Rumour has it that roulette started being popular at the end of the 17th century, thanks to the French mathematician Blaise Pascal. “Ferris Wheel” is the other name of the game – in French, “roulette” means “little wheel”. It was also called “the Devil’s Game” because the sum of all the numbers on the wheel is 666.
There is also another prosaic version of how the game was invented. Allegedly, roulette appeared with the help of the French state, with the purpose to shift the attention of citizens from playing cards to something else.