Roulette Winning Numbers History
In 1873, the roulette player Joseph Jagger, made roulette history. He hired six men to keep track of the winning numbers at roulette wheels in a Monte Carlo casino. Reviewing this information, Jagger found that specific numbers were hit more than others. He was able to win $400,000 at this casino, basing his “luck” on the idea of teamwork. Thus, roulette acquired the second zero, '00' or double-zero and became an American wheel roulette game. This increased the profits of the casinos and roulette history got a new direction. Early versions of American roulette had only 28 numbers, but 2 zeros and a special slot called 'Eagle'.
In traditional American roulette, which has 36 numbers along with zero and double zero, there’s a possibility of 38 winning numbers. Suddenly that 35-1 doesn’t sound so great. American roulette has some of the highest house-advantage bets of any game in the house. The overall house advantage on American roulette is 5.14 percent.
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Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!Roulette, (from French: “small wheel”), gambling game in which players bet on which red or black numbered compartment of a revolving wheel a small ball (spun in the opposite direction) will come to rest within. Bets are placed on a table marked to correspond with the compartments of the wheel. It is played in casinos worldwide. Roulette is a banking game, and all bets are placed against the bank—that is, the house, or the proprietor of the game. As a big-time betting game, it has had its popularity superseded in the United States and the Caribbean islands by others, notably craps, blackjack, and poker.
Fanciful stories about the origin of roulette include its invention by the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal, by a French monk, and by the Chinese, from whom it was supposedly transmitted to France by Dominican monks. In reality, roulette was derived in France in the early 18th century from the older games hoca and portique, and it is first mentioned under its current name in 1716 in Bordeaux. Following several modifications, roulette achieved its present layout and wheel structure about 1790, after which it rapidly gained status as the leading game in the casinos and gambling houses of Europe. During the years 1836 to 1933, roulette was banned in France.
Equipment
Roulette Numbers Statistics
The roulette table is composed of two sections, the wheel itself and the betting layout, better known as the roulette layout. There are two styles of roulette tables. One has a single betting layout with the roulette wheel at one end, and the other has two layouts with the wheel in the centre. The wheel spins horizontally.
Heading the layout design, which is printed on green baize, is a space containing the figure 0 (European style) or the figures 0 and 00 (American style, although such wheels were used also in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries). The main portion of the design is composed of 36 consecutively numbered rectangular spaces, alternately coloured red and black and arranged in three columns of 12 spaces each, beginning with 1 at the top and concluding with 36 at the bottom. Directly below the numbers are three blank spaces (on some layouts these are marked “2 to 1” and are located on the players’ side of the table). On either side of these or along one side of the columns are rectangular spaces marked “1st 12,” “2nd 12,” and “3rd 12” on American-style layouts. On European-style layouts these terms are “12p” (première), “12m” (milieu), and “12d” (dernière douzaine). Six more spaces are marked “red” (rouge), “black” (noir), “even” (pair), “odd” (impair), “1–18” (low, or manque), and “19–36” (high, or passe).
The roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape. Around its rim are metal partitions known as separators or frets, and the compartments or pockets between these are called canoes by roulette croupiers. Thirty-six of these compartments, painted alternately red and black, are numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. On European-style wheels a 37th compartment, painted green, carries the sign 0, and on American wheels two green compartments on opposite sides of the wheel carry the signs 0 and 00. The wheel, its spindle perfectly balanced, spins smoothly in an almost frictionless manner.
The standard roulette table employs up to 10 sets of wheel checks (usually called chips). Each set is differently coloured; each traditionally consists of 300 chips; and there is one set for each player. The chips usually have a single basic value, although some casinos also sell chips of lesser value. The colour of the chips indicates the player, not the value of the chips. If a player wishes to buy chips of slightly higher value, the croupier places a marker indicating that value on top of the table’s stack of chips of the colour corresponding to the chips purchased. Most casinos also have high-value chips that can be wagered at any gaming table. Unlike roulette chips, these have their numbered values printed on them.
Bets
It is possible to place the following bets in roulette: (1) straight, or single-number (en plein), in which the chips are placed squarely on one number of the layout, including 0 (and also 00 on American layouts), so that the chips do not touch any of the lines enclosing the number; a winning single-number bet pays 35 to 1 (for each unit bet, a winning player receives his original bet and 35 matching units); (2) split, or 2-number (à cheval), in which the chips are placed on any line separating any two numbers; if either wins, payoff odds are 17 to 1; (3) street, or 3-number (transversale pleine), in which the chips are placed on the outside line of the layout, betting the three numbers opposite the chips; payoff odds on any of the three numbers are 11 to 1; (4) square, quarter, corner, or 4-number (en carré), in which the chips are placed on the intersection of the lines between any four numbers; payoff odds are 8 to 1; (5) line, or 6-number (sixaine or transversale six), in which the chips are placed on the intersection of the sideline and a line between two “streets”; payoff odds are 5 to 1; (6) column (colonne), or 12-number, in which the chips are placed on one of the three blank spaces (some layouts have three squares, marked “1st,” “2nd,” and “3rd”) at the bottom of the layout, thus betting the 12 numbers above the space; payoff odds are 2 to 1; (7) dozens (douzaine), or 12-number, in which the chips are placed on one of the spaces of the layout marked “12,” betting the numbers 1–12, 13–24, or 25–36; payoff odds are 2 to 1; (8) low-number or high-number, in which the chips are placed on the layout space marked “1–18” (manque) or on the space marked “19–36” (passe); payoff is even money; (9) black or red, in which the chips are placed on a space of the layout marked “black” (noir) or on a space marked “red” (rouge; some layouts have a large black or red diamond-shaped design instead of the words); payoff is even money; (10) odd-number or even-number, in which the chips are placed on the space of the layout marked “odd” (impair) or on the space marked “even” (pair); payoff is even money.
