How It All Started

Roulette is a gambling game invented in France by no other than Blaise Pascal, the same guy whose name is always mentioned every time the early development of computers is discussed. Interestingly his two separate brilliant ideas have come full circle like the wheel in his game. This mathematician had no idea that his game of probability would, centuries later, be played in a machine that he himself also helped to develop: the computer. The very first form, having a slightly different variation, was played in the sixteenth century in Paris. As a new game, it underwent several modifications until just a few years before the 1800s; the variation of the game at that time is what is still being used today. No doubt, because of the thrill and excitement this game creates, it quickly caught on with other popular gambling games in has become one of the casino staple games.

The French word roulette means small wheel. To play the game, this "small wheel" affixed with 37 (for European) or 38 (for American) pockets with numbers from 0 to 36 are used.

Originally the wheel used the "00" style, but later in 1843, German, Francois and Louis Blanc made another variation with only one "0" and gained popularity very rapidly. At this point of the game's history, the two styles separated ways gaining popularity in different parts of the world, thus the European style of 37 pockets and the American with 38 using the double zero. This wheel is spun by a croupier, who, at the same time, rolls a small ball on the outer part of the circular device in the opposite direction. Bets lie in the color and number combinations that the ball will eventually fall into. The betting section is called a table with the corresponding numbers found in the wheel arranged into 3 columns and 12 rows. Chips are used to indicate the kind of bet made.

Because the game had such exiting quality, many people were very quickly drawn to it and it is probably because of this enticing appeal and the way that all 36 numbers in the wheel added up to the number of the beast (666) that a legend has found its way into its history. It was said that Francois Blanc had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the secrets of the game.

This is land-based casino roulette for you. Yet in the progress of technology these days; more and more things get done through the Internet. You can buy a house or own a business without a store building in this global consortium. You can also play this exciting game online. Most records tell us that the online variation of Roulette initially surfaced in the mid 1990s. It was one of the first games included in online casinos, the first one being Gaming Club in 1995. Compared to its land-based version, we could say that online casino is pretty young, and more about the history of this variation is still found in the stories of famous bets made by players from when it was first launched online until today. Nevertheless, the online version is catching up in popularity along with other already popular online games.

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