Roulette Folklore

In research for this blog, I come across a lot of interesting stories. Some of these are legendary. I wanted to dedicate today's blog to sharing a few with you.

The first is about the inventor of the modern European Roulette wheel. He was a 19th century French casino owner named François Blanc. He is said to have bargained with the devil to obtain the game's secrets. As proof, some point to the fact that the sum of all the numbers on the wheel (from 1 to 36) is 666, the "Number of the Beast."

In 1884, a man threatened to contaminate the water supply of New York City with bubonic plague if he wasn’t repaid $ 20,000 he’d lost at roulette. Of course, no one believed him; the croupier sent for the police and he was arrested. But it was found that the threat could easily have been implemented: The man was a laboratory assistant who had been experimenting on ship’s rats and was, in fact, carrying the bacteria of plague in a vial in his pocket. (The vial was later restored to the laboratory without having at any time been opened.)

On July 9th 1959, the record for the highest recorded times that the same number has come up in a row was set at the San El Juan Hotel in Puerto Rico when the number 10 came up 6 times in a row. Incidentally, betting on this hppening is not the wisest of strategies to employ, as the odds of this occuring are about 1 in 3 billion.

And the most famous instance in recent history is that of Ashley Revell. Revell took what many consider to be a legendary roulette spin. He sold everything he owned (even most of his clothes) and even changed his name Ashley "Blue Square" Revell when a UK online bookmaker offered to contribute to the fund. He raised $135,000, flew to Las Vegas and risked it all on one spin, betting on red. Red 7 hit and he doubled his money to $270,600. He is now a partner in an online casino venture.