On layouts with a single zero (European style), the 0 may be included in a 2-number bet with any adjoining number, in a 3-number bet with 1 and 2 or with 2 and 3, and in a 4-number bet with 1, 2, and 3 at the regular odds for these bets. With the American-style 0 and 00, a 5-number line bet also is possible, the player placing his chips on the corner intersection of the line separating the 1, 2, 3 from the 0 and 00, with payoff odds of 6 to 1.
The play
The game begins when one of the croupiers (dealers) in attendance calls for the players to make their bets, which they do by placing chips on the spaces of the layout on any number, group, or classification they hope will win.
The croupier usually starts the wheel spinning in a counterclockwise direction and then spins a small ivory or plastic ball onto the bowl’s back track in the opposite direction. Players may continue to place bets while the wheel and ball are in motion until the ball slows down and is about to drop off the back track, at which time one of the croupiers announces that no more bets may be made.
Winning Roulette Strategy
When the ball falls and comes to rest between any two metal partitions of the wheel, it marks the winning number (or a 0 or 00), the winning colour, and any other permitted bet that pertains to a winning number or symbol. The dealer immediately announces the winning number and its colour and places a special marker on the corresponding number on the layout. He first collects all losing bets, not disturbing the chips that are resting on winning spaces, and then pays off any winning bets.
Roulette is by far a household name when it comes to the gambling industry. It is quite popular among the gambling community because it’s easy to play, it comes with a range of flexible betting option, and above anything else, it’s quite exciting. There can never be a mention of casinos without these little wheels popping up. To date, nearly all online gaming sites come with this game, and it comes in lots of spinoffs to offer as much variety as possible to the players. Take for example the Eurogrand Casino which has up to six variations of the game; you can’t ever get bored with many such options available at your disposal.
The roulette game has come a long way and has an interesting mystery around its origin. It’s surrounded by various theories and stories of how it came to be. But what’s the real story behind it? In today’s exclusive, we are going to travel back in time to discover where it all began. Let’s dive in folks!
Perpetual Motion
Well, this is not a physics lesson. You can relax. Roulette is believed to have resulted as an aftermath of a French physicist and renown mathematician, Blaise Pascal, who was seeking to create a Perpetual motion machine. This was during the 17th century when a basic and primitive version of the roulette we see today was first conceptualized. It was supposed to function solely without using any form of energy. Even though all of us know that Blaise’s idea had nothing to do with gambling, his experiment eventually gave birth to roulette casino games which we enjoy today! The name roulette came about due to its French origin. It simply means little wheels.
The Basics of Roulette
It is important for us first to understand the basic working of the roulette before we dig any deeper. The game has a wheel with red and black slots. These are numbered from 1 to 36. As a player, you will be expected to place bets on these numbers, could be one or even a group of numbers. A winning number and color are determined by spinning the wheel in a particular direction. To complete the play, a ball is also spun in the opposite direction, keeps rolling as it loses its momentum and eventually settles in a numbered space which has either the black or red color. It is fascinating and intriguing that when you add all the roulette numbers, you end up with 666 (the devil’s number). Thus, some people claim it is devilish with some going as far as calling it the ‘Devil’s Wheel.’
The Transformation of Roulette
The Devil’s Wheel as some refer to it has since undergone transformational changes since Blaise Pascal’s experiment or rather the failure of it. In 1843, two fellow French men, Louis, and Francois Blanc iterated the wheel further by adding zero wheeled roulette which is commonly referred to as the European Roulette. Before this, in the late 1790s, most casinos in Paris had the color red for single zero and black to represent double zero. In 1800, there was a need to bring separation in the above “zero” roulettes. This saw the introduction of the green color which was meant only to represent the zeros.
The Spread of Roulette into Europe and America
Roulette enjoyed a wide acceptance both in Europe and the Americas in the 19th century. With the banning of gambling in Germany, Blanc and the family migrated it to the Monte Carlo casinoin Europe in the 1860s. This was the last casino remaining that was actually legal, and it led to the rise and popularity of the single zero roulette in Europe.
The game was first introduced in the USA in the 18th-century thanks to the French Revolution. French immigrants moved from France to Louisiana and introduced the game. As the people of Louisiana indulged in it, the gambling capital of the USA then, New Orleans, did not welcome the idea fully. The casinos there did not appreciate the form in which the European roulette was in and as such a double zero was added to it to make things further interesting. The American roulette now had 38 numbers instead of the traditional 37. Earlier versions of the roulette in the USA were different from the current ones in the market. The previous versions had 28 numbers, 2 zeros and an American Eagle symbol which was later removed. In the course of the 20th century, there was massive growth of the gambling industry in Las Vegas as a result of the American Double zero wheels
Online Roulette
The internet has taken over almost everything in the world and roulette has not been left behind. The rise of mobile gambling propelled the transformation of the roulette to the online casinos. The first online casino offered the internet roulette in 1996, and it changed the whole experience in the gaming industry and more so for roulette lovers.
From the primitive perpetual motion machine to this era where we can basically play roulette from the comfort of our homes using our mobile devices. And better yet they come in plenty of variants. Other than the European French and American versions, you’ll come across other fascinating spinoffs in online casinos such as Mini-Roulette, Multi-Wheel Roulette, Spingo, and Premier Roulette each coming with a twist in the rules and gameplay.