Roulette Winning Numbers History
In 1873, the roulette player Joseph Jagger, made roulette history. He hired six men to keep track of the winning numbers at roulette wheels in a Monte Carlo casino. Reviewing this information, Jagger found that specific numbers were hit more than others. He was able to win $400,000 at this casino, basing his “luck” on the idea of teamwork.
The roulette wheel used in the American version of the game has 38 numbers when you include the single zero (0) and double zero (00) along with the numbers 1-36. The adding of the double zero gives the House a 5.26% advantage. The European version has the numbers from 1-36 but only one single zero slot. Of all the people who have scored big, Mike Ashley took home the biggest roulette win in history. Back in 2008 he entered a private casino in advice and wagered the incredible sum of £480, 000. He did that by covering all inside bet that includes the number 17 as well as a straight-up wager on the same number. Legend has said it that the inventor of classic roulette with 36 numbers has made a deal with the devil, who told him secrets on how to win at roulette. According to another story, soldiers who used the carriage wheel invented the roulette. The Man Who Started It All. And thanks to French immigrants, roulette quickly became one of the most popular games in Louisiana. Early roulette tables in the US were a bit different than what you see today. Instead of 38 numbers including 1 through 36, 0, and 00, the roulette wheel has 28 numbers, two zeros, and a symbol of an American Eagle. Like many games of chance found at a casino, roulette comes with its own set of superstitions and myths. Regardless of how many numbers on a roulette wheel, many gamblers like to know which numbers are ‘hot roulette’ numbers and which are ‘cold roulette’ numbers.
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Several years later, another gambler, Charles Wells, visited the same Monte Carlo casino. Charles Wells was later known as the “Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo”, because he was able to win over 2 million francs in two days. A song written by Fred Gilbert and entitled “The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” has immortalized Wells.
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In the year 2004, Ashley Revell, a Londoner, sold all of his belongings and arrived at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas with $135,300. This was a well advertised stunt and was broadcast on the British Sky One channel – live. He put all his money on “Red” at the roulette table in a “double-or-nothing” bet. The ball landed on red-7 and Revell walked out with his net value doubled to $270,600. It is bets like this that make people famous roulette players. Revell later said it was a really crazy thing to do, and he would never do it again.
With the advent of computer technology, roulette players began looking for ways to “cheat the house” with computerized systems.
In 1955, two MIT students, Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon, created a computerised device that could predict the odds of the game of roulette. There is no record of how much they won, if at all, but their names are remembered because of their ingenuity.
In the 1970’s, a group of students at the University of California Santa Cruz, who called themselves the Eudaemons, after the Eudaemonistic philosophy of Aristotle, invented a small computer which increased their odds of winning at roulette. They used it for a short period of time in Las Vegas, earning themselves $10,000. But then their device short-circuited and burned one of the group, which ended their roulette days.
A recent addition to the “famous roulette players” was a Spaniard, Gonzalo Garcia- Pedayo, who went to the Casino de Madrid and used a computer device to determine which number was hit most often on the roulette wheel. He managed to win over a million dollars over a period of several years. However, the casino caught onto his device and took him to court, but the court ruled in his favour.
I hope you have enjoyed this short article about some of the worlds most famous roulette players. The next time you take a trip to a gambling city to play roulette remember that there is a lot of history behind this wheel, many millionaires made, and even more that lost it all just for the chance to become rich at the most popular game at the casinos.
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Roulette, (from French: “small wheel”), gambling game in which players bet on which red or black numbered compartment of a revolving wheel a small ball (spun in the opposite direction) will come to rest within. Bets are placed on a table marked to correspond with the compartments of the wheel. It is played in casinos worldwide. Roulette is a banking game, and all bets are placed against the bank—that is, the house, or the proprietor of the game. As a big-time betting game, it has had its popularity superseded in the United States and the Caribbean islands by others, notably craps, blackjack, and poker.
Fanciful stories about the origin of roulette include its invention by the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal, by a French monk, and by the Chinese, from whom it was supposedly transmitted to France by Dominican monks. In reality, roulette was derived in France in the early 18th century from the older games hoca and portique, and it is first mentioned under its current name in 1716 in Bordeaux. Following several modifications, roulette achieved its present layout and wheel structure about 1790, after which it rapidly gained status as the leading game in the casinos and gambling houses of Europe. During the years 1836 to 1933, roulette was banned in France.
Equipment
The roulette table is composed of two sections, the wheel itself and the betting layout, better known as the roulette layout. There are two styles of roulette tables. One has a single betting layout with the roulette wheel at one end, and the other has two layouts with the wheel in the centre. The wheel spins horizontally.
