History Of Roulete

Roulete was first devised in 18th century France. Blaise Pascal introduced an early form of the game in the 17th century while searching for a perpetual motion machine. The wheel is generally believed to be a fusion of the Italian board games of Hoca and Biribi, English wheel games Roly-Poly, Reiner, Ace of Hearts, and E.O., and “Roulete” from a French board game that already existed.

The game has been played in its present form since 1796 in Paris, early descriptions of the game are found in a French novel La Roulete, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee, who describes the roulete wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris. The book was published in 1801.

It was in Homburg, Germany, in 1843 that Frenchman Franois and Louis Blanc introduced the single “0″ wheel in order to compete against other casinos that offered the traditional wheel with single and double zero house pockets.

In the 1886 Hoyle gambling books early American wheels are shown with numbers 1 through 28, as well as a single zero, a double zero, and an American Eagle. Hoyle said “the single 0, the double 0, and eagle are never bars; but when the ball falls into either of them, the banker sweeps every thing upon the table, except what may happen to be bet on either one of them, when he pays twenty-seven for one, which is the amount paid for all sums bet upon any single figure.”

During the 1800s, the game spread all over the U.S.A. and Europe, becoming one of the most famous and popular casino games of the time. The German government abolished gambling in the 1860s, forcing the Blanca family to move to the last place where a legal casino could be operated, in Monte Carlo. There they established a gambling mecca for the elite of Europe. It was in Monte Carlo that the single zero roulete wheel became the dominant game, and over the years it was exported around the world, except in the United States where the double zero wheel had maintained its command.

A legend tells Franois Blanc supposedly bargained with the devil to obtain the secrets of roulete. The legend is based on the fact that the sum of all the numbers on the wheel (from 1 to 36) is 666, which is the “Number of the Beast”.

In the United States, the French double zero wheel made its way up the Mississippi from New Orleans, and then westward. It was here, because of rampant cheating by both operators and gamblers, the wheel eventually was placed on top of the table to prevent devices being hidden in the table or wheel, and the betting layout was simplified. This eventually evolved into the American style roulete game as different from the traditional French game. The American game developed in the gambling dens across the new territories where makeshift games had been set up, whereas, the French game evolved with style and leisure in Monte Carlo. However, it is the American style layout with its simplified betting and fast cash action, using either a single or double zero wheel, which now dominates in most casinos around the world.

Monte Carlo, using the traditional single zero French wheel, and Las Vegas, using the American double zero wheel were the only two major casino towns of note in the early 20th century. Casinos were flourishing around the world by the 1970s, and in 2008 there were several hundred casinos all over the world offering roulete games. The double zero wheel can still be found in the U.S., the Caribbean, and South America, while the single zero wheel is preferred elsewhere.

Interested to read more about roulete? The game of roulete is discussed in far more detail at my site.