Roulette

Although the precise origin of roulette—the oldest online casino game still in existence—appears to be lost in antiquity, there’s ample evidence that men have gambled by spinning wheels for centuries. Ancient warriors whirled shields on the tips of their swords, and Romans turned over chariots to spin the wheels on their axles. The invention of roulette (from the French word roue, for “wheel”) has been attributed variously to prehistoric Chinese, to French monks, to an Italian mathematician identified only as Don Pasquale, and to a brilliant seventeenth-century French scientist, Blaise Pascal, who at the age of nineteen invented and constructed the world’s first calculating machine. In all likelihood, roulette simply evolved from other games of chance.

In 1765, roulette in its present form was introduced into Paris through the efforts of a police official, Gabriel de Sartine, who wanted a gambling game that would thwart the cheats then plaguing the city. Its acceptance was almost instantaneous, and its popularity continues to this day. Just a little earlier, in 1739, a similar game called E-O (for even-odd), was first played in the city of Bath, England. However, the game became obsolete by about 1820, when refugees from the French Revolution introduced roulette, with its greater variety of bets.

Early-nineteenth-century roulette had both a single and double zero, very much like the wheels used in Las Vegas today. When the ball dropped into the red single 0, all bets on red were considered bars, and no money was won or lost. Conversely, when the ball landed in the black 00 pocket, all bets on black were barred. Interestingly, the same principle and terminology are used today in casino craps with its Don’t Pass Bar 12 line.

The single-zero wheel, prevalent in Europe today, was introduced in 1842 by Francois and Louis Blanc, speculators in the French Bourse, who left France, where gambling had become illegal, to operate a casino in Hamburg, Bavaria. Their new wheel, which cut the house edge from 5.26 to 2.70%, decimated the competition, as the Blanc brothers had correctly forecast that reducing the odds would increase the attractiveness of the game and ultimately result in greater profits. After his brother died, Francois Blanc accepted an invitation from the Prince of Monaco, Charles III, for whom Monte Carlo was named, to purchase for nearly two million francs a franchise to operate his opulent new casino, where their roulette quickly became the most popular game, par-ticularly with the elite. Gambling was still outlawed in France, and Monsieur Blanc, referred to as the “most brilliant financier of his time” by Lord Brougham, high chancellor of England, successfully financed the opposition to legalized casinos in Italy. Francois Blanc, who left a fortune of 200 million francs, and then his son Camille, expertly operated Monte Carlo for nearly sixty-five years and have been credited for its development into a world-famous resort.

Wealth and respectability did not come easily for Fran-gois Blanc, as both he and his twin, Louis, served prison terms for stock fraud in France before achieving success in Hamburg. This scenario was repeated in the United States, where illegal gambling casinos had flourished since 1890 before becoming legal in Nevada forty years later. Many known gambling entrepreneurs with criminal records moved their illicit operations to Nevada, where their expanding businesses became legal and they became wealthy, law-abiding citizens. In the 1960′s, large public corporations, led by Howard Hughes, began acquiring the major Nevada casinos, but until then many of them were still allegedly controlled by known criminals, and association with these same figures has prevented the licensing of several top management candidates in Atlantic City’s Best online Casino.

When roulette came to the United States through New Orleans in the early 1800′s, the wheel in use had both the single and double zeros, but the operators, lacking the wisdom of the Blanc brothers, added rather than subtracted a zero. This third zero position featured a picture of an American eagle and tripled the house percentage over the single-zero game. Still not content, the operators speeded up the wheel to three times the pace of the leisurely 36 spins per hour of the game played in the European casinos. Undoubtedly, the greed of those early operators, still reflected by their successors in their stubborn retention of the double-zero wheel, is the cause of the relative unpopularity of roulette in American casinos that continues, unabated, to the present.

In the great gambling palaces of Europe, roulette is an elegant game. Played by princes and commoners, the very rich and the $2 bettor, it is steeped in a tradition that goes back to the eighteenth century. In Monte Carlo, the game is played in a regal atmosphere full of old-world charm. Many men wear tuxedos; women wear gowns. The vast casino, with its high ceilings and ornate chandeliers, has the appearance of a king’s palace. Unlike Nevada casinos, there is little noise—just the hum of the spinning ivory ball as it circles the rotating wheel, the soft pings as the ball seeks the winning red or black numbered pocket, and the oohing and aahing of those who have chosen the lucky number. Already they are deciding where to place their next bets on the red-black-and-gold layout stenciled on the green baize cloth. Here, online blackjack and craps are offered solely to cater to the whims of the American tourists. A large percentage of roulette patrons are women, who seem to appreciate the sophisticated environment of subdued glamour and relative simplicity of the game, although the action, in reality, is quite fast.

Roulette has never reached this level of acceptance in the United States. When legalized gambling first emerged in the thirties—and even in the preceding two or three decades when illegal gambling was available at posh spas from Saratoga, New York, to Palm Beach, Florida — roulette received more than its fair share of play. However, after World War II it was surpassed by craps, and subsequently both were eclipsed by blackjack.

Although Casino Australia gambling is expanding, roulette’s share of the action continues to decline each year as consistently losing players become disillusioned with the game when they come to realize the inordinately high percentage they must face. Compare this to Europe, where roulette has been offered successfully for nearly 150 years. If roulette is ever to compete again with blackjack or craps, or even baccarat, the single-zero wheel with the European option of en prison or surrender must be adopted. Blackjack has become America’s most popular and most profitable casino table game because players have learned that skillful play will reduce the house’s edge to something less than 1%. Craps surpassed roulette because knowledgeable players, many of whom learned the game in the streets or in the army, knew that the basic bet, the Pass or Don’t Pass Line, yielded the house a similar amount. As long as most casinos insist on maintaining their 5.26% edge, roulette play will continue to dwindle.