The Russian roulette game is a game for desperados. The game is basically roulette with a wacky twist. In a Russian roulette game, what you do is load a revolver with one bullet, leaving 5 chambers empty. Each player then takes turn in putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The Russian roulette game does not stop until the gun fires. If the gun fires on you, you die, you lose. If you get lucky, you win and survive.
Now, you might think that this is just plain sick. You might be right on that but when you think about it, Russian roulette game is not so bad when you’re in a desperate situation. This type of gambling is usually acceptable when the situation is so bad you’re willing to wager your life for a chance to win.
Russian Roulette Game: Where It Came From
It is believed that the Russian roulette game derived its name from the country where it was reportedly invented. Rumor has it that poor, unemployed Russians invented the Russian roulette game as a way to escape starvation. Faced with death by starvation, many Russians were willing to bet their lives and thus came up with this strange gambling game.
The game provided these poor Russians with a win-win situation. Losing in Russian roulette game meant a quick death by a bullet rather than a slow one by starvation. On the other hand, if you emerge as the winner, you win a reasonable amount of money to help you overcome starvation.
Russian Roulette Game: The Odds
A first glance, it seems your odds of winning in a Russian roulette game are best if you’re the first player and worst if you’re the sixth player. This supposition in Russian roulette game is quite believable since a revolver has 6 chambers and one has a bullet. When you make your initial calculations, you find that player 1 has 1 to 6 odds of dying, player 2 as 1 to 5, player 3 has 1 to 4, and so on. This leaves player 6 with a 6/6 guarantee to die in Russian roulette game.
On second thought, the numbers are only partially true. Yes, player 1 does have a 5 to 6 chance of survival which is approximately 83%, but so does player 6. Let’s not eliminate the fact that each player before him could get the bullet so there’s a good chance that the gun could fire before player 6 could even take his turn. Player 6 thus has approximately 83% chance of surviving and winning in Russian roulette game.