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Roulette History
Like most games of chance, the history of Roulette is partially uncertain, and partially disputed. There are many stories of how the game came to be, and though we don’t know for sure which one is true, one thing is for certain- the tales are hardly boring. Here are some of the biggest dates and facts affecting the history of the world’s oldest gambling game:
- The world "Roulette" is French and means ‘little wheel’, presumably after the famous wheel used in the game.
- In 1657, it is said that French scientist Blaise Pascal took a vacation at a French casino and gambled. He was fascinated by the games of chance, and being a scientist and mathematician, invented the game of roulette, which is a great numbers and probability game. This is the story that is generally accepted as the true origin of the game.
- About the same time as the Pascal story comes a rumor that a monk in a French monastery invented the game out of boredom. Monastic life can be quite boring
- In 1720, the English played a game called ‘roly-poly’, which is thought to be one of the earliest versions of the modern-day game. But a mere 20 years later, all gambling throughout the UK and all of its lands (including the US at the time) was outlawed.
- In the late 1700s, the first modern-day Roulette wheel with black and red spaces appeared, also in France. This wheel featured two zeroes on it, which ironically now is the American wheel and not the European one. The European one, with a single zero, was not invented until 1842 by the Blanc brother, Louis and Francois.
- Roulette first came to the United States by way of New Orleans. At the time, New Orleans was full of seedy casino owners who were just looking to cheat their customers and make an extra buck. They would often pay much smaller odds than they were supposed to in order to turn an already-high house advantage into an even bigger one. Finally, customers figured out what was going on and stopped patronizing casino operators that pulled these kinds of stunts.
- In order to re-attract customers that they lost by being unscrupulous, casino owners adopted the double-zero wheel and had a set amount of odds for it that still stand to this day. For that reason, the double zero wheel is called the "American Wheel", and the single zero is called "European".
