Paris 1796 is where the game that we would understand today as being roulette can be traced back to, with the bank ‘reserving two slots’ for its own mathematical advantage.
The modern day version is something of a hybrid between a gaming wheel that was invented in 1720 and an Italian game known as Biribi. Let’s start by looking at the game of roulette itself, which historians credit Blaise Pascal with inventing a primitive form of during the 1600s. How, then, did it all come about? A Brief History of Roulette The addition of the third zero moves the House Edge from 5.26% to 7.69%, which is a crazy shift in a game that is already good for the casino. Yet the modern phenomenon of adding a third zero to the board appears to be taking Las Vegas by storm, with virtually every casino on the strip now boasting a triple zero roulette wheel. There’s certainly an argument, therefore, that the game of roulette has always favoured the House. The original roulette had a single zero and a double zero, whilst roulette wheels with just one zero on them weren’t invented until 1843. Devised in France during the 18th century, roulette has been played in the form that we know it for today since 1796. Roulette has long been one of the most popular casino games, offering even those punters that don’t really understand betting the chance to place a wager that is fairly self-explanatory.
