History is not a science. During the process of looking back more than a few hundred years, the view tends to become blurry. Theory overtakes fact and myths combine with documented detail, forming a hodgepodge of legend, fiction and truth. The history of gambling is no exception and the game of roulette is a perfect example.
While French roulette is generally believed to have started in France, some gambling historians claim that the game originated in ancient Rome when soldiers gambled using spinning chariot wheels. Others place the roots of the game in Tibet. France, however, is the best bet when it comes to where the game of roulette was born.
By the early 18th century a game called RolyPoly made an appearance in England and featured a bouncing ball and a spinning wheel remarkably similar to the current roulette wheel. The betting system used in modern-day roulette was also not unlike those of a game called “Even Odd.”
But the clearest proof that roulette originated in France is the name itself. Roulette means “small wheel” in French. The inventor of the game is again a Frenchmen – the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, inspired by his captivation with perpetually moving devices, invented the first form of roulette during the 17th century in France. The "0" was added to the wheel of roulette by Frenchmen Francois and Louis Blanc in 1842 to increase house odds. This was the birth of French Roulette.
French Roulette and the Glamour of Monte Carlo
Some call it the "King of Casino Games," possibly because it was related to the glamour of Monte Carlo where the first casino was established by Francois Blanc. A legend exists about Blanc, who was believed to have made a deal with the devil to acquire the secrets of roulette. The legend goes that if all the numbers of roulette (1 to 36) were added up, the result would be 666, the "Number of the Beast" representing the devil. Again, that mixture of fact and fiction?
The Blanc brothers subsequently introduced their invention to the casinos and gambling halls of, first, France and then Germany. As gambling became prohibited in both those countries, the Blancs were invited to seize the Holy Grail of legalized gambling, Monte Carlo. Some time during the 1860s, the Blancs contracted with Prince Charles III of Monaco to design and build a luxurious casino in Monte Carlo. This groundbreaking casino, called the Casino de Monte Carlo, was built with unprecedented lavishness and splendor and was designed to attract the gambling money of the rich and famous, i.e. the European VIPs of the time. The Blancs’ version of roulette came to be known as French or European roulette and it remains Monte Carlo’s premier gambling game to this day.
French (European) Roulette vs. American Roulette
Roulette can be classified into two types, American and French (or European) roulette. The distinction between the two types lies on the number of zeroes on the wheel. A French Roulette wheel has only one zero giving a house advantage of 2.7%. In American roulette, the wheels have two "0's", zero and double-zero, resulting ino an increase in the house advantage to 5.3%.
Another difference in the two versions is the variation in chips use. American roulette is a bit more orderly as different colored chips are used for different bettors. In French roulette, standard casino chips with different values are used for bets, which creates a certain degree of confusion for both the croupier and the players. It’s part of the fun in French roulette to keep track of your bets! A conventional French Roulette table is also much larger than an American roulette table, and the croupier makes use of a long tool called rake in order to clear out the chips and to disseminate the winnings.
