Origin of Casino Roulette

Online Roulette derives its name from a French word, ‘roulette’ meaning ‘small wheel.’ It is commonly believed that this game was created by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, while he was attempting to develop a perpetual motion machine.

The roulette wheel (the wheel used in both online roulette and casino roulette) is believed to be a combination of the Italian board games Birbi and Hoca and, the English wheel games Ace of Hearts, Roly Polly and E.O

E.O. Board Layout

Gamblers at 18th century Casino Roulette Table

Online Roulette Time Line

Stage 1

1665: Blaise Pascal developed the roulette wheel as an indirect result of an experiment he was conducting in order to discover a theory of perpetual motion. One of his friends took this idea and transformed it into a successful game.

Stage 2

1765: The modern day layout of the roulette table was created in Paris.

Early 18th Century Casino Roulette Table

Stage 3

1796: The French novel "La Roulette, ou le Jour" by Jaques Lablee describes the presence of a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal. This was the first description of modern day roulette.

Stage 4

1800: French immigrants brought casino roulette to the United States and the very first American casino was established in New Orleans.

Stage 5

1843: Frenchmen François and Louis Blanc added 0 to the roulette wheel in Homburg, the German spa casino town. This gave casinos an advantage which contributed to the rising popularity of this game.

Stage 6

After some time these Frenchmen founded the first casino of Monte Carlo. All the numbers on the roulette wheel add up to 666, which gave rise to rumors about the founders selling their souls to the devil.

Stage 7

1861: A casino was started in Monaco, which eventually became the gambling capital of Europe following the 1873 casino ban in Europe.

Stage 8

The roulette wheel was given yet another zero. This was done to give added advantage to casinos.

Stage 9

By the beginning of the 20th century, only Monte Carlo (of all the casinos of the same description) had casinos with French roulette tables (that held a single zero).

Stage 10

Casino roulette reached the Internet by the mid 1990’s. The popularity of casino roulette increased significantly, once it graduated to become online roulette. This was the time when casino roulette changed course and roulette history changed forever, all thanks to the Internet and online roulette!