The History Of Roulette


Roulette is a game that is believed to have been started in the 17th century by a French man called Blaise Pascal. It is thought that he came up with the game by fusing various card games like Ace of hearts, some English wheel games like roly-poly and a French board game also called roulette.

A French novel published in 1796 clearly describes the roulette game. The novel describes the roulette wheel as having two pockets that were for the bank. The novel goes on to talk about two betting spaces meaning that the wheel must have been in the middle of the table with the two wings of the table being used for placing bets.

In 1843 Germany, two Frenchmen introduced the single zero roulette version. Their idea was to out compete other casinos by offering both the traditional double zero wheel as well as their newly invented single zero wheel which reduced the house advantage.

American roulettes as described in the book Hoyle gambling book published in 1886, had a wheel with numbers 0 – 28 and an additional double zero (00). The wheel also had a slot with the picture of an eagle. The slot with the eagle belonged to the house thus it gave the house an extra edge.

In 19th century, roulette had gained a lot of fame and was found in every casino. After the abolishment of gambling in Germany, the only legal European casino that remained was at Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo is where the single zero roulette wheel gained dominance over the double zero wheel and thus became the symbol of European roulettes. In United States, the double zero wheel remained superior.

With time, the Americans introduced roulette that had a wheel right on top of the table. This was done as a measure to curb cheating from players who would place things under the wheel to make it have bias. This brought the development of a much-simplified table-betting layout. Up until today, it is this American style of single or double zero roulettes with simplified betting layouts which are popular in all casinos around the world.

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