History of the Roulette Wheel
The origins of the roulette wheel date back as far as the 18th century. The mechanism of this attempt at a perpetual motion wheel came to light in the 1790s, when the game of roulette was derived as a fusion between several other wheel-based games, namely the Italian game of Biribi and the English game of Roly Poly. The earliest description of the game of roulette as we know it dates back to 1796, with roulette said to have been played at the Palais Royal in Paris.
Roulette Wheel Inventor
The concept behind the roulette wheel was developed by a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, Blaise Pascal. In the mid-17th century, Pascal was attempting to devise the world’s first perpetual motion contraption – a machine that would not rely on external energy sources to operate indefinitely. Although his experiment failed, with many deeming perpetual motion to be impossible, the wheel Pascal invented was later used as a roulette wheel and adapted by Francois Blanc to incorporate a single zero, giving the casino a greater house edge – more on that shortly.
Understanding the Roulette table
First and foremost, it’s important to explain the difference between the roulette wheel and the roulette table. The former is the wheel that spins around with 37-38 different numbered pockets for the ball to land in. The roulette table is your interface for betting on the outcome of the next spin of the wheel. Each number is displayed in the roulette table layout, along with the other fields for all potential call bets.
You can cover as many numbers as you like for an upcoming spin. You can straight bet on a single number up to a maximum of 18 numbers, each of which is odd or even, or red or black. There are also several other types of wagers.