Roulette Overview and History
At this page you will learn more about roulette, the history of the game and the difference between American and French roulette. If you want to learn the rules of the game or a roulette system, visit the corresponding pages at this site.
Roulette is one of the most popular casino games. Almost every casino that has table games has roulette too. The secret of such popularity is the simplicity and the originality of the game. If you analyze roulette from the mathematical point of view, it is nothing more than a random number generator, and does not have any special features. However, the form of this random number generator and the ambience it creates is somehow magically appealing, and people prefer playing roulette to many other games that have the same principle.
The Origins of Roulette:
Roulette is a French word that means small wheel. The first roulette wheel was invented back in 1655 by a French scientist Blaise Pascal. However, this first roulette was not a casino game, but a scientific device used to study random numbers. Pascal's roulette was not good for casinos, because it had even odds for all kinds of bets. Casinos could make non-even payouts and earn money, but it would be too obvious, and besides, too complicated to calculate winnings. Therefore casinos took a much smarter move: In 1842 two Frenchmen Francois and Louis Blanc invented the zero field.
The zero field allowed casinos to pay even money on all positive numbers, and still have their income. Soon after the zero field was invented, roulette has become extremely popular. The same Frenchmen, who apart from inventing casino roulette, founded the first casinos in Monte Carlo, became extremely rich thanks to the game they re-invented. According to a legend, based on the fact that the sum of all numbers on the roulette wheel is 666, Blaise signed a contract with devil.
In mid-late 19th century roulette arrived to the New World. However, local casino owners of that period did not accept the original French game because of a low house edge and added another zero field that doubled the house edge of the game. The new roulette spread across the North America and received its current name American Roulette, while the original single-zero roulette became French Roulette or European Roulette.