Origins of Roulette

Roulette is a game of chance played on a table with a revolving wheel and a number of betting sections. It has red and black compartments that alternate and a green division marked 0.

Players place bets by laying chips on the appropriate betting mats. The croupier throws the ball into the spinning wheel and winners are paid.

Origins

There are a lot of theories about the origins of roulette. One of the more fanciful ones involves 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal and his quest for a perpetual motion machine. Others claim that the game was inspired by Chinese games and brought to Europe by Dominican monks. Yet others point to a more plausible ancestor: the Italian board game biribi, where players place bets on a layout of numbered squares.

Even so, it isn’t possible to prove any of these theories. What is known is that the modern-day roulette wheel first came into existence in 18th-century France. The game grew out of earlier gambling games that used shields with symbols written on them. Soldiers played these games when they were out on campaign, as did ancient Roman soldiers.