Russian roulette

A Russian Nagant M1895 revolver

Russian roulette (Russian: русская рулетка, russkaya ruletka) is a lethal game of chance in which a player places a single round in a revolver, spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against his or her head, and pulls the trigger. Russian refers to the supposed country of origin, and roulette to the element of risk-taking and the spinning of the revolver's cylinder, which is reminiscent of a spinning roulette wheel.

Probability

Because only one chamber is loaded, the player has a one in x chance of being shot; x is the number of chambers in the cylinder. So, for instance, if a revolver holds six chambers, the chance is one in six. That assumes that each chamber is equally likely to come to rest in the "correct" position. However, due to gravity, in a properly maintained weapon with a single round inside the cylinder, the full chamber, which weighs more than the empty chambers, will usually end up near the bottom of the cylinder when its axis is not vertical, altering the odds in favor of the player. This only applies to swing-out cylinder type revolvers, and only if the cylinder is spun outside of the revolver and allowed to come to a complete stop before being locked back in. The number of pulls of the trigger before a round is expected to discharge is 3.5 (without spinning between the pulls) or 6 (with spinning between the pulls).[1]

History

In Mikhail Lermontov's "The Fatalist" (1840), one of five novellas comprising his A Hero of Our Time, a minor character places a flintlock pistol to his head, pulls the trigger and survives. However, the term Russian roulette does not appear in the story, and flintlocks do not have the necessary spinning chamber.[2]

The term Russian roulette was possibly first used in a 1937 short story of the same name by Georges Surdez. However, the story describes using a gun with one empty chamber out of six, instead of five empty chambers out of six:

'Did you ever hear of Russian Roulette?' ... with the Russian army in Romania, around 1917... some officer would suddenly pull out his revolver, anywhere, at the table, 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.[3]

Notable incidents

  • In a 1946 U.S. legal case, Commonwealth v. Malone, 47 A.2d 445 (1946), a Pennsylvania teenager's conviction for murder in the second degree as a result of shooting a friend, was upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In this case, the teenagers involved played a modified version of Russian roulette, called Russian poker, in which they took turns aiming and pulling the trigger of the revolver at each other, rather than at their own heads. The court ruled that "When an individual commits an act of gross recklessness without regard to the probability that death to another is likely to result, that individual exhibits the state of mind required to uphold a conviction of manslaughter even if the individual did not intend for death to ensue."[4] However, it has not yet been established whether simply participating in a game of Russian roulette in which another participant kills himself by his own hand would constitute manslaughter or some lesser form of conspiracy or homicide.
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X recalls an incident during his burglary career when he once played Russian roulette, pulling the trigger three times in a row to convince his partners in crime that he was not afraid to die. In the epilogue to the book, Alex Haley states that Malcolm X revealed to him that he palmed the round.[5] The incident is portrayed in the 1992 film adaptation of the autobiography.
  • On December 25, 1954, the American blues musician Johnny Ace killed himself in Texas, after a gun he pointed at his own head discharged. A report in The Washington Post attributed this to Russian roulette.[6]
  • Graham Greene relates in his first autobiography, A Sort of Life (1971), that he played Russian roulette, alone, a few times as a teenager.
  • On September 10, 1976, Finnish magician Aimo Leikas killed himself in front of a crowd while performing his Russian roulette act. He had been performing the act for about a year, selecting six bullets from a box of assorted live and dummy ammunition.[7][8]
  • John Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was known to have played Russian roulette, alone, on two occasions.[9] Hinckley also took a picture of himself in 1980, pointing a gun at his head.[10]
  • On October 12, 1984, while waiting for filming to resume on Cover Up (1985), actor Jon-Erik Hexum played Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum revolver loaded with a blank. The gunshot fractured his skull and caused massive cerebral hemorrhaging when bone fragments were forced through his brain. He was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, where he was pronounced brain dead.[11]
  • PBS claims that William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, had attempted suicide by playing a solo game of Russian roulette.[12]
  • On October 5, 2003, psychological illusionist Derren Brown appeared to take part in a game of Russian roulette live on UK television. Two days later, a statement by the police said they had been informed of the arrangements in advance, and were satisfied that "There was no live ammunition involved and at no time was anyone at risk."[13]
  • The BBC program Who Do You Think You Are?, on 13 September 2010, featured the actor Alan Cumming investigating his grandfather Tommy Darling, who he discovered had died playing Russian roulette while serving as a police officer in British Malaya. The family had previously believed he had died accidentally while cleaning his gun.[14]
  • On June 11, 2016, MMA fighter Ivan "JP" Cole apparently killed himself by playing Russian roulette.[15]

