Russian Roulette Origin, History and Perception in Popular Culture

Russian Roulette is a deadly game of chance that few people nowadays haven’t heard of. As a concept, it appears in the songs that we listen to, the movies that we watch, the books that we read and even in our everyday lives, as a metaphor for actions that are not worth the risk.

Most people, however, don’t really know much about the Russian Roulette origin story. Thus, we decided to change that and dug deep into the history of the Russian Roulette. If you’d like to know what we found out, then stay put!

The History of Russian Roulette – When and How Did It Appear?

The origin of Russian roulette, as its name suggests, is said to come from Tsarist Russia. It is not clear when it was conceived, but it was probably between the 1850s (when the number of revolvers in Russia increased rapidly) and the 1920s (when Russian adventurers first mentioned it in their accounts of the Civil War). .

However, one thing we do know for sure is the origin of the term Russian roulette. The game made its public debut in a 1,600-word short story written by Swiss author Georges Surdez. In 1937, the article was published in one of the most prestigious magazines of the time, Collier’s Illustrated Weekly.

Much of Soulders’s work was inspired by the many French Foreign Legion romances he read as a child. Since we are interested in roulette, we can recommend you a less deadly and more interesting version – the roulette game variants available on the websites of our top-rated online roulette operators!

Russian Roulette is no exception, telling the story of a young German recruit who tries to cover up the suicide of his Russian comrade. In a letter to his superiors, he recounted a story he had been told about a game of Russian roulette. According to their deceased comrades, officers in the Tsarist army practiced this deadly form of gambling in 1917, during the final days of World War I.

According to the account, the Russian would randomly pull out his revolver, remove a bullet, spin the cylinder, point the gun at his head and pull the trigger. The young legionnaire had been trying to cover up the suicide of his victim, Sergeant Burkowski, a keen gambler.

Immediately after telling the story, he demonstrated the game and invited the Germans to play a variation in which the magazine held only one bullet instead of five. When it comes to other gambling games, the top online casinos in the Philippines offer a wide selection of tables. Or why not claim one of the best slot bonus offers and enjoy playing slots online?

There are many unsolved mysteries about Russian roulette, including why Surdez thought it was more exciting to play with one bullet rather than five. Since the author left very few letters and notes, it is still unclear to this day why he changed the rules of the game.

It is widely believed that “reducing risk” will increase average play time, making the game as exciting as playing at a real dealer casino, and Filipino players have access to some of the best live casino promotions. However, the reason may be much simpler, because even for the craziest fool, the chance of survival is only 1/6, which is an unacceptable fact. After all, the latter version survived and became an integral part of American popular culture at the end of the last century.

The Death Toll

As the story was fairly successful, it was reprinted in the Fiction Parade & Golden Book Magazine digest in May of the same year. Less than a year later, a young boy named Thomas H. Markley junior shot himself in the head on his 21st birthday. He was the first of over 2000 victims of the Russian Roulette craze. Here are some of the more famous people, who lost their lives while playing this deadly game:

• John Marshall Alexander Jr, also known as Johny Ace, was a popular rhythm and blues musician from the USA. On Christmas Day 1954, at the end of a year-long tour, he found himself performing at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas. During one of the breaks, he shot himself dead, while playing with a 32-cal. revolver. And while some eye-witnesses declared that drinking and firearm mishandling lead to his death, the official police reports stated that the cause of the incident was a game of Russian Roulette.

• Aimo Leikas, a famous performer of magic from Finland, became especially popular thanks to his grand act – the Russian Roulette. It was a simple, though extremely dangerous trick. He had a fully loaded six-shooter with five blanks and one live round and claimed that he can select any of the safe ammunition, only using the power of his mind. The show grew in popularity, as the Finn did the stunt again and again for over a year. It seemed as death was never going to catch up with him, until in 1976 while performing on stage, his number finally came up.

• The cast of the American TV Series Cover Up became the witnesses of yet another tragic accident. In between filming the production, John-Erik Hexum started playing with one of the prop revolvers, that was loaded with blank cartridges only. He pointed the gun to his head, pretending to play Russian Roulette and squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately, the gun was none other, but the infamous 44. Magnum – one of the most powerful hand cannons in the world.

• Even though no projectile came out of the barrel, the shockwave from the 44. was so strong, that it fractured his skull and sent pieces of bone the size of a quarter flying into his brain. He was rushed to the nearby hospital, only to be pronounced brain dead.

