Russian roulette

For other uses, see Russian roulette (disambiguation).

Russian roulette (Russian: (Русская) Рулетка, (Russkaya) Rulyetka) is the practice of placing a single round in a revolver, spinning the cylinder and closing it into the firearm without looking, aiming the revolver at one's own head in a suicidal fashion, and pulling the trigger. The number of rounds placed in the revolver can vary, though as a rule there will always be at least one empty chamber. As a gambling game, toy guns are often used to simulate the practice. The number of deaths caused by this practice is unknown.

History

Legends abound regarding the invention of Russian roulette. Most of these, predictably, take place in Russia, or occur among Russian soldiers.

In one legend, 19th century Russian prisoners were forced to play the game while the prison guards bet on the outcome. In another version, desperate and suicidal officers in the Russian army played the game to impress each other.

The earliest known use of the term is from "Russian Roulette", a short story by Georges Surdez in the January 30, 1937, issue of Collier's Magazine. A Russian sergeant in the French Foreign Legion asks the narrator,

"Feldheim… did you ever hear of Russian Roulette?" When I said I had not, he told me all about it. When he was with the Russian army in Romania, around 1917, and things were cracking up, so that their officers felt that they were not only losing prestige, money, family, and country, but were being also dishonored before their colleagues of the Allied armies, some officer would suddenly pull out his revolver, anywhere, at the table, in a cafe, at a gathering of friends, remove a cartridge from the cylinder, spin the cylinder, snap it back in place, put it to his head, and pull the trigger. There were five chances to one that the hammer would set off a live cartridge and blow his brains all over the place. Sometimes it happened, sometimes not.

Whether Tsarist officers actually played Russian roulette is unclear. In a text on the Czarist officer corps, John Bushnell, a Russian history expert at Northwestern University, cited two near-contemporary memoirs by Russian army veterans, The Duel (1905) by Aleksandr Kuprin and From Double Eagle to Red Flag (1921) by Petr Krasnov. Both books tell of officers' suicidal and outrageous behaviour, but Russian roulette is not mentioned in either text. If the game did originate in real life behavior and not fiction it is unlikely that it started with the Russian military. The standard sidearm issued to Russian officers from 1895 to 1930 was the Nagant M1895 revolver. A primitive double-action revolver, the Nagant's cylinder spins clockwise until the hammer is cocked. While the cylinder does not swing out as in modern hand-ejector style double action revolvers, it can be spun around to randomize the result. However, it holds seven cartridges not six, which throws some doubt on the accuracy of the reference in Collier's. It is possible that Russian officers shot six and kept the seventh cartridge live. Because of the deeply seated bullets unique to the Nagant's cartridge, and because the primers are concealed, it would be very difficult to tell from the outside where the live round was and which were spent and would add to the uncertainty of the results.

The only reference to anything like Russian roulette in Russian literature is in a book entitled A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov (1840, translated by Vladimir Nabokov in 1958), where a similar act is performed by a Serbian soldier in the story The Fatalist: the dare however is not named as "Russian roulette". Russian officers did play a game called "cuckoo" with a Nagant revolver, in which one officer would stand on a table or a chair in a dark room. Others would hide and yell "cuckoo" and the man with the gun would fire at the sound.

In the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter, the game is also depicted as being played in Vietnam. According to one website claiming to offer insight into the practice of Russian roulette, Valerie Douglas, whose father's cousin and father were in the Vietnam War states that Russian roulette occurred both for gambling and murder. [1] Several teen deaths following the movie's release caused police and the media to blame the film's depiction of Russian roulette, saying that it inspired the youths. There is also an interesting Russian roulette scene in the Japanese film Sonatine, directed by Takeshi Kitano.

In the Film A Man Apart, the main character plays a type of Russian roulette with a criminal until, on the third pull of the trigger (not spinning the cylinder each time), the criminal reveals the information. This also occurs in the film L.A. Confidential, and is spoofed in 2004's remake of Starsky and Hutch, and again in the 2005 comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In all three films Russian Roulette is used as an interrogation technique.

