbers alternating and with red numbers positioned opposite the black numbers. Usually two odd numbers alternate with two even numbers and every odd number is opposite the next higher even number. Numbers face the outside of an American wheel; the numbers on a European wheel face inward.
The French Play Roulette with a French Twist
The European wheel is sometimes called a French wheel and many of the terms used in roulette are French. In French roulette (which has one zero), the groups of numbers (and certain correlating bets) are divided into groups called arcs. These arcs are as follows:
The "Voisins du Zero" arc contains the contiguous numbers: 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, and 25.
The "Tier du Cylindre" arc contains the numbers (on the opposite side of the wheel): 27, 13, 36, 11, 30, 8, 23, 10, 5, 24, 16, and 33.
The "Orphans" and "Orphelins" arcs contain the remaining 8 numbers: 17, 34, 6 (the "Orphans"): 1, 20, 14, 31, 9 (the "Orphelins").
The Layout on the Table is Where the Betting is Done
The layout of the betting area on the table in American and European games is almost the same, except for the extra zero in the American layout. Also, on the American table, all numbers (except the zeroes) are colored as they are on the wheel (in black or red); on the European table, all the numbers are white. Roulette layouts have two betting areas. The inside betting area contains the individual numbers on the layout. The outside betting area has boxes for the columns, red/black and odd/even and different groups of numbers. The numbers on the inside are arranged in 12 rows of three numbers forming three vertical columns. The 0 and 00 are at the top of the columns.
