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The Early History of French Roulette
If someone was asked in the street what picture they associate with casinos, the answer nine times out of ten would be the Roulette wheel. Roulette itself is known as the “King of the Casinos”. One can trace Roulette history back as far as the mid 1600’s although the notion of the spinning wheel and where a ball or token would come to rest goes back a lot further. The Egyptians were thought to play with spinning spheres which were marked with symbols and they would take bets on where the token that was thrown into the sphere would come to land.
Pascal’s Roulette Wheel
The modern Roulette wheel as we know it was invented by Blaise Pascal, the very same mathematician who is best know for his theories on Triangles and atmospheric pressure. He by chance invented the Roulette wheel when he was looking at a way to explain perpetual motion. He devised a system whereby a ball was sent into a spinning wheel in the opposite direction to that which it was spinning at. He examined how and when the ball would come to rest. The original Pascal wheel had 36 numbered pockets and it was an immediate success. A betting grid was devised at which players would place their bets. Players could bet on only one number or a combination of numbers and could bet as many or as few times that they wanted in any one game.
European Roulette
Pascal’s Roulette spread throughout the European casinos, and became very popular. For the first couple of hundred years the game remained the same as the original invented by Pascal but with time, different variations emerged. The first and most widely used variation is European Roulette from which French Roulette descended. In 1842 two Frenchmen by the names of Francois and Lois Blanc decided that a zero should be added to the Roulette wheel. This they believed would give more of a chance for the player to win. The Roulette wheel became a wheel of 37 pockets. There is a cute story that these Frenchmen struck a deal with the devil and if a player won, he was beating the devil. This comes from the cumulative total of 0 to 36 which is 666 which is the sign of the devil. Trying to beat the devil helped increase the popularity of the game even more and it made its way over to the United States in the late 1800s. At this time, gambling was flourishing in the United States as there were no restrictions. By the late 1800’s Roulette had also become an established game in America.
American Roulette
The American casino owners were always looking for ways to improve their odds. American casinos added another zero to the Roulette wheel giving it a double zero, 00. When it was first introduced, the single zero was red and the double zero was black. This lead to confusion as the zeros were often confused with the other red and black numbers, so the Americans changed the zeros to the color green so that they would stand out more. The Europeans did not adopt this American version of Roulette and continued to play their version with the single zero roulette.
Roulette Probability Charts
As is natural in human beings there was no shortage of players who tried to beat the system. Although Roulette is a game of pure luck, players believed that if they could chart the wheel and where the ball came to rest after say 400 separate spins they could then work out the probability of where the ball would come to rest at any one time in a game. A crazy notion, but it seemed to work for some and there are cases of players who won thousands of dollars after referring to their probability charts.
French Roulette
French Roulette is a relatively new version of Roulette that was introduced in the mid 1900’s after gambling became legal again in France. The Grand Monte Carlo casino is the first casino that offered French Roulette. There is no documentation as to how this variation of Roulette came about, but one school of thought is that the French who have always been known to argue for the best for themselves believed that the game of Roulette was not fair and gave too much of an advantage to the casinos. In order to calm the public and still keep them coming to their casinos, they introduced La Partage Rule. This is the main difference between European Roulette and French Roulette. The French Roulette wheel looks the same as the European wheel with a single zero but the betting grid has the additional La Partage rule. La Partage is a rule that applies when a player has placed an even money bet and the ball comes to land on a zero. In this case the player does not lose his entire bet but only half of his bet. This is a great advantage for the player.
Online Roulette
With the spread of the Internet came the development and growth of online casinos. All of the Roulette games were adapted to be played online. At first online casino players were a little wary of playing Roulette online. It did not seem to have the same magic as at land based casinos but with the improvement in technology and programming the benefits soon became obvious. Players were nervous that the outcome of the wheel could be fixed and they believed that they would not have the same atmosphere as at land based casinos. Online casinos use a random number generator to spin the wheel and control where the ball comes to rest so there is no chance of cheating. And, thanks to the high level of programming and software that is available today the atmosphere of the land based casino is transported directly to the computer screen at an online casino.
Online French Roulette
French Roulette remains to be one of the leading Roulette games that is played online and at land based casinos. Although French Roulette is a relatively new version of Roulette compared with the rich history of the classic Roulette and American Roulette that date back as far as the 1600’s , it is just as popular if not more so. It provides an extra edge for the player together with all of the excitement and thrill and chance of winning as the other versions.
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