In the Lee Child book Persuader, the main character relates to another character that, given that the revolver is well tuned and oiled, the odds of killing oneself in Russian roulette is fairly low, "...closer to 6000 to 1 than 6 to 1..." This is, supposedly, because the weight of the single round is enough for gravity to cause the cylinder to stop with the bullet in the lowest position, particularly with heavier bullets such as the .44 Magnum cartridge used in that particular instance. It should be noted, however, that this fact, if true, will not necessarily save the life on one relying on it, as some revolvers fire the round in the lower position, such as the Mateba Autorevolver.

A semi-automatic pistol, unlike a revolver, will automatically load and fire a round if it has any rounds, or may contain a round in the chamber even when the magazine is removed. There has been at least one Darwin Award resulting from an attempt to play Russian roulette with such a pistol. This variation is sometimes referred to as "Polish roulette."

"Russian poker" is a variation of Russian roulette – the difference being that in Russian poker, one's opponent places the gun up to the other person and pulls the trigger.

Odds

Once the cylinder is spun, the weight of the bullet tends to make the cylinder rest with the bullet toward the bottom, thus increasing the odds that the shot taken will be a blank. Therefore, the argument that each hole is equally likely to be under the hammer is contestable. One way that this 'bullet bias' could be eliminated is to spin the cylinder with the barrel pointed down, so the cylinder spins on a vertical axis instead of a horizontal one.

For the purpose of this section, the effect bullet bias would have on the odds is ignored for simplicity reasons.

The terminology for this section:

Player: One participant in the game

P1, P2 ... Pn: Player 1 to Player n respectively

T: The total number of players in the game.

B: The number of bullets in the gun

C: The number of chambers in the gun

Round: A round occurs when a player takes one shot at his head with the gun. For example, the normal game with B = 1 and C = 6 and the cylinder isn't being spun would have a maximum of 6 rounds. It is assumed that P1 goes first, then P2 and so on.

R1, R2 ... Rn: Rounds 1 to n respectively

Losing a round: the gun gets fired.

Winning a round: the gun wasn't fired.

The game stops on the first losing round.

A player Pn dies if Rx results in a death and ${(x-n)}\mod {T}$. For example, if there are 2 players (T = 2) then player 1 dies if round 13 is a death : ${(13-1)}\mod {2}$. Put another way, Pn loses if any of the rounds n, n + T, n + 2T... results in a loss (these can be represented by the formula $n+xT$ where x is a positive integer or 0).

The most common russian roulette game has T = 2; B = 1; C = 6; P1 loses on rounds 1, 3, 5 and P2 loses on rounds 2, 4, 6.

If the cylinder is spun after every shot, the odds of losing a round is ${B}{C}$. Alternatively, the odds of winning a round is $1-{\frac {B}{C}}$. However, the odds of making it to round n drop as n gets larger. This is because to make it to round n, rounds n-1, n-2... must have been won. So the odds for the game to stop on round n is $(1-{\frac {B}{C}})^{(n-1)}*{\frac {B}{C}}$. Then, the odds of Px to lose is $\sum _{k=0}^{n}(1-{\frac {B}{C}})^{(x+kT-1)}*{\frac {B}{C}}$ as n approaches infinity. This can be simplified to $A^{x-1}.{\frac {B}{C}}.{\frac {1}{(1-A^{T})}}$ where $A=1-{\frac {B}{C}}$.

For a standard game, P1 has a 6/11 chance of losing, while P2 has a 5/11 chance. Hence it is better to go last. Also, note the $A^{x-1}$ part of the equation. A is always less than 1, so as (x-1) increases, the chance to lose decreases. Hence it is always better to go last independant of number of players, and other parameters.