Heading the layout design, which is printed on green baize, is a space containing the figure 0 (European style) or the figures 0 and 00 (American style, although such wheels were used also in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries). The main portion of the design is composed of 36 consecutively numbered rectangular spaces, alternately coloured red and black and arranged in three columns of 12 spaces each, beginning with 1 at the top and concluding with 36 at the bottom. Directly below the numbers are three blank spaces (on some layouts these are marked “2 to 1” and are located on the players’ side of the table). On either side of these or along one side of the columns are rectangular spaces marked “1st 12,” “2nd 12,” and “3rd 12” on American-style layouts. On European-style layouts these terms are “12p” (première), “12m” (milieu), and “12d” (dernière douzaine). Six more spaces are marked “red” (rouge), “black” (noir), “even” (pair), “odd” (impair), “1–18” (low, or manque), and “19–36” (high, or passe).
The roulette wheel consists of a solid wooden disk slightly convex in shape. Around its rim are metal partitions known as separators or frets, and the compartments or pockets between these are called canoes by roulette croupiers. Thirty-six of these compartments, painted alternately red and black, are numbered nonconsecutively from 1 to 36. On European-style wheels a 37th compartment, painted green, carries the sign 0, and on American wheels two green compartments on opposite sides of the wheel carry the signs 0 and 00. The wheel, its spindle perfectly balanced, spins smoothly in an almost frictionless manner.
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The standard roulette table employs up to 10 sets of wheel checks (usually called chips). Each set is differently coloured; each traditionally consists of 300 chips; and there is one set for each player. The chips usually have a single basic value, although some casinos also sell chips of lesser value. The colour of the chips indicates the player, not the value of the chips. If a player wishes to buy chips of slightly higher value, the croupier places a marker indicating that value on top of the table’s stack of chips of the colour corresponding to the chips purchased. Most casinos also have high-value chips that can be wagered at any gaming table. Unlike roulette chips, these have their numbered values printed on them.
Bets
It is possible to place the following bets in roulette: (1) straight, or single-number (en plein), in which the chips are placed squarely on one number of the layout, including 0 (and also 00 on American layouts), so that the chips do not touch any of the lines enclosing the number; a winning single-number bet pays 35 to 1 (for each unit bet, a winning player receives his original bet and 35 matching units); (2) split, or 2-number (à cheval), in which the chips are placed on any line separating any two numbers; if either wins, payoff odds are 17 to 1; (3) street, or 3-number (transversale pleine), in which the chips are placed on the outside line of the layout, betting the three numbers opposite the chips; payoff odds on any of the three numbers are 11 to 1; (4) square, quarter, corner, or 4-number (en carré), in which the chips are placed on the intersection of the lines between any four numbers; payoff odds are 8 to 1; (5) line, or 6-number (sixaine or transversale six), in which the chips are placed on the intersection of the sideline and a line between two “streets”; payoff odds are 5 to 1; (6) column (colonne), or 12-number, in which the chips are placed on one of the three blank spaces (some layouts have three squares, marked “1st,” “2nd,” and “3rd”) at the bottom of the layout, thus betting the 12 numbers above the space; payoff odds are 2 to 1; (7) dozens (douzaine), or 12-number, in which the chips are placed on one of the spaces of the layout marked “12,” betting the numbers 1–12, 13–24, or 25–36; payoff odds are 2 to 1; (8) low-number or high-number, in which the chips are placed on the layout space marked “1–18” (manque) or on the space marked “19–36” (passe); payoff is even money; (9) black or red, in which the chips are placed on a space of the layout marked “black” (noir) or on a space marked “red” (rouge; some layouts have a large black or red diamond-shaped design instead of the words); payoff is even money; (10) odd-number or even-number, in which the chips are placed on the space of the layout marked “odd” (impair) or on the space marked “even” (pair); payoff is even money.
On layouts with a single zero (European style), the 0 may be included in a 2-number bet with any adjoining number, in a 3-number bet with 1 and 2 or with 2 and 3, and in a 4-number bet with 1, 2, and 3 at the regular odds for these bets. With the American-style 0 and 00, a 5-number line bet also is possible, the player placing his chips on the corner intersection of the line separating the 1, 2, 3 from the 0 and 00, with payoff odds of 6 to 1.
The play
The game begins when one of the croupiers (dealers) in attendance calls for the players to make their bets, which they do by placing chips on the spaces of the layout on any number, group, or classification they hope will win.
The croupier usually starts the wheel spinning in a counterclockwise direction and then spins a small ivory or plastic ball onto the bowl’s back track in the opposite direction. Players may continue to place bets while the wheel and ball are in motion until the ball slows down and is about to drop off the back track, at which time one of the croupiers announces that no more bets may be made.
When the ball falls and comes to rest between any two metal partitions of the wheel, it marks the winning number (or a 0 or 00), the winning colour, and any other permitted bet that pertains to a winning number or symbol. The dealer immediately announces the winning number and its colour and places a special marker on the corresponding number on the layout. He first collects all losing bets, not disturbing the chips that are resting on winning spaces, and then pays off any winning bets.