The History of Roulette
Roulette can be clearly divided into two categories: European and American. The European version affords more diverse playing opportunities and better odds, while the American version is faster and more straightforward.
Like so much of history, Historians differ on the early origins of Roulette. One school of thought believes Roulette may not be quite as old as the invention of the wheel, but it comes close! Ancient Greeks and Romans played a game of chance using the revolving wheel of an overturned chariot. The symbol of the wheel, representing fate, can be found throughout many cultures, it's universal. Art from the Chinese, Aztec Indians, and American Innuits all give examples of this universal symbol of fate. Some art even depicts a vertical wheel surrounded by horizontal worshippers, giving this symbol a very religious connotation.
Indeed, modern Roulette is widely believed to have a French origin, and it is said that monks, bored by the drudgery of their daily lives in the monastery, put their praying hands and asking hearts together and created Roulette. They marked off sections of a cartwheel, and wagered, using comestibles to place bets as to where the wheel would come to a stop. Pretty funny, isn't it? Monks inventing a betting game! Evidence supports the game's existence, beginning in the eighteenth century, in various forms throughout Asia and the Western Hemisphere, not just in Europe. This game spread quickly, like most popular betting games!
Roulette, upon its introduction to American casinos at the turn of the twentieth century, used a wheel with a total of 30 spaces. The spaces had numbers ranging from 1 to 27, alternating red and black. One space was labeled 0, one 00, and one space usually contained an eagle or an American flag-totaling 30 spaces. This gave the house an advantage of between 10%-12%.
European casinos originally used a wheel with 36 numbers and a 0 and 00. Bets on any of the number spaces were paid off as 34-1 odds. In the 1860s in Monte Carlo the wheel was switched to having only a single 0, paying off straight bets at 35-1. This is the modern version that we see everywhere today.