Bad Homburg Casino History

By 1843, Roulette was enjoyed across both Europe and the US rapidly becoming one of the most popular casino games. In Bad Homburg, French brothers Francois and Louis Blanc introduced the green single zero. The standard was both a black and red zero. The single zero gave the house a smaller edge. Roulette with Rick – yes, please.

• Monte Carlo Casino - History. Diseases, a gambling casino modeled from the Bad Homburg casino, and English-styled villas. A French entrepreneur and operator of the Bad Homburg casino. To Madame Blanc, whom she befriended during her first visit to Bad Homburg, with a suggestion that the Monaco's mild climate would be good for Madame Blanc's ill health.
• Spielbank Bad homburg details section: This casino is found in Homburg, Germany. Spielbank Bad homburg features 160 gaming machines and 12 table games for you to indulge in. World Casino Directory also books hotel rooms in the major casino resorts in Homburg.

Now one of the wealthiest towns in Germany, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe has lots to offer. The population includes many bankers from Frankfurt — no wonder the town’s motto is Champagne, Air & Tradition. ;-)

Needless to say, this place will beat your expectations.

Originally famed for its spa and mineral waters, it continues to please its visitors along those same lines. In the heart of the Old Town (Altstadt) is the Kurpark, with more than 30 fountains on display. In the park you’ll find the very saline Elisabethenquelle Spring over which stands a great pavilion.

Further along is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Bad, still used for therapeutic treatments today, as well as the Taunus-Therme (which is one of my personal favorites) and Seedammbad offering saunas and steam baths.

The park also houses the Spielbank — the first casino in Bad Homburg and possibly one of the oldest casinos in the world. The story follows that when gambling was banned in Germany in the late 19th century, the owner moved to Monte Carlo. The rest is history there!

The casino here re-opened around 60 years ago and is still going strong. If you fancy a glamorous evening out, make sure you dress for the occasion.

Bad Homburg was also the prime destination for not only the ruling classes in Germany, but across the globe. The King of Siam and the Tzar Nicholas II frequently visited, and Wilhelm II spent a month of every year in the splendid Schloss he had constructed on the site of an older castle. Only the White Tower of its predecessor remains in the grounds.

King Edward VII of England spent much time here as well — and actually had the fashionable “homburg” felt hat designed by hatmakers in this area. In honor of this, there is the well known Hutmuseum where you can find exhibitions of every type of hat you could imagine!

If you find yourself wanting some fresh air, then head up into the Taunus mountains. They are within easy reach of Bad Homburg town center by bus and have plenty of hiking trails. If you are up for the challenge you could find yourself at about 878 meters if you climb the highest peak — the Großer Feldberg (to be distinguished from the Feldberg — a 1493 meters high mountain in the Black Forest).

In 2020, the game of Roulette will celebrate its 300th birthday. Iconic, exciting, and often the centrepiece of the casino, Roulette is the definitive casino table game; a mechanical wheel, a bouncing ball, a range of betting options. The wheel spins, a hush descends, your number hits, the room explodes.

Roulette encapsulates the casino gaming experience. There is a range of varied betting options. You can play it safe and just bet odds, evens, and colours; or you can live dangerously and play a single number. You have the excitement of the spinning wheel and the thrill as the ball clatters its way to its final destination. Finally, you can see the house edge. The green zero is one of the clearest representations of how a casino makes its money. When the zero lands, the house wins.

One Roulette to Rule Them All

Culturally, Roulette is strictly A-list. Katy Perry, Rihanna, System of a Down, and Bruce Springsteen have written songs about it and the game has featured in several films, including: Diamonds Are Forever, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Indecent Proposal and – most famously – Casablanca.

Perry Spins the Wheel

After three centuries of watching the ball bounce its way to heartbreak and fortune, we are clearing the chips off the table and turning the clock back. Here comes a brief history of Roulette – no more bets, please…

Without the laws of thermodynamics, the game of Roulette probably wouldn’t exist. The original Roulette wheel evolved from the challenge to build a perpetual motion machine; a device that completely eliminates friction and will maintain motion forever. Although an impossibility, it’s a challenge that has long captured the imagination of inventors.

A Happy Accident

One such inventor was the Frenchman Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623, Pascal was a child prodigy, inventor, mathematician, and engineer. He built his first mechanical calculating machines when he was still a teenager. In later life, Pascal decided to take on the perpetual motion challenge. In 1655, he created a Roulette machine. The name derived from the French for ‘little wheel’.

Perpetual motion – the scientific challenge that led to roulette

By the early 18th century, there were several iterations of mechanical – wheel-based – betting games to be found around Europe. In London, a game called roly poly had a vertical wheel with black and white slots. Players could bet either colour. In Italy, the early roulette betting format was taking shape with the game biribi; here players could bet columns, singles, and adjacent numbers.

Other games included ace of hearts, EO (even odd), and hoca. Roly poly or roulet was finally exported to Paris where it became known as Roulette. It was first mentioned in 1788 and was still only a 50/50 betting game.

Bad Homburg Casino History Hotel

The Roulette Revolution

By 1796, Roulette had metamorphosed into the game we know today. We know this thanks to the French writer Jacques Lablee who wrote a book called ‘Roulette or the history of a player’. The book is a collection of letters from the gambler to his wife and perfectly describes all the basic Roulette bets, including red, black, even, odd, passé (top numbers), and manqué (low numbers)

By 1843, Roulette was enjoyed across both Europe and the US rapidly becoming one of the most popular casino games. In Bad Homburg, French brothers Francois and Louis Blanc introduced the green single zero. The standard was both a black and red zero. The single zero gave the house a smaller edge.

Bad Homburg Casino History Museum

Roulette with Rick – yes, please…

In the United States, double zero Roulette remained dominant. Even today, casino players – both online and offline – can choose to play American Roulette, knowing that their chances of winning are marginally less than if they played the European games. That’s the price of patriotism.

Today, roulette remains as popular as ever. Always at the heart of a casino, the game takes seconds to understand, the mechanics are simple, the odds are easy to grasp, and the bouncing ball adds real excitement to the action. From a simple science experiment to every casino on the planet – both real and online, Roulette is the wheel that keeps on spinning.