If the cylinder is not spun after each shot, the probability of losing a game can be determined by looking at each possibility of the bullet configuration in the gun. For example, in a standard game, if the bullet was in position 3, player 1 would lose. There are six possible positions for the bullet to be in a standard game: 1,2,3,4,5 or 6. Player 1 would lose if it is in position 1,3,5 (a 3/6 chance) and player 2 would lose if it is in position 2,4 or 6 (a 3/6 chance). Therefore both have an equal probability of losing (1/2).

Another example is with 6 players and 9 chambers with 1 bullet. There are seven possible positions for this game: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or 9. Player 1 would lose if it is in position 1,4,9 (a 3/9 chance), player 2: 2,5 (2/9), player 3: 3,6 (2/9), player 4: 4,7 (2/9), player 5: 5,8 (2/9), player 6: 6,9 (2/9) and player 7: 7 (1/9). In this case, it is much better to go last as compared to going first.

Notable Russian roulette incidents

Reality

In his autobiography, Malcolm X says that during his burglary career he once played Russian roulette, pulling the trigger three times in a row to convince his partners in crime that he wasn't afraid to die. (In the epilogue, Alex Haley says that Malcolm told him that he palmed the bullet.)

On December 24, 1954 the American blues musician Johnny Ace shot himself to death in Texas playing Russian roulette in a dressing room before a concert.

John Hinckley, Jr., the man who attempted to murder President Ronald Reagan in 1981 was known to play Russian roulette, alone, on two occasions (although neither time he pulled the trigger was the bullet in the firing chamber). Hinckley also took a picture of himself in 1980 pointing a gun at his head.

On June 12, 2001, Clinton Pope, a 16-year-old young man with a criminal record who had been drinking for the night, fired a bullet into his face while playing Russian roulette before his friends in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. He was sent to a hospital and was in critical but stable condition.

On March 29, 2003, Evan Below, a 14-year-old boy, shot and killed himself while playing Russian roulette with a .38-caliber revolver in the kitchen of a friend's house in Casper, Wyoming, U.S. The weapon was taken by the houseowner's son from his mother's bedroom.

On August 7, 2004, Samantha Goodson, 16, shot her boyfriend, Michael Gerald Henry, 18, dead while they were playing a version of Russian roulette in a house in Jamaica, Queens, New York, U.S. She was charged with manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.

On August 23, 2004, a 25-year-old Greek soldier, Antonis Syros, was shot in the forehead by a revolver that had held a single bullet at the gates of an Olympic village at Mount Parnitha in Athens, Greece. He was playing Russian roulette "jokingly" with Christos Chloros, a policeman, while he was standing guard.

On February 26, 2005, 13-year-old Thomas Gardner from St. Mary's County, Maryland, shot himself to death with his father's revolver in his backyard with three friends. He only fired once.

On April 14, 2006, a 16-year-old teen from Peoria, Arizona shot himself to death while playing Russian roulette on his porch with a friend.

On May 19, 2006, 17-year-old Kaitlin Dawson from Statesville, North Carolina shot herself to death while playing Russian roulette in a kitchen at her friend's house.

On June 8, 2006, 16-year-old Sean Jones from Jacksonville, Florida shot himself to death while playing Russian roulette on the front porch of his friend's house. He only fired once.

In addition to these specific incidents, it has been alleged that William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics attempted suicide by playing a solo game of Russian roulette.

Entertainment

In the bestselling Erast Fandorin book The Winter Queen, the book begins with an apparent loner killing himself playing the game; but all is not as it seems. The characters in the novel frequently refer to the game as "American roulette", perhaps an ironic joke on the part of the author Boris Akunin to indicate the unclear origins of the game.

In the Australian true crime book entitled "Chopper: From The Inside" the book's author Mark Chopper Read boasts about playing Russian roulette with criminal elements of Melbourne's Vietnamese community in a chapter called "Russian roulette with rice eaters". As accounted in the book, Chopper had an advantage, because his revolver was much better balanced than the standard revolvers, and if he spun it the correct way, he'd get a much lower chance of dying, and made some money this way.

