History of Roulette

The history of roulette is one full of speculation and uncertainty. The most popular story about the birth of roulette is that it was devised in the 17 th century in France by the mathematician Blaise Pascal. Apparently, he was working on perpetual motion devices and created a wheel that was later transformed into a game – a wheel that has been spinning perpetually to this day in casinos all around the world.

Other historians claim that a French monk invented roulette to help him break the dry monotony of his monastery life. Another tale goes that it was invented by the Chinese, originating from an old game where the object was to arrange 37 statuettes of animals in some sort of box to add up to 666. The story continues that the game was later played in Tibet and eventually picked up by French Dominican monks. One of the monks supposedly changed the statuettes into numbers from 0 to 36 and arranged them along the rim of a wheel.

Another legend tells of another Frenchman, Francois Blanc, who supposedly bargained with the devil to obtain the secrets of roulette. This is why, it is said, that the numbers on the roulette wheel add up to 666, the number of the beast.

What we do know about roulette, is that in 1842, Francois and Louis Blanc added the "0" to the roulette wheel to increase the house advantage. Later, when roulette was brought to the US in the early 1800’s, another pocket, 00, was added to the game to increase the house edge even more.

Around the same time the game increased in popularity and spread all over Europe, and began spreading of the U.S. as well, becoming one of the casino’s most popular games. To this day, Europe maintains its single zero roulette wheels, which also spread to Australia and parts of New Zealand, while in the States, the double zero wheel reigns supreme.