Roulette or small wheel in French is a gambling game with origins out of China and ancient Rome. Dominican monks were thought to have brought it back to Europe as a side result of trading with the Chinese. In ancient Rome charioteers turned their chariots on their sides and played a game by spinning the chariot’s wheel. There are two other theories about the origin of the game. One is that the mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the wheel as part of a mathematical experiment. The other thought is that two French brothers, Louis and François Blanc, invented the game, as we know it today including the single zero. The mythology of the game is that François sold his soul to the devil in order to gain the secret of Roulette. These theorists suggest this because the numbers on the Roulette wheel add up to a total of 666.
At the time of its invention, gambling was illegal in France, so it started out in Germany. When gambling became illegal there it took hold in Monaco after Louis Blanc was offered the job of running the Monte Carlo Casino. When he introduced roulette there it become the game of choice. When roulette was brought to the United States, the extra zero was also added which further added to the house edge and the payoffs remained the same. Now there are two versions of the game, the American version is played with a “00” and the European version is played with “O”. In both cases there are 36 other numbers on the betting layout and on the wheel. The popularity of roulette is worldwide. Smart people have spent years trying to come up with a betting system that would guarantee a winning session. This has been as successful as the alchemist and their search to turn lead into gold. There is no way to predict which number will come up on any given turn of the wheel. The casinos watch closely for a wheel going out of balance, as this would make a section of the wheel a more probable landing area for the white ball. Parlay systems and betting pattern systems have been studied and so far no winning system has surfaced. There are systems sold on the Internet, but they are really money management systems rather than winning play systems. Delight in the game for what it is, a gamble and nothing else.