| It’s been a staple in every
casino for hundreds of years. And, despite numerous mathematicians hovering around the
game with pen and paper in hand, nobody has found a workable pattern to defeat it. How did such a perfect game of chance come to be? We dig into
Roulette’s history.
Roulette: The Devils’ Game
Roulette was born in France in 1655 from mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal, a scientist
known for his work in the field of probability, invented it as a perpetual motion machine
and named it “Roulette” – French for “small wheel”.
The game became the cure for boredom in many monasteries
across Europe; which we feel is an amazing feat. It has to be nearly impossible to cure
boredom in a place with no TV or mainstream music.
Through the 18th and early 19th centuries the only
reference of the game is in the book "La Roulette, ou le Jour" by French
novelist Jaques Lablee. He describes a Roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris, one
that uses a zero and a double zero. The American version of Roulette practices this today.
By 1842, the game got into the hands of Luis and Francois
Blanc. They established the game in Monte Carlo casinos and brought the more
player-friendly, single-zero rule to the wheel. Something European Roulette practices
today.
But this is where its history takes a supernatural turn: It
is said in legend that Luis and Francois sold their souls to the devil for the secret of
Roulette. This crazy notion is backed up by the fact that the numbers they put on the
wheel, 0-36, add up to 666 – the number of the “beast”.
Also during the late 18th century the game moved overseas
to the United States. That’s when American casinos re-established the more
house-friendly version of the game described by Lablee; this increased the house edge
considerably. For that reason, if you’re going to play any game of Roulette, we
suggest Luis and Francois’ version – regardless of its devilish origins.
Despite the more difficult odds, Roulette became an
extremely popular game for westerners during the gold rush. This is because of
America’s willingness to offer the game to everyone. Whereas Roulette remained in
Monte Carlo for the rich and powerful, Americans made the game more mainstream, even
simplifying its look to be more appealing to newcomers.
Today, gambling websites have spread both versions of the
game to more than just certain countries around the world., but into the home (or work)
desktops of anyone with a PC.
Still, despite being hundreds of years old, nobody has
found a way to consistently predict the game’s outcome. You’ll have to sell your
soul to pull that off. |
