Styles are constantly changing, whether that’s in how we dress, what we eat, or the games we play. It takes a really brilliant invention to stand the test of time as even some of the most popular things fade into irrelevance after just a few short years. That is why it’s so important that we celebrate the truly brilliant stuff, the genuinely timeless. When it comes to games that fit into these categories, there are surprisingly few. Let’s take a moment to look at those in the upper echelons of greatness.
Roulette
Whether you play at a casino, on a website, or even in your very own games room, most of us can agree that roulette is one of the simplest games to understand, but one of the most exciting to play. With all the bells and whistles that an online casino can add to the roulette experience, it can be easy to forget this game’s humble beginnings. All the way back in 1655, a physicist called Blaise Pascal was searching for how to create a perpetual motion machine; that is a machine that will operate endlessly without aid. You set the wheel rolling and it continues to roll indefinitely, without needing another push, the help of a motor, or anything. As anyone who’s played roulette will know, a roulette wheel needs an initial thrust, causing it to spin, but before long it comes to a stop. The game of roulette would be somewhat ruined if the machine kept turning forever! In failing at his experiment, it turned out that Pascal had unwittingly founded the beginnings of what would one day be the most famous casino game in the world.
The wheel has undergone very few changes in its long life, the only notable ones being the initial addition of a zero in 1842 to appease the Prince of Monaco at the time. The addition of this zero gave the house a bigger edge and the Prince planned for this to help ease the financial struggles of his kingdom. Later on, yet another zero was added to the wheel, when the game hit America. Nowadays you can still play on either a European wheel or an American wheel, with one zero and two zeros respectively.
Karnöffel
If you’re looking for a game that has existed for the longest, then you can’t do much better than Karnöffel. This game is the oldest card game on record in Europe, with written references stating that it was played in Nördlingen, Bavaria as far back as 1426. The game is a trick-taking game, where a chosen suit acts almost like a trump suit. Interestingly, the German deck uses four different suits to the rest of Europe and America, with Hearts, as usual, then Acorns for Clubs, Leaves for Spades, and Bells for Diamonds. Of course, it’s possible to play Karnöffel with any deck of cards, as long as you sort out which suit is which first, and don’t forget to remove the Aces as they aren’t used in this game. The game is played in teams of two, so at least four players are necessary. Working with a partner, each pair works to reach a set target number, most often 101. Each round is worth four points, with the ability to increase those points as the round progresses. The full rules are here, but the political history is the particularly interesting part.
Many card games suffered outright bans throughout Europe, as various monarchies and governments decreed that gaming shouldn’t be encouraged. Karnöffel suffered the same fate as many other card games, but the reason was altogether different. As Karnöffel uses trump suits, this means that a low-ranking trump card can beat a high-ranking card from another suit. The Kings and Queens of the time didn’t enjoy being beaten by twos and threes, so they took offense to the rules of the game.