Drinking games

There is a drinking game based on Russian Roulette. The game involves six shot glasses filled by a non-player. Five are filled with water, the sixth with vodka. Among some groups, low quality vodka is preferred as it makes the glass representing the filled chamber less desirable. The glasses are arranged in a circle, and players take turns choosing a glass to take a shot from at random.[16]

There is also a game called "Beer Hunter" (titled after the Russian Roulette scenes in the film The Deer Hunter). In this game, six cans of beer are placed between the participants. One can is vigorously shaken, and the cans are scrambled. The participants take turns opening the cans of beer right under their noses; the person who opens the shaken can (and sprays beer up their nose) is deemed the loser.[17]

Arts and entertainment

Russian roulette has been portrayed in many different works of modern culture.

  • In the 1951 Friz Freleng-directed Bugs Bunny cartoon Ballot Box Bunny, in the often censored ending, after both Bugs and Yosemite Sam lose a mayoral election to a literal "dark horse candidate", Bugs invites Sam to play Russian roulette. Sam clicks but doesn't get. Just as Bugs is about to put the gun to his head, the cartoon irises out and the audience hears a shot. The iris opens back up to reveal Bugs missed and ended up hitting Sam.
  • In the 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, two characters play Russian Roulette for a woman.
  • In the 1973 Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music the character of Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm challenges the character of Fredrik Egerman to a game of Russian roulette to settle a romantic feud. A nervous Fredrik accidentally shoots himself in the ear, and Carl-Magnus declares himself the winner.[18]
  • In the 1973 comic-album Le Grand Duc, Lucky Luke guides a Russian grand duke through the old west. The grand duke conducts negotiations through Russian roulette, said to be popular at the Czar's court.[19]
  • The 1975 movie Sholay portrays a villain, Gabbar Singh, who uses Russian roulette to punish three members of his own gang.[20]
  • The 1978 film The Deer Hunter features three US soldiers who are captured during the Vietnam War and forced to play Russian roulette as their captors gamble on the results. Their captors demand an especially brutal variation of the game: the game is played until all but one contestant is killed. The game takes place in a bamboo room above where the other prisoners are held, so that the losers' blood drips down on future contestants. 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.[21]
  • In the 1986 movie Crawlspace, the main character used Russian roulette to determine his own fate.
  • On the 1986 Megadeth album entitled "Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" the song "My Last Words" is about playing Russian Roulette, and how it draws in the player even though the possibility of death is very real.
  • A 1990 episode from Tales from the Crypt, "Cutting Cards", portrayed two rival gamblers playing a game of Russian Roulette, with one accusing the other of a "dud" ammunition.
  • In the 1997 film One Eight Seven Samuel L. Jackson's character is forced to play Russian roulette.
  • In 1998, heavy metal band System of a Down released a song called Sugar on their first album, which features the lyrics "I play Russian Roulette, a man's sport- With a bullet called life [22]
  • In 2001, in their debut album Ompa til du dør, Norwegian band Kaizers Orchestra included numerable references to Russian roulette, most notably in the songs "Rulett", "Fra sjåfør til passasjer", and "Resistansen".[23]
  • In the 2001 film Black Hawk Down, Sam Shepard playing Garrison says of his local informant, "You know, the last one of these guys shot himself in the head playing Russian roulette in a bar".
  • During the third season of television series 24, which aired in 2004, main character Jack Bauer is forced to play Russian roulette during a prison riot.[24]
  • Lady Gaga references the game in her song, "Poker Face", "Russian roulette is not the same without a gun".
  • In 2009, pop star Rihanna released a song named "Russian Roulette", that features lyrics comparing an abusive relationship to the game and even finishes with a gunshot sound.[25]
  • In 2010, the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops featured characters being forced to play Russian roulette, heavily inspired by the scene from The Deer Hunter.[26]
  • MAD Magazine published in 1963 the Sergio Aragonés cartoon Russian "Russian Roulette", in which six men play the game without spinning the chamber of a revolver between turns. When the last (and doomed) man gets the gun he fires it back through the heads of the other five.[27][28]
  • In Hinterland season 2, episode 2 (2014), Bell and DCI Mathias each play one round of Russian roulette.[29]
  