A Tale Of Two Roulette Tables: The Europe-America Divide

There exist two discrete yet closely inter-related styles of playing roulette: one a single-zero, the other a double. Let’s unpack the concept a bit more and see where it leads us.

Supposedly, roulette stands a something of a fusion of other games, from the English Roly-Poly, Ace of Hearts, Reiner and EO, and the Italian Hoca and Biribi.

What is clear, though, is that in the mid-nineteenth century, in the German casino town of Homburg, François and Louis Blanc made a strategic decision about the offering of odds on the roulette table in order to encourage greater patronage. Traditionally, roulette made use of the numbers 1 to 36 including both a single zero and a double zero. In an act of marketing and competitive initiative, and a keen, attentive eye to the lure of better odds, the Blanc brothers decided to introduce a single-zero-only wheel at the casino in order to compete against other gambling houses in the area. It was something of an historic move at the time, because it signified the casino making an opportunity-cost concession based on the advantages of increased foot traffic.

Roulette soon spread all over Europe and the USA, and quickly earned the title "King of casino games" because of its unusually large and enduring popularity. In the 1860s, when the German government decided to abolish gambling (we see these kinds of resorts to narrow value systems throughout history), the Blanc brothers moved their growing casino empire to Monte Carlo, where they set up an exclusive gambling house tailored to the elite.

Interestingly, the single zero concept of the Blanc brothers only really endured in the Europe nations. It's possibly because the idea originated in Europe in the first instance, and many casinos would no doubt consciously have altered the construction and layout of their roulette boards in order to stay competitive with a game (and the market) that was changing either with or without them.

In any event, roulette was forever fissured into two board variations: the single-zero and double-zero layouts. In America, even today, the double-zero format dominates. It's perhaps a testament to the historic types of capitalism that characterise the American consciousness that the casinos, particularly on the Las Vegas strip, maintain a higher house advantage with which to line their coffers. Early 20th-century America was very much a free-market, decentralised economy, and encouraged a non-interventionist, do-it-on-your-own way of doing business. At least in the modern age, this tends to be in sharp distinction to many of the more national democracies that dot the European continent. The point, really, is that the two styles of roulette play mirror, in a fairly interesting way, two ideological underpinnings, and two ways of approaching the world.

If you're stuck in Las Vegas for whatever reason, and you're desperate to find a single zero table, remember that many casinos do offer them, but in the minority. Also, the casino will usually specify a minimum wager for these tables in order to make it worth their while to offer it. If you're planning a gambling oriented trip any time soon, stay away from the US, South America, and the Caribbean, as it will affect your odds in a way that isn’t exactly pocket friendly.