Roulette, the game at the center of the narrative, symbolizes anxiety over the potential upheaval of social class and wealth. A game of chance that offers potentially significant payoffs, roulette represents a way in which the rigid order and hierarchy of 19th-century society, in which wealth is usually inherited, might be overturned. For characters like Alexey, and even Polina, roulette symbolizes hope and freedom from the confines of social hierarchy.

Several characters demonstrate obsessions with the numbers and calculations surrounding roulette and their winnings from the game. When Alexey first goes to the roulette tables to play for Polina, he observes an odd behavior on the part of many players. As he says, “They sit with slips of paper […] note down the numbers that come up, count, figure their chances, calculate, finally […] lose as much as we mere mortals who play without calculating” (144). In other words, Alexey observes the peculiar significance that gamblers give to specific numbers and sequences of numbers. He also observes their attempts to “calculate” winning bets based on this. Of course, no such calculation makes a difference. No one number is any more likely to come up than another, and the amount of times numbers have shown before, or in what sequence, makes no difference to their present likelihood of arriving.