roulettetable

Roulette Wheel

from National Library of Ireland on The Commons

• 9 older comments, and then…
• derangedlemur said:

  It certainly looks like a roulette wheel.

• beachcomber australia said:

  The croupier looks creepier ...

• John Spooner said:

  An account of a court case at Down Assizes (Freeman's , Wednesday, March 11, 1840) centres around a "fraudulently constructed" roulette table at Downpatrick races, by means of which James Perkins cheated several people "of divers sums of money". Here's a snippet including a description of the dodgy roulette wheel. So roulette at a racecourse wasn't unheard of. BTW later in the account , after a witness was asked if he had played in the tent A pause ensued, which was sufficiently significant to cause the court to be convulsed with laughter, which was joined by the learned judge himself The defence counsel argued that a tent was not a house, so it wasn't covered by legislation concerning gaming houses. The judge sentenced Perkins to 3 months imprisonment and £100 fine, but the sentence was suspended pending a decision from the Court of Queen's Bench.

• John Spooner said:

  And in an account of "The Card-Cheating Case at Brighton" (Freeman's Monday, July 26, 1852) a witness says he had played roulette at races before this, and generally lost; he had never heard of anybody that won (a laugh). This suggests that roulette wheels at races (a) were commonplace and (b) fixed

• John Spooner said:

  ... and in 1862 The plaintiff , on examination, stated that he kept a roulette table at races, and also used "bones" (dice) at races; was last convicted of gambling at Limerick; gave up going to races September last; he went to races with a roulette table for the purpose of opposing parties who had robbed him of £600 ... The jury found for the plaintiff one farthing damages