The history of roulette

The first thing to point out is that roulette is a French word meaning a "small wheel", so expect the history of roulette to have taken place at some point in France. And this is not just the name roulette, but many of today's gambling games originated from France, whose elite had a passion for statistics and probability since the seventeenth century.

As hinted the first roulette wheel was designed in 17th century France by the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal, who was intrigued by perpetual motion devices. His roulette creation was itself inspired by preexisting board games, such as a French game of the same name roulette, an italian game called Hoca and Biribi and the English wheel game Roly-Poly. The game as we know it was played for the first time in 1796 in Paris.

The earliest recorded narration of the roulette wheel game appears in a 1801 novel by François Lablee called "Roulette", which he describes as a modern roulette with 36 numbers plus the two pockets containing the zero and double zero. This is a very interesting historical proof that the game of Roulette was originally played with two zeros in Europe. This also makes sense given that it is much easier to create a wheel with 38 pockets than with 37 pockets (non symetrical).

What happened a few decades later though is that two casino managers in Homburg named François & Louis Blanc decided to remove the pocket for the double zero. Their idea was to make the game more attractive to gamblers in order to bring new players to their casino which had a rough time competing with other local casinos in the year 1843.

One problem with this great idea was that the double zero pocket could not simply be removed as two red pockets (the one and the twenty-seven) would be next to each other. Entirely new wheels had to be engineered such that each pocket was 1/37 the circumference of the wheel.

As all European casinos progressively adopted the new wheel, the European Roulette was born. As today what is meant by a European roulette is a wheel game with 36 numbers plus one zero. But how come American Roulette is the game known today as having 36 numbers plus two zeros (zero and double zero)?

History is really amazing. As the United States were starting many gambling enterprises in the middle of the nineteenth century, American casinos were looking for gambling devices and machines and the European casinos were more than happy to sell them their old roulette wheels. This is how American roulette was born as we know it to this day. Since that time, both American and European roulette wheels have not changed.

Gambling prohibitions in Europe and the United Stated limited the development of casinos and roulette games from the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, with most games played either at Monte Carlo or Las Vegas. But since the 1970's the global climate has been very favorable to casinos and roulette games can be found in hundreds of venues worldwide.

The latest evolution is of course online gambling, and nowadays you can play online roulette at fair and secure locations on the Internet, such as Rushmore Casino. Visit them today if you want to try online casino roulette.

The history of casino roulette is said to originate in the Middle Ages. Roulette means 'little wheel' referring to the wheel that is spun every time bets are placed. Roulette is an extremely exciting and fast game and whenever the ball lands in a number pocket there are some very happy casino players. Experience the thrill of roulette betting at your favorite online casino.