They have little in common except their name, but both are well-known ways to gamble. In casino roulette, one spins of the wheel can win or lose a fortune; in Russian roulette one spin of the cylinder can cost a life. While they have little to do with each other, the commonality of their names has meant a continual association of the two “games.”

There is an old Russian adage: “It's the man who's reckless, not the bullet.” “Reckless” seems a poor description of anyone who would risk their lives playing Russian roulette but it was said to be a very popular pastime among Russian army officers in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is said to have grown out of the extreme boredom of service and lots of vodka – lots and lots of vodka.

Origin

The Russian roulette “fad” is said to have begun in 1870 when a seven-shot Smith & Wesson revolver was adopted for use by officers in the Russian Imperial Army during the Russian-Turkish wars of the period. These were boring wars, only about a tenth of the Russian army, all dug in in trenches along the front, saw any combat. The result was extreme boredom – deadly dull you might say.

Add in the massive amount of vodka the troops drank to ward off the cold, combine that with a new firearm that had a chamber to spin around, and a new game is born – and officer started dying, a game in which each player had a six-to-one chance of surviving, or a 14 percent chance each turn of dying.

Rules

Rules of the game are simple: place a bullet in one of the seven chambers of the pistol, spin the cylinder, point the gun at your own head, and pull the trigger. If the player is still alive afterward, he passes the gun to the next player who repeats the process. The game would continue until someone died, or the players either sobered up or got so drunk they passed out.

As one might expect, amongst bored Russian army officers, it was a very macho game. Each player decided for himself to play and no bets were taken except for the player’s life. Reasons for playing the game stem from the nature of life as a Russian soldier. They lived lives of brave recklessness defending Mother Russia, men for whom the idea of a sudden encounter with death and the reward of life for not flinching was a powerful attraction.

Deadly Toll

The practice continued through the Russian Revolution until 1930 when the revolvers were replaced by guns with spring-loaded clips, but the toll until then was staggering. Despite severe penalties instituted by the army for officers who played the game (they were the only soldiers who were issued the revolvers), there was a period when from one to seven suicides were reported monthly.