Rapper Papoose also made a song called "Russian Roulette" which is on the Boyz In The Hood mixtape

The song "Sugar" by System of a Down makes a reference to Russian roulette.

The song "My Last Words" by Megadeth is about a game of Russian roulette.

Singer Enrique Iglesias recorded a song called "Ruleta Rusa" (Russian Roulette) for his 1998 album Cosas Del Amor; however, the song merely likened a relationship with a woman to playing Russian roulette. The song was released as a single in Argentina.

A rave song entitled Russian Roulette was released in 2004. The vocals of the song feature a Russian man and another man playing the game.

In a Lucky Luke graphic novel, Luke is jailed under orders from a corrupt judge. The town jailer offers him a chance to play Russian roulette; Luke agrees, on the condition that the jailer go first. After the jailer has survived, he hands Luke the gun; Luke promptly re-chambers the bullet and takes the jailer hostage.

In a 1970s issue of MAD Magazine, Sergio Aragonés depicted six people playing Russian roulette. After the first five have survived, the sixth takes the gun and – instead of putting it to his own head – shoots it such that the bullet goes through the heads of all the others.

In the webcartoon Mystic Island, Sam finds a gun in Dennis' room; Dennis explains that the gun has one bullet, to be used whenever the group runs out of coconuts. Sam takes the gun with him, unbeknownst to the viewer (although it is implied that he did so). When the psychotic Norm goes on a rampage, killing everyone except Sam and one islander who loses an arm, Sam attempts to kill Norm with the gun, but it is a semi-automatic pistol and the bullet is in the bottom of the clip. Norm feigns despair, and when the bullet reaches the chamber, he disarms and shoots Sam. Sam, however, is revived and throws the spent bullet through Norm's head, causing him to fall down the cliff.

In the flash video game, Pico vs. Überkids, Pico and his friends Nene and Darnell must face a team of genetically engineered Überkids. Knowing that neither he nor his friends can defeat the Überkids in a test of skill or abilities, Pico picks Rock Paper Scissors Roulette, a game based entirely on luck. In the game, the player and the Überkid play Rock Paper Scissors, with the loser being forced to pull the trigger.

Films

Russian roulette is featured heavily in The Deer Hunter (1978), where the main characters are forced to play Russian roulette as prisoners of war. Subsequent to his release, Nick, played by Christopher Walken, is introduced to the world of "professional" Russian roulette, which becomes for him an addiction.

The comedy film High School High contains a spoof on Russian roulette scenario in The Deer Hunter.

In the film Bad Day on the Block Charlie Sheen's character forces his neighbors to play Russian roulette.

In the Bollywood blockbuster Sholay, the villain Gabbar Singh plays Russian roulette with three of his underlings.

In the extended version of Luc Besson's Léon, Mathilda (portrayed by a 12-year-old Natalie Portman) attempts Russian roulette but is stopped at the last second.

In the film Just Cause, Lawrence Fishburne plays a sherrif who interrogates a suspect by enforcing Russian roulette.

The Saint contains a scene in which members of the Russian mafia force Russian roulette on Simon Templar (Val Kilmer).

In a scene from the film Boogie Nights, drug dealer Rahad Jackson (played by Alfred Molina) plays Russian roulette while high on cocaine, to the tune of Night Ranger's "Sister Christian".

In the film 187, characters played by Samuel L. Jackson and Clifton Collins Jr. play Russian roulette by placing two rounds into a revolver and agreeing to take an equal number of turns even if one dies first.

In the film The Way of the Gun, a character is playing a version of Russian roulette with multiple guns when a phone call interrupts him.

The movie remake of Starsky and Hutch has one character unknowingly playing a real game of Russian roulette in an attempt to psyche out a prisoner to gain information. (He thinks the gun is unloaded. Luckily, his partner forces him to fire into the air during a struggle.)

