If you thought you knew all there was to know about Roulette, it’s time to think again. There’s a lot more to this aptly nicknamed King of Casino Games, and we’re here to tell you all about it. Before you try your luck with another spin of the wheel, take a moment to learn some little-known lore.
The Devil’s Game
The numerals on the Roulette wheel add up to 666, which is commonly believed to be the devil’s number or the number of the beast. The number is referenced in this way in English versions of the Bible’s Book of Revelations and while some scholars maintain that Greek and Arabic texts list 616 as the beastly number, the myths around 666 continue to grow. Naturally, this connection to the total of Roulette’s panel numbers has led to stories of the devil creating or bewitching the game and bringing good or bad luck to players.
Bond’s Favourite Game
James Bond has never played Roulette on the silver screen, but in Ian Fleming’s books he was big fan. He took it further than just backing his lucky number (17) and developed an entire betting system that a lot of players actually use today.
Bond betting is known as the “2 dozen” system, and it focuses on the column bets that each involve a 12-number column on the betting table. You need to put money on 2 of the 3 columns (5 chips on one and 14 chips on the other), along with 10 chips on the single zero panel. Essentially, the zero is an insurance bet against the ball hitting a positive number.
Dr Roulette
Many players have figured out how to bet and win on physical Roulette tables in the past, exploiting the mechanical flaws. These days the wheels are made to such exact specifications that this is not really possible, and it has never been an option for random number generation online games. Perhaps the most infamous tale is that of esteemed Professor Richard Jarecki, otherwise known as Dr Roulette.
The brilliant man had an incredible life, which involved fleeing Nazi Germany, studying electrophoresis, and tracking tens of thousands of Roulette spins so that he could place statistically advantageous wagers. He improved on the strategy that many players had tried before him, and ultimately won the modern-day equivalent of $8 million. For him it was more about beating the wheel than collecting the money – although payouts like that surely gave him some pleasure!
Little Wheel or Roly-Poly?
For years, online-roulette was believed to have developed as a by-product of French mathematician Blaise Pascal’s attempts to create a perpetual motion machine. However, more recently evidence has come to light that suggests it may have its origins in an old English game called Roly-Poly.
Roly-Poly was played in the 17th century, and involved spinning a wheel and betting on where a ball would land when the wheel came to rest. Sound familiar? Roly-Poly was a lot more basic than our sophisticated games of Roulette, of course – no numbers totalling 666 for 17th-century folk. A simpler time, in so many ways.