Famous Roulette Bets: Guts and Glory

Roulette has had a history of insane and famous bets. The game itself requires no skill, no strategy or tactic - all it needs from you are your chips and nerves of cold steel. Fortune favors the brave and headstrong, the kind of people it takes to bet big in the devil's game. Throughout its long history there are a few who have made it into the annals of roulette, almost legendary in their luck and in their guts.

Here is a short list of these plucky players, both in fact and in fiction.

Joseph Jaggers was a british engineer, distant cousin to Sir Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and one of the many holders of the title "The Man Who Broke the Bank at the Monte Carlo". Six clerks, lead by himself, secretly studied the wheels at the Monte Carlo casino until they discovered one with a significant bias. They then repeatedly bet on this wheel until they won a significant amount, prompting a response from the casino. By rearranging the wheels, they manage to confuse Jaggers for a few games, until he found his wheel again. By the end of the contest, Jaggers walked away with two million francs, a number that would amount to around three million, two-hundred and fifty thousand pounds in 2005.

Another man who holds the title of breaking the bank at the Monte Carlo is Charles Wells, a reputed con artist and a gambler. In no more than eleven hours, Charles Wells went on an unprecedented lucky streak, gaining approximately a million francs. Later on, private detectives would be unable to determine what system or tactics or cheat the Wells used. Wells then assigned the credit to a lucky streak - an incredibly lucky streak as at one point, he won twenty three out of thirty successive spins of the wheel. The song "The Man Who Broke the Bank at the Monte Carlo", made by Fred Gilbert and popularized by Charles Coborn, was written to honor the momentous achievement and cemented the con artist's place in history.

Movies are no exception when it comes to famous bets, the most famous of which is arguably the scene from Casablanca, where Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, uses a cheat in the roulette table to let a refugee win. A more recent movie, Run Lola Run, has the titular character make a bet to recoup a gambling debt.

The most recent example of instant fame through daring and guts comes from Ashley Revell, who sold all his possessions, from his house to his clothes, to play the devil's game in Las Vegas. He doubled his money from $135,000 to $270,600 in a single bet on red. This is just a short list of the many amazing and gutsy moments in roulette history. Given the right moment, the right bet and the right time, anyone could become a part of the devil's game - as long as they had the guts.