In the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the main character (Harold) attempts to intimidate an enemy by playing Russian roulette, but his plan goes awry.

In the 2005 film 13 Tzameti, a version of the game is played.

Russell Crowe forces information out of a suspect by playing Russian roulette with him in L.A. Confidential.

In the manga series Gunsmith Cats, bounty hunter heroine (and gun expert) Rally Vincent terrifies and interrogates a man who's tried to kill her using a variant of Russian roulette. She cheerfully tells him that her record is twelve spins without firing the one round in the revolver; he is at first scornful but panics and gives up the info after Rally pulls the trigger five times in succession, then spins and pulls again. "What's wrong?" She asks. "That's only spin number two."

Television

Russian roulette inspired a TV Game show of the same name. Players stood on trapdoors, arranged in a circle, and following rounds of answering questions, a spotlight would travel around the circle (mimicking the spinning of the cylinder of a revolver) before stopping on one of the trapdoors. This then opened, dropping the player from sight.

On October 5 2003, famous mind control magician Derren Brown played Russian roulette on British television Channel 4. Even though the stunt was apparently being broadcast live, it was broadcast on a slight delay and if anything had gone wrong the programme would have cut to a black screen. The stunt was condemned by some as being irresponsible, and a statement by the police that they had been informed of the arrangements in advance and were satisfied that "at no time was anyone at risk" made it clear that the incident was at least partially a hoax. However, it was proved on the prerecorded segment of the programme that at point blank range even a blank cartridge may cause concussion to the head, deafness or burns. Exactly what precautions Brown took to avoid this are still unknown.

In Season 3 of the television program 24, main character Jack Bauer is forced to play Russian roulette after he is held captive by inmates during a prison riot. Actor Kiefer Sutherland preceded the episode with an announcement from the Americans For Gun Safety Foundation, addressing the issue of gun safety. This episode originally aired on November 25, 2003.

In an episode of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg (SAJV) is seen playing Russian roulette with one round in the cylinder. Phileas, at one point, pulls the trigger five times in succession without the gun firing, before handing the gun back to his opponent.

In a Season 3 episode of the television show The X-Files titled "Pusher", Fox Mulder is forced to play Russian roulette when under mind control. He first pulls the trigger at the man controlling him, then himself, and at the end tries to shoot Dana Scully, but turns the gun back to the pusher and fires the only bullet.

In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Ballot Box Bunny, the original ending – which was censored in America until release on DVD – showed Bugs and Yosemite Sam playing Russian roulette after both lose a mayoral race.

In one episode of Family Guy entitled "Love Thy Trophy", Peter suggests playing 5-bullet Russian roulette ("last one standing wins") as a way to settle a dispute with his neighbors over a trophy. However he looks down the barrel saying "This is crazy! You go first..." and hands the gun to Quagmire.

In an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia the character Frank, played by Danny Devito has a group of Vietnamese men who he gambles with, including a game of Russian roulette.

In an episode of The Simpsons the bar owner Moe Szyslak uses the backroom of his bar for a Russian roulette tournament involving Krusty the clown in an homage to The Deer Hunter.

In an episode of the Comedy Central series The Hollow Men, a parody of The Deer Hunter is seen, with office workers betting on a game of Russian roulette involving staplers instead of revolvers.

In an episode of The Shield entitled "Dominoes Falling," Tavon interrogates a gang member by pretending to play Russian Roulette (while actually covertly hiding the last bullet). The gang member survives three clicks before he cracks and gives up the information.

In an episode of Carnivale, a character who kills a member of the carnival is captured and told to choose a number between one and six. He chooses three. A revolver is then aimed at his head and the trigger is pulled three times. The character survives and is released as he survived the number of pulls he unwittingly chose, only to be shot by the carnival's manager later in the episode.

Videogames

In the videogame Conflict: Vietnam, the tenth mission, titled "Russian Roulette", opens with American POWs forced to play Russian roulette.

