Blaise Pascal: The Father of Roulette

It's always an interesting thing to learn about amazing casino players and to see how they got their start. It's equally as interesting to see how they got as far as they did at their game, whether it was Poker, Blackjack, Roulette or another great game. One such master, Blaise Pascal, made an amazing impression on the world during his lifetime. He truly created real money Roulette and is known as the Father of Roulette.

More on Blaise Pascal

So, how did he get that title as the father of Roulette? Born in 1623 in France, he was the only son in his family and he was home schooled by his dad. His father didn't teach him math, but he secretly learned it and impressed his dad. At 16, Blaise Pascal actually presented a paper about geometry that blew away the best math minds in Paris during that period! He ended up making many math formulas and ideas that are still used today. His most famous of these inventions, actually is Pascal's Triangle. It illustrates the expansion of binomial coefficients.

Blaise Pascal and Roulette

Now, he was also the inventor of probability which led to his connection with Roulette. A friend of his, Chevalier de Mere posed a question to him about gambling. Blaise Pascal created a formula to show the probability of two people winning in a casino game, and this has become the essence of probability theory! Now, at one time, when Blaise Pascal was trying to invent a perpetual motion machine, he invented Roulette instead! He managed, somehow, to create the Roulette wheel and to bring the idea of Roulette to fruition. Perhaps to his disappointment, he never did invest that perpetual motion machine; but people all over the world are in perpetual motion playing his invention: Roulette!

Blaise Pascal Dies

Blaise Pascal certainly did a lot in his short life. He died at the very young age of 39 in 1662. He certainly lived a short but quite interesting life and gave us the game that we know today as Roulette. It is amazing to hear stories of how certain theories and objects were invented. Certainly, as a man who didn't want his son to study math, Blaise Pascal's father never would have believed what he became! And even Blaise Pascal didn't set out to invent this wildly popular game of Roulette. You just never know where your skills and talents will lead you.