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Like
many casino games, Roulette first was
played in France during the 1700s. The
word “roulette” is actually French for
“little wheel.” The most commonly
believed theory regarding the history of
roulette gives credit to the Frenchman
Blaise Pascal, a mathematician who studied
probabilities, and who is believed to have
invented the roulette wheel in 1655. While
this is a common theory, it is only one
idea, and others disagree on the
origination of the device. Pascal, though,
made a lot of contributions to
mathematics, developing the Pascal
triangle and making other discoveries in
his lifetime, so the story is believable.
A unit of atmospheric pressure is even
named after Pascal, as is a popular
computer program language. He actually
created the roulette wheel while trying to
invent a perpetual motion apparatus.
The
roulette wheel remained unchanged for
almost two centuries until 1842 when
Francois and Louis Blanc, also Frenchmen,
added a “0” to the roulette wheel, so
there were 37 slots in the wheel, numbered
0 through 36 to increase the house’s
odds. Legends have been told that these
two men were somehow connected with the
devil because if you add up all the
numbers on the Roulette wheel, they equal
to “666.” Even though, at this time,
gambling was illegal in France, the game
still spread through Europe. Francois
Blanc actually established the first
casino in Monte Carlo. It is here that the
game became known as the “King of Casino
Games.”
It
was during the 1800s that roulette spread
to the US, where a “00” space was
added, making 38 slots on the wheel, to
increase house odds even more because US
casinos were not happy with the advantage
that the player had. You may have seen an
American Eagle in this spot, as it is
sometimes used to represent the double 0
space.
As
the game of roulette became more and more
popular, gamblers started studying the
outcomes of the wheel. In 1873, Joseph
Jagger, a famous roulette player, hired
six casino clerks to record the results of
the wheels at the Monte Carlo casino,
Beaux-Arts Casino. What he found was that
one number did in fact come up more often
than other numbers. He won $450,000 using
this strategy before he was caught by
management.
In
1891, Charles Wells, another gambler and
con-man, won more than two million Francs
at the Monte Carlo Casino, which was
unfathomable at the time. Apparently at
one point he had cashed on 23 out of 30
spins. The song, “The Man Who Broke the
Bank at Monte Carlo” that was made
popular by Fred Gilbert, was written about
Wells.
By
the mid-1900s, new technology was being
used to analyze the roulette wheel. Two
M.I.T. students, Edward O. Thorpe and
Claude Shannon, created an odds predictor
device to guess roulette odds. In the
1970s, some grad students at the
University of California Santa Cruz, who
called themselves, the Eudaemons,
attempted to increase the odds of their
roulette winnings. By 1978, the small
computer they had developed actually
worked, and they headed to Vegas. Their
profits averaged 44% on every dollar.
Ironically, the device ended up burning a
hole in the skin of one member of the
group, while he was using it, so their
trip was cut short. They had only won
$10,000.
In
the early 1990s, a man named Gonzalo
Garcia-Pelayo, began studying the roulette
wheel at the Casino de Madrid in Spain. He
was able to determine what numbers would
hit most frequently using a computer model
and won more than one million dollars in a
couple years. He was eventually taken to
trial by the casino, but won the case
brought against him.
Today,
roulette odds are still an intriguing
topic. The game is more popular in Europe
than in the US, though, because the
player’s advantage over the house is
still better in Europe.
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