In the videogame Killer7, Garcian Smith plays Russian roulette with the principal of Coburn Elementary School, Benjamin Keane, with the condition that if Garcian gives up he must assassinate the President. The trigger is pulled five times, and Garcian is handed the gun for the sixth pull. However, Garcian reveals he knows the gun contains seven shots, and pulls the trigger with the gun pointing to his own head. The principal then kills himself with the seventh shot.

The character Major Ocelot in the bestselling videogame Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater plays a different version os the game. It involves juggling three Colt Single Action Armys, one of which has a single round in a random chamber. Each time a gun is in his right hand, he pulls the trigger. This is done six times. The first time he attempts the stunt, he almost kills Nikolai Sokolov, but the gun he is about to fire is caught by The Boss and fires into the distance. The second time, he nearly kills EVA, but The Boss manages to grab Ocelot's arm just as he is about to fire and aim it towards Snake, taking out Snake's right eye. During the final showdown, Ocelot puts a bullet in a chamber, spins it, and juggles it with another revolver. He and Snake each have one gun, but there is only a single bullet, in a random chamber. Both then take turns firing at one another (The outcome depends on which revolver the player chooses, but the shot turns out to be a blank, regardless).

During a mission in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Sam Fisher (the player's character) finds a containment vessel which later turns out to contain a biological warfare agent. His handler, Irving Lambert, instructs Fisher to find out what's inside it, and Fisher says, "I could open it." Lambert's response: "And you could play Russian roulette with a clip-loading pistol."

Toy gun version

Equipment

The primary piece of equipment used to play modern Russian roulette is a toy gun that has a 1/6 probability of activating when the trigger is pulled. Examples include a cap gun with a rotating cylinder and a single loaded cap, an electronic toy gun similar to those used for laser tag, or a video game light gun connected to a computer programmed for Russian roulette simulation. There is also a toy version available in Japan that uses a balloon, with one chamber containing a pin used to pop the balloon.

Play

All players put money in the pot. Each player in turn points the gun at their head and pulls the trigger. If the gun discharges, the person holding the gun is eliminated from the game. The last player remaining wins the pot.

Drinking game

Some students on college campuses have created a drinking game titled "Russian roulette". Similar coloured shot glasses are collected and shots of water or vodka are poured into every one but one. Into the last one is poured a strong alcohol such as Everclear. The drinks are then mixed up and people randomly take a shot as a group.

Another version popular on college campuses in the 1980s was "Beer Hunter" (an obvious play on words from the most famous film depiction of the game). One can of beer in a six pack is shaken and returned to the other five. A player selecting the shaken can will have it "explode" in his face when he opens it, and must "chug" it down, as well as the other five.

Sex Game

The Japanese magazine "Hanashi no Channel" . reported in 2003 that various Japanese high school aged teens were participating in a non-lethal sex related version called "Russian Sex Roulette". An equal number of male and female group of teens would gather at a parents house (while the parents were away at the time) to participate in the game. Each male and female teen would be initially paired up and told to engage in unprotected sex, with each couple engaging in sex in a different position. After the male teens ejaculate, the couples switch pairs (more like full swap swinging, not group sex), and of course, switch sexual positions. Then the process repeats until all the teens have had sex with all the other teens in the group. Because unprotected sex can cause pregnancy, each participant was required to put 5000 yen into a pool which was called "Ejaculation Insurance". The pool money was then used to pay for abortions for unwanted pregnancies.

See also

• Roulette

External links

• The Deer Hunter death roll
• Teen Wounded Playing Russian Roulette
• Man, 18, Dies in Russian Roulette
• "Russian Roulette" Olympics Death
• Kablamo, a tongue-in-cheek board game with a Russian roulette theme.
• Gimp Roulette, a Shockwave webpage game that simulates Russian roulette.
• 2000 Darwin Award Runner-Up, Man wins Darwin Award after playing Russian roulette with a pistol.
• Deathmatch Sudoku EmptyChambers.com