The history of roulette

The history of roulette starts with a legend: Blaise Pascal

Ask where roulette came from and you'll often hear one name: Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician who lived from 19 June 1623 to 19 August 1662. Wikipedia's Pascal biography (opens in a new tab) says he introduced a primitive form of roulette and the roulette wheel while searching for a perpetual motion machine.

The story is attractive, because Pascal also helped found probability theory, but it is better treated as a popular claim than settled history. The main roulette article on Wikipedia is more cautious, saying only that many historians believe Pascal introduced a primitive form of the game in the 17th century. A wheel built for a physics experiment is a long way from a betting game with a numbered layout and fixed payouts. What can be said with confidence is that the casino game itself emerged later.

Pascal does have a firm place in gambling maths. The earliest known mention of the gambler's ruin problem is a 1656 letter from Pascal to Pierre de Fermat. The idea is explained in our guide to gambler's ruin.

Roulette in 18th-century France

According to Wikipedia's roulette history (opens in a new tab), the first form of roulette was devised in 18th-century France. A novel published in 1796, La Roulette, ou le Jour, describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris, which places the game in the city's gaming rooms by the end of the century.

Whatever the earliest wheels looked like, the principle that drives the modern game is simple: the green pockets are the source of the casino's profit, because every payout is set as if only the 36 numbers existed. A straight-up bet pays 35 to 1, which is fair on a 36-pocket wheel and costs the player money on any wheel with zeros.

The same era produced the betting systems that still circulate today. The Martingale family of doubling strategies originated in, and was popular in, 18th-century France. More than two centuries on, the maths behind them hasn't changed; see our roulette betting systems guide.

1843: the Blanc brothers and the single-zero wheel

The biggest single change in roulette history came in 1843 at Bad Homburg in Germany, where François and Louis Blanc are credited with introducing a wheel with only one zero. The twins were born on 12 December 1806. The single-zero credit appears in Wikipedia's main roulette article, though François Blanc's own page flags the claim as needing a citation, so treat the detail with some care.

Whatever the exact story, the effect is easy to measure. Removing one green pocket halved the cost of playing. The table below uses standard roulette maths for a 35 to 1 straight-up bet.

A cheaper game drew players, and Blanc took the formula with him when he moved to Monaco. Our European roulette page covers the single-zero game as it is played now.

Monte Carlo and the spread of European roulette

Monaco's first casino opened on 14 December 1856 in the Villa Bellevue. Wikipedia's Monte Carlo Casino entry (opens in a new tab) records that François Blanc took over Monaco's casino business in 1863, and the single-zero wheel became the premier game there. Blanc earned the nickname "The Magician of Monte Carlo" and died on 27 July 1877. The casino is run by the Société des Bains de Mer, in which Monaco's government and princely family have a majority interest.

Monte Carlo also gave roulette one of its darker legends. François Blanc's Wikipedia page (opens in a new tab) repeats a local tale that he bargained with the devil for the secrets of roulette, linked to the fact that the numbers 0 to 36 add up to 666. The arithmetic is real (36 × 37 ÷ 2 = 666); the bargain is folklore. For more on the resort itself, read our Monte Carlo casino history.

Famous moments in roulette history

Three Monte Carlo episodes still shape how people talk about the game:

• 1873, Joseph Jagger: he exploited a biased wheel, a mechanical fault rather than a pattern. Physical wheel bias is why modern wheels are precision-made and closely maintained.
• Charles Wells: he "broke the bank" at Monte Carlo, which probably inspired the 1892 music-hall song The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.
• Summer 1913, the black streak: the ball fell on black 26 times in a row. On a single-zero wheel the chance is (18/37)^26, roughly 1 in 137 million, and it is the best-known example of the gambler's fallacy, because players kept betting on red as if it were due.

The 1913 streak is a useful reminder that history doesn't predict spins. To see how streaky fair results look, read about hot and cold numbers.

Why American roulette kept the double zero

While Europe moved to one zero, the United States kept the double-zero wheel. Wikipedia notes that it stayed dominant after spreading up the Mississippi from New Orleans. The result is the American roulette wheel of 38 pockets, with a 5.26% edge on every bet except the five-number top line, which costs 7.89%.

The two wheels also differ in number order. Both are arranged so red and black alternate and sections are roughly balanced, but the sequences are different. Our page on the roulette wheel numbers shows both orders. For UK players the history has a practical point: single-zero tables cost about half as much as double-zero ones for the same stakes, as our comparison of European and American roulette explains.

French roulette rules that survived

The French tradition left two rules that still lower costs today. Under La Partage, an even-money bet loses only half its stake when zero lands, which cuts the edge on those bets from 2.70% to about 1.35%. Under En Prison, the stake is held for one more spin instead. The French tradition also gave us the racetrack call bets, such as voisins du zéro and tiers du cylindre, which cover sections of the wheel rather than the layout.

Evolution's live French Roulette, for example, uses La Partage. Our French roulette page explains the layout and its French terms.

Roulette history timeline

Roulette's modern history: online, live and RNG tables

Online casinos appeared in the mid-1990s, and roulette moved onto screens as an RNG game. In Great Britain, the Gambling Commission's technical standards require RNG results to be acceptably random, with a simulated wheel's probabilities matching a real one, so a digital European wheel still gives each pocket a 1 in 37 chance. The two formats are compared side by side in RNG versus live roulette.

Live dealer roulette then brought the physical wheel back. Evolution's live roulette range (opens in a new tab) includes European, French and American tables, and its Lightning Roulette, reported as launched in 2018, adds randomly chosen Lucky Numbers with multiplied payouts while paying 29 to 1 on unmultiplied straight-up wins. Variants such as Lightning Roulette, auto roulette and Immersive Roulette are recent chapters, but each still runs on the same 37-pocket wheel.

Roulette in the UK: from 1968 clubs to today's rules

In Britain, the Gaming Act 1968 liberalised the law and paved the way for more commercial casinos, which were licensed by the Gaming Board for Great Britain. The Gambling Commission replaced the Gaming Board under the Gambling Act 2005. Our UK gambling law history sets out the full sequence.

Online roulette in Great Britain now runs under rules written for the digital age. Since 17 January 2025, autoplay has been banned for all online casino games, live casino included, non-slot games must allow at least 5 seconds per game cycle, and players can't play several games at once. Age and identity checks must be done before you can deposit or play.

How to use roulette's history when choosing a table

1. Look for one green pocket: a single-zero wheel is the Blanc wheel, at 2.70%.
2. Avoid a 00 pocket unless you accept a 5.26% edge, or 7.89% on the top line.
3. If you bet red/black or odd/even, look for a French table with La Partage for 1.35%.
4. Read the game's help screen to confirm the rules and payouts before you stake.
5. Set a budget and time limit first; the edge has applied to every spin since the 1800s.

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For roulette, browse the casino's live and table lobbies for single-zero and French tables. 18+, and terms apply.

18+. Every casino game has a built-in house edge, so over time you should expect to lose what you stake. Set a budget before you play and stop when it’s gone: safer gambling tools and support. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.