You may have all heard about American roulette, French and European roulette but Russian roulette is sort of unique game that people have heard about but never knew what it was. Actually, Russian roulette has nothing to do with your ordinary casino games or spinning a ball around a wheel and making bets on a table. In fact, it does relate to spinning a bullet around in a revolver though.

As the name suggests, this game was invented by the Russians in the 19th century. Many say that it was brought up by prison guards in Russia. It was stated in some stories that the guards would play this game with the prisoners. Other stories suggest that the game was invented by the Russian army where soldiers would play the game as a way to show off their toughness, bravery and to impress people. Of course it was a stupid way for them to do this. Though, these are just guesses on when the game was made since no one really knows for sure or that the cowboys of the wild west invented it.

In the late 1800’s, the Russian army had standard double action revolvers called Nagants. Revolvers of course were required for this game, particularly any revolver with six shots in it. A soldier would put a single bullet in the chamber and spin it around, then put the gun to their heads and pull the trigger. If nothing happens, the gun is handed off to the opponent who pulls the trigger on their head. There is a 16.7% chance that the bullet is in any of the six slots in the bullet chamber, meaning that’s the chance that you would be shot.

Some would consider this an extreme form of gambling. In one case, two wealthy men would play this suicidal game and wager everything they have. Whoever gets shot would lose the game and probably die. The winner would take everything the loser possessed including their home, money and land.

This may seem so unbelievable to be true but people have actually played this game and died. Famous people like William Shockley, who helped invent the transistor and won a Noble Prize in Physics was said to play Russian roulette solo by himself. Some say that Johnny Ace, a blues musician killed himself playing solo Russian roulette. Though the KEY to the game is to use a spinning revolver. Some people have died trying to play this game with a semi-automatic pistol without ever thinking that the odds are 100% that a bullet will be shot when the trigger is pulled…