Although its name is taken from a popular and classy casino game, the activity known as Russian Roulette is far from entertaining. It uses the same principles as the table game of chance known simply as Roulette, but with potentially deadly results.
For example, when you play Roulette you are putting a wager against the spin of a numbered wheel. If you guess correctly where the little ball in the wheel will land, you get the prize. If you guess incorrectly, you lose the wager and the money.
The “game” of Russian Roulette employs this same spinning concept, except it uses the barrel of a pistol which has only a single bullet instead of the single ball. Players take turns spinning this barrel and then pulling the trigger. The consequences of a spin will be either that the pistol fires or that it clicks on an empty chamber. The deadly part of the game comes from the fact that the players are pointing the pistol at themselves as they pull the trigger.
Russian Roulette has a 17% (or one out of six) chance of a player being killed on each pull of the trigger. This means that it has a much higher chance of “winning” than the average casino game of Roulette (which offers a 5% to 6% opportunity on each spin).
People actually place wagers on this game with some putting money on the survivor and some on how many “turns” a game will last. Clearly, this is not any sort of “game” at all, but is something done only by those suffering from some sort of mental health crisis. A study done in 2008 revealed that consumption of alcohol played a major role in more than 80% of recorded games of this kind, and that this greatly exceeded the figures connected to intentional suicide by this method.
