The Origin of Roulette Games

Roulette in French stands for 'little wheel'. It is believed that the game was invented in France during the 17th century. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, is believed to invent the roulette wheel during the 17th century. Pascal was fascinated by perpetual motion devices and it the roulette wheel was formed as a by-product of his love to these devices.

The tradition to use spinning wheel for gaming goes back to the Greco-Roman period when Roman soldiers used to spin chariot wheel to determine a winner. Roulette wheel game is sometimes also believed to be a mixture of two popular games: Italian Hoca Game and English E-O meaning Even and Odd.

Hoca game was widespread in Europe in the middle of 17th century. The game used circular table on which a ball was rolled. The players could bet on any of 40 cups on the table. Three out of 40 cups marked with zero were house cups with the house edge of 7.5% over the players. And the E-O game was played in England. It also used circular table with 40 sections marked with E and O meaning Even and Odd. The game had a high house advantage.

The History of European Roulette

In 1842, Francois and Louis Blanc made another step in roulette history. They invented the '0' pocket in the wheel with the aim of increasing the house edge of roulette bets. But because gambling was forbidden in France at that time, so the game was introduced in Hamburg and Germany.

According to a myth, Blanc signed with the devil for the secrets of roulette. This myth is based upon the fact that by adding up all the numbers on the roulette wheel the result is 666, which is referred to as the beast's number. But that's not all for the roulette history.

The History of American Roulette

In the 1800's roulette arrived to the US where it also gained huge success. American casinos were not very happy with the European roulette, as the house edge was low, so they introduced a new version of roulette with double zero pockets. The American roulette's higher house edge helped the casinos to earn billions of dollars.

Modern Roulette Game

Today roulette game is played widely both at land based casinos and online casinos. The first online casino Gaming Club and Inter Casino were launched in 1995 and 1996 respectively. Nowadays the players can also win money in new roulette variations found both at land and online casinos.

These are the multi ball roulette which is played with up to 3 balls on the wheel; no zero roulette game with zero slots missing; and mini-roulette version with small wheel and with bets on only 12 numbers. The game of roulette today has gained worldwide popularity.