The first form of the popular game of Roulette was initially devised in France in the 1800s. The word “Roulette” is derived from the French word, which translated, means “little wheel”. Over a full century before that however in 1655, a French mathematician, physicist and inventor, Blaise Pascal, set that “wheel” in motion when he devised a simplistic version of the roulette wheel.
His original goal was to create a perpetual motion machine, which in layman’s terms is a machine that is able to operate without energy from an external force. Pascal failed in his attempt to create a machine that did so, but the result of his efforts was the crude version of the roulette wheel, which is one of the most popular casino games today.
The Roulette Wheel Evolves
Surprisingly, the roulette wheel as Pascal invented it, remained more or less the same until the mid-1800s and included one pocket marked zero, and 2 pockets market with double zero. These pockets were designed to give the house it’s edge and mathematical advantage.
It was then that twin brothers and casino owners Francois and Louis Blanc, introduced the roulette wheel with the single zero. This lowered the house edge and gave a boost to the game’s popularity, and gave the brothers an extra selling point over rival casino owners at the time.
A few years later King Charles III of Monaco, made the request that the brothers bring their version of the game back to France. This coincided with the French outlawing gambling, and King Charles used this as a draw card to assist in his flagging economy at the time.
Francois Blanc moved from the German spa casino town of Bad Homburg where he was staying, to Monte Carlo where he opened a casino, which would become what is the famous Monte Carlo Casino Resort today. Monte Carlo soon became popular as a gambling destination for wealthy French dignitaries and European royalty. Thus, came the birth of what is known as European Roulette today.
Legend has it that Francois Blanc made a deal with Satan to obtain the secrets of roulette. This was fuelled by the fact that the sum of all the numbers on the roulette board adds up to a total of 666 – the mythical number of the beast.
Gambling And Roulette Are Banned
Gambling has been around in some shape or form for centuries, however at the beginning of the 20th century, governments all over the world were faced with pressure from religious groups, all of whom stated that gambling was wicked and depraved, and should be outlawed. This led to gambling of types being banned in most places across the globe, and this of course included roulette.
This unnatural state of affairs continued for some time, until little by little lawmakers clearly accepting that they would never completely eradicate gambling, relaxed their views on, and amendments to these gambling laws began to be passed.
European Roulette Today
The advent of the Internet brought with it online casinos and the online roulette NZ games that we so love to play. This modern-day phenomenon allows players to enjoy a game of roulette in the comfort of their own homes, with the assurance that the game is as authentic as it would be in a brick and mortar casino.
Random number generators, which are computer programs designed to generate random sequences of numbers are utilized by all online casinos to ensure that the online version roulette is as much a game of luck and chance as it always was.