What does the term "to play Russian roulette" means?

Added: 10/26/2005

The roulette is probably the most known and the most popular game among all other casino games. Through the history of gambling there were many different kinds of it. And even the deadly example of the roulette game has appeared. People used to play Russian roulette where their life was the bet. So if you do something risky, you are playing with the Russian roulette strategy.

The history of gambling and its most representative game, the roulette, is very long. As far as in the 17th century the first roulette wheel was introduced. Great French mathematician Pascal developed probably the first casino wheel. This first modification of the roulette wheel had only 36 pockets numbered from "1" to "36". Later, another Frenchman Blanc added a zero field to that Pascal's model of the roulette wheel. He was the owner of the first casino in Monte Carlo and so he was interested in bigger house odds. That improvement of the roulette wheel allowed him to increase house odds to 2.7%.

On the American continent this number was increased even more. The casino owners in the United States added another zero field to have 5.4% house odds. Since those times the roulette wheel which has "0" and "00" fields is called American roulette.

With the development of online gambling, the roulette became even more popular. Nowadays the Internet gives a wonderful opportunity to all the web surfers to play roulette in much easier way than at the real world casino. Registration at the online casino takes only several minutes and you can easily access your favourite online roulette table from any place of the world. You only need a computer with the online casino software and the internet connection. Because of the huge popularity of the roulette game on the internet, many different real world casinos started offering the online versions of their roulette and placing special video roulette machines in their halls to attract more gamblers. But still the number of the gamblers who prefer playing the roulette game online, is much bigger than the number of those who play it at the real life casinos.

Today you can choose from a huge variety of different online casinos. You can check out all of them in the online casinos reviews. These are the top ratings of all online casinos available. That can be really important to find just the best online casino for you. Some of the sign in bonuses at the online casinos can be really impressive, and you can meet the online casinos offering a $400 addition to the first money transaction.

During the history of roulette a great number of different types of that game was known. The most deadly variant of the roulette game was played in Russia. It is believed that in the 19th century in some of the Russian prisons guards used to play Russian roulette with prisoners. They forced prisoners to place one bullet into a revolver, spin its cylinder, place revolver to the head in a suicidal manner and make a shot. And guards were making bets on the outcome of that horrible action.

A little later some of the Russian officers started playing Russian roulette. They were forced to play Russian roulette not by other people, but by their desperate living conditions. Since that time the term "to play Russian roulette" came into use. Now "to play Russian roulette" means to do something risky and stupid. For example, if you drink and drive then you are playing the Russian roulette strategy with your life.

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