The name ‘roulette’ itself means little wheel in French and it is in France where the first roulette wheel as we know it today was first played on. In 1796, in the romantic city of Paris, a new gambling game was introduced to fellow gamblers. In this game of chance, patrons were able to bet on a series of numbers that were displayed on a layout. The numbers were in black or red and one could bet either on a single number or on a combination of them. The dealer, known as the copier, would spin a wheel with these numbers in one direction and spin a ball in another direction.
Eventually, the ball would lose its momentum, falling onto the face of the wheel, which depicted the numbers in their colors with slots. It was, and still is, a simple game of chance and the house only has a slight advantage over the players. This advantage comes in the guise of either a ‘zero’ or a ‘double zero’.
In the very beginning of the roulette wheel, the zeros were either black or red. This led to some confusion during payouts and by the 19th century, makers of roulette wheels began using green to distinguish these two numbers. When the roulette game was imported to the New World, it first landed on the banks of the Mississippi near the French settlement of New Orleans. The game moved up the river and expanded westward, with the double zero wheel becoming the most popular form to be found in the New World.
There is nothing as exciting as watching a roulette wheel spin, tracking the progress of the ball as it drops into the wheel and finally settles into a slot. No casino is complete without this game of chance on its gaming floor.
