Roulette is one of the world’s most popular and iconic casino games. The game is full of action, and if you have first seen the ball bounce and dance across the wheel, then you also know that it is one of the most intense and exciting ways you can gamble.
In this article, we focus on all the different types of roulette games that exist – and there are many – and explain the most popular bets you can make on Roulette. Finally, we review the famous – and infamous – Martingale system as well as a few other Roulette strategies. But before we get that far, of course, we must first look a little at the history books and take a look at the marvelous world of film and literature. Is there anything that has enchanted players – and so-called ‘ordinary’ people – for generations, then it is Roulette!
The story of Roulette is full of numbers
The name Roulette comes from France and means ‘the little wheel’, because roulette is really a wheel with numbers on it. But did you know that the wheel originally had a completely different purpose than gambling? There is general agreement among historians that it was the French mathematician Blaise Pascal who invented the Roulette wheel in the 18th century and that it actually happened by mistake. He worked on designing an eternity machine, and the result was, by the irony of fate, Roulette.
Anyone who plays Roulette will probably admit that this game is anything but an eternity game. The more Roulette you play, the more money you will unfortunately lose, because roulette is designed to give the house a mathematical advantage. Nevertheless, many over the years have tried to make systems and come up with cheating methods that could beat Roulette. The game has no doubt also had a fascination far into popular culture.
Thus, there are many movies and books where gambling on Roulette – so to speak – plays an influence. The most famous film with Roulette games is probably Casablanca from 1942, where the hero Humphrey Bogart – him with Play it again Sam – discovers that the Roulette at Café Americain is rigged, and then a young Bulgarian emigrant helps to score the box.
The same can possibly be said about the penguins in the cartoon Madagascar 3 from 2012. It will probably never be really properly elucidated whether they cheat on Roulette or not, but they are at least more than usual lucky on the ‘roll’ and win surprisingly many times in a row playing on Black. At least we lean most towards the theory that there is cheating in the game.
Roulette is a hell of a game
Within the literature, the Roulette wheel has also made a name for itself. As far back as 1886, the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote the novel Roulettenburg about the experiences of a young Roulette player. The story is reportedly a bit autobiographical, but whether it ends happily, you have to read for yourself.
It is differently successful with the world’s most talented agent. James Bond has probably never played Roulette in his movies. Here, as you know , he prefers Blackjack , Punto Banko, Backgammon or Poker, but in the original books, written by Ian Flemming , Agent 007 was an incarnated and – of course – winning Roulette player. By the way, one would think that his favorite number is 7 and maybe combined with double 00, right? But that’s actually wrong. According to the original books about the British agent licensed to kill, the good James always cleaned up well on the number 17. That’s why 17 is Mr. Bond’s personal lucky number, so now you know.
Last but not least, we do not get around to the Devil himself, because Roulette is a devilishly fun game. For good reason, we do not know what numbers the Devil usually plays on, but we know his favorite number well. That, of course, is 666 – the Number of the Beast. But as you know, the numbers on the Roulette wheel do not go higher than 36, so what the hell is he doing?
Yes, of course he plays on all tracks at one and the same time. Try to add the numbers together and see what you end up with. Yes, exactly, the sum of all the numbers on the Roulette wheel will of course be 666, and then you can think a little about that coincidence…
European or American Roulette?
There can be big differences depending on where in the world you play Roulette. In Europe we mainly follow the French tradition, and here there is only one 0 on the wheel. In the rest of the world, it is American roulette that has taken over. Here, two 0s are played – 0 and 00 – and the extra American zero is of course not in the players’ interest. On the contrary.