• On September 13, 2010, while filming an episode of the popular BBC program “Who Do You Think You Are?” the famous British actor Alan Cumming found out a daunting story about his grandfather. As the investigating journalist dug deeper and deeper into the history of Cumming’s relatives, they came across some information, that filled in a long-missing gap in the actor’s family history.

• His mother’s father, who used to serve in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in Malaya, was believed to have died whilst cleaning his gun. However, it turns out that he passed away while participating in a deadly game of Russian Roulette.

• The most recent case, that we have managed to find, took place on January 24, 2019, in St. Luis, Missouri. Two police officers, one of which was on duty, while the other was off, played a variant of Russian Roulette called Russian Poker.

• It is a very similar game, the only difference being that participants point the gun at their opponent’s head instead of their own. In the second round, the gun discharged, killing Officer Katlyn Alix. As a result, officer Nathaniel Hendren was accused of manslaughter and armed criminal action. If found guilty, he was to face up to 10 years in prison. In late March, he was put on a house arrest and a $100,00 bond.

Russian Roulette as Part of the Pop Culture

Almost like playing high stakes roulette online, the Russian Roulette is a treat for high rollers and it is often used as the main subject in numerous popular movies. The origin of Russian Roulette in pop culture can be traced back to 1937 when when it made its first public appearance. Since then, the game has become an important part of popular culture in America and the rest of the world.

Understandably, different game variations can be seen at many of the top online casinos in the world. Additionally, it has been portrayed in a large number of contemporary art-works, from cartoons, such as cartoons, paintings, song lyrics and books, but it made its largest impact on the big screen in Hollywood. Here are some honourable mentions:

• Bugs Bunny – 1951
• Smiles of a Summer Night – 1955
• A Little Night Music – 1973
• Sholay – 1975
• The Bund – 1980
• Crawispace – 1986
• Tales from the Crypt – 1990
• One Eight Seven – 1997
• 24 – 2003
• Don’t Fear the Reaper – 2012

The most notorious Russian Roulette scene of them all, however, is the one portrayed in the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter. Spoiler alert! It tells the story of three best friends – Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken), from a small town in Pennsylvania, who in 1968 enlist in the US Army and are stationed to Vietnam.

After a short while, they become prisoners of war and are forced to play a game of three bullet Russian Roulette for the entertainment of their Vietcong guards. After the gun fails to discharge three times, Michael uses this chance to shoot the guards, thus making the escape possible.

It is an incredibly nerve-racking scene, that sees the two characters going through a rollercoaster of emotions, each time they pointed the loaded gun at their heads and squeezed the trigger. And just when viewers thought that the movie would have a relatively happy ending, they find out that Nick, traumatised by his wartime experiences, had stayed in Vietnam.

When his best friend Mike goes back to look for him, he finds him in a bar, making a living out of gambling on Russian Roulette. The two characters engage in the deadly game once again, whilst Nick is desperately trying to save his mate. For the viewers’ surprise and horror, the gun goes off, thus killing Christopher Walken’s character.

The movie was met with mixed reactions and sparked huge controversies, as it was believed that the production has taken liberties when depicting Vietcong’s treatment of US POWs during the war. Several officials had argued that there were no battlefield reports to support the theory that prisoners of war were forced to play the deadly game of luck. A famous critic going by the name of Roger Ebert, defended the movie, saying that regardless of whether such events did or didn’t actually occur, the scenes were incredibly successful on a purely artistic ground. Here are his exact words:

It is the organising symbol of the film: Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole. It is a brilliant symbol because, in the context of this story, it makes an ideological statement about the war superfluous. Roger Ebert

The fact is that more than 40 years later, The Deer Hunter remains one of the best movies about the war in Vietnam, alongside titles like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Born on the Fourth of July. Many experts will even go to such lengths as calling it one of the all-time greats of the art of cinema. If you haven’t watched it, we thoroughly recommend it! And as of the game of Russian Roulette, we have every reason to believe that it is going to remain a part of pop culture in the years to come and a strong and impacting metaphor for taking unnecessary risk with uncertain outcomes.

If you get inspired after you watch it and you decide to give a try to the game (hopefully without the deadly part of it) we recommend you to read our article about roulette strategies and tips and smarten up your game with some exciting casino bonuses. Meanwhile, if you would like to try something safer, we recommend you the classic casino roulette game. Not sure how to play it? You can find the complete rules of roulette in our full guide.

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