Roulette, being a French word, means ‘little wheel’ and is a casino game which has numbers on it as well as red and black colors.
Bets are usually placed on either several or a single number whether the number is either odd or even or even on the red and black colors as well.
The croupier or dealer then spins the wheel and spins the ball in the opposite direction until the latter loses momentum and falls into one of the pockets that is numbered – and which determine the winning number and color.
There are two types of roulette namely American and European Roulette, and the first difference between the two is that the American Roulette Wheel has 38 numbers while the European Roulette Wheel has 37 numbers.
Since the American Roulette Wheel has numbers 0, 00 and the numbers from 1 to 36 as opposed to the omission of the 00 number from its European format, this gives the house an advantage of 5.26% in American Roulette but only a 2.7% advantage in European Roulette.
Another major difference between the two types of roulette is the color of the gambling chips where the American format will give players different colored chips while the European format gives players will give the same colored chips to players.
The advantage that this has for players of the European type of roulette is that they need to rely on their memory to know which chips/ bets are theirs among other players.
Another interesting difference is if the ball falls on zero (0) in the European form of the game, the gambler can use the en prison rule where he can either decide to surrender one half of his outside wagers or leave them for the next game.