Archives October 2021

Roulette, the world turning on a wheel

The attraction that the game of roulette exerts on the human being could be considered esoteric, since the wheels have always had a connection with the mystical world. And even, the roulette wheel represents one of the Major Arcana in the Tarot cards, where the roulette wheel is compared to the great cycle of life, the mutation of all things and the constant transformation of reality.

Roulette and the world of art

Also the world of the arts has been captivated by the magic that this wheel encloses with its apparent stillness in the center and where the speed increases as we move away from it. In fact, this magic has inspired hundreds of scenes in the cinema, even in movies where gambling is not the main theme.

Here we can remember one of the great classics of cinema, Casablanca from 1942, where drama and romance intertwine with the game of roulette. Its protagonists decide to bet all the money they have on this game with the intention of multiplying it, and thus being able to escape the country in their attempt to flee from the Nazis who were pursuing them.

Even the great classics of Disney animation have been tempted by this enigmatic game . In Toy Story 3, Buzz Lightyear follows the bad toys from the nursery and discovers that they have a nightclub. In it, they play a type of “roulette” to determine which toy would be the next to come out.

But not only the cinema has been seduced by the charms of this wheel. In 1892 the famous Norwegian painter, Edvard Munch, known for his work The Scream, captured the emotion of the roulette table in one of his paintings. Inspired by the Russian novelist Dostoevsky, who was a renowned gambler, Munch painted his painting At the Roulette Table in Monte Carlo.

Photo: At the Roulette Table in Monte Carlo / Edvard Munch, 1892

We also find allusions to roulette in Gothic wall paintings, such as those of the Alcañiz Castle, in the province of Teruel, where you can see a surprising mural of a very old type of Roulette of Fortune.

Roulette today

The game of roulette was designed by the French mathematician, physicist and theologian, Blaise Pascal. Pascal, in the seventeenth century, devised a roulette with 36 numbers in search of a perpetual motion machine that was linked to magic (the sum of the numbers gives as a result six hundred and sixty-six).

Later, around 1842, the Blanc brothers modified roulette by adding a zero to it and it was introduced in the Monte Carlo Casino. Finally, some roulette wheels added a double zero, which is now known as American roulette.

In the 90s with the arrival of the internet in our homes, the fun of gambling in physical casinos took a leap and came to our homes through the technology offered by the digital age.

The first online casinos opened around 1996. Players began to enjoy their favorite games without leaving their homes. Of course, these casinos decided to bring classic and popular games like roulette, blackjack and poker to their digital platforms. This was the starting point to develop the online casinos we know today where the fun, the gaming options and the atmosphere created around the casino have nothing to envy to the physical casinos.

How to win playing roulette

Any player knows that roulette, like any other game of chance, has a component of luck and skill. However, if something is empirically proven, it is that roulette systems work. There are countless systems or methods that allow the player to increase the chances of winning. Some as well known as the Martingale system or the James Bond strategy .

Another of the well-known and widely used systems is the so-called System Numbers . This technique is very simple, since for example, if the 14 falls and after an hour the 24 falls; obligatorily in the next hour it will fall on 4, 14, 24 or 34. The idea is to look for these numerical patterns with the hope of having connected with the lady of luck and that the roulette wheel reveals all its secrets.

The arrangement of the numbers in roulette

Roulette is one of the most complex mathematical and probabilistic inventions that exist. Blaise Pascal wanted to create a machine with constant motion and chance led him to create the most incredible machine in the world, the roulette. It was in 1645, when the French physicist and mathematician invented roulette.

The roulette wheel as designed by this French scholar had 36 numbers. Later, and the number 0 was added in French roulette and the double 0 in American roulette. Except for the addition of 0, few changes have been made to roulette since its inception.

Roulette number layout

The decision of the arrangement of numbers established by Pascal in the seventeenth century was not chosen by chance. The French mathematician considered the order established so that the 36 numbers, both high and low, had the same chances of coming out. An option that benefited the players.

Anyone who looks at the arrangement of the roulette numbers can see for himself that there is no identifiable sequence. As we have said before, the established order is only like this so that all the numbers have the same possibilities of coming out.

However, the order of the numbers on the mat does have a progressive order. The numbers on the table are contiguous and follow a rigorous order from one to thirty-six. The table layout was thus established to prevent the player from using a single chip to bet on contiguous numbers.

“No machine is perfect”

“No machine is perfect” and neither did Gonzalo García Pelayo conclude roulette years before unseating casinos around the world. And it is that the roulettes of physical casinos have a millimeter deviation or an imperfect calibration that makes a group of numbers tend to come out more than others. The García Pelayo family used these imperfections to fill their bank accounts and become a legend.