There are some accounts of Legion soldiers gambling by spinning their shields and chariot wheels during off-time. The game could possibly have been traded across the continent for Europe, but others say the Romans were partially responsible. Some versions even go so far as to say the specific monk who developed the game went mad trying to find a way to cheat the game and mysteriously included a “666” inscription at the center of the wheel. One explanation states that the Chinese had a spinning stone wheel game-of-chance that used drawings of animals instead of numbers.
Some historians contend that the origins of Roulette pre-date Pascal’s “little wheel” by at least 200 years.
