Opera in four acts. Libretto by the composer, after the novel by Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky. Music by Sergey Prokofiev. First performed on 29 April 1929 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels). First performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Both text and music come in for resolutely avant-garde treatment, while the characters and their obsession with obtaining money through gambling are portrayed with cruelty and sarcasm.

The setting is a sumptuous German casino and the plot closely follows the first and last chapters of Dostoyevsky's novel. It draws a perspicacious but harsh portrait of a group of characters ensnared in a world where everything is false and harrowing, a world whose inhabitants are haunted by the constant, infernal spinning of the roulette wheel, the true protagonist of the opera.

The music reflects the deeply insecure atmosphere in which the gamblers live.