Last week, I pondered the popularity of the game of faro in the Old West, which lead to thinking about the history of the game of roulette. For me, this is a great way that interests can turn into inspiration and then story plots — in waves.
From France to New France to New Orleans and West, roulette found a way to survive bans, cheating, and even a creation myth involving a deal with the devil…
THE BIRTH OF ROULETTE
- In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal (a FRENCH mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Catholic theologian) introduced a primitive form of roulette during his search for a perpetual-motion machine (a hypothetical device that could work indefinitely without an energy source).
- In 1758, NEW FRANCE (present-day Québec)’s regulations banned the games of “dice, hoca, faro, and roulette.”
- In the 19th century, the French double-zero wheel made its way from NEW ORLEANS, up the MISSISSIPPI, then westward. Because of rampant cheating by operators and gamblers, the wheel was eventually placed on top of the table (to prevent devices being hidden in the table or wheel) — this was the start of American-style roulette.
Early American Roulette
- In the 1860s, when the German government abolished gambling, the Blanc family (who had introduced the single 0 style roulette wheel in the German spa town of BAD HOMBURG) moved to the last legal casino operation in Europe at MONTE CARLO, where they established a gambling mecca for the elite.
- The sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel (from 0 to 36) is 666 — the “Number of the Beast.” So one legend says that François Blanc made a deal with the devil to obtain the secrets of roulette.
ROULETTE in FILM
- In Support Your Local Gunfighter (released in 1971), James Garner‘s character has an addiction where he can’t stop betting everything on a single roulette spin.
- In Casablanca (released in 1942), Humphrey Bogart’s character has a trick roulette wheel. He uncharacteristically takes pity on a young Bulgarian refugee couple. He tells the husband (who’s lost most of his money at roulette while trying to win enough to bribe a police captain) how to bet, when to let it ride, and then to cash in his winnings—and never come back.
ROULETTE in REAL-LIFE
- In 1891 in Monte Carlo, Charles Wells (a part-time swindler and petty crook from London) broke the bank at each table he played over a period of several days. Breaking the bank meant winning all of the money in the table’s bank that day, resulting in the table being covered with a black cloth until the bank was replenished.
- In the 1960s and ’70s, Dr. Richard Jarecki won $1.2 million at dozens of European casinos. He claimed that he was using a mathematical system designed on a powerful computer. In reality, he simply observed more than 10,000 spins of each roulette wheel to determine flaws in the wheels.
And there is the beauty of history being my inspiration for story ideas. That last point will definitely become a plot point for a future story (about a female Old West gambler, of course) 🙂
“Gwendolen at the roulette table” an illustration for George Eliot’s 1876 novel, Daniel Deronda
Have you ever played roulette?
Same as last week, I’d love to hear what you enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) about the game, or who you most enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) playing against, or if you have a favorite film or novel that involved roulette — like Daniel Deronda above or Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novella, The Gambler… neither of which I’ve had the chance to read, but I have watched Support Your Local Gunfighter and Casablanca (and enjoyed those films immensely).
Hope you’ll leave a comment below.
