The first form of roulette was devised in 18th-century France. Many historians believe Blaise Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine. The roulette mechanism is a hybrid of a gaming wheel invented in 1720 and the Italian game Biribi.

Legend has it that sailors in the Port of New Orleans in the early part of the 19th century originated poker and craps as a way to while away the time and maybe make some money between jobs, and those games eventually found their way to riverboats  and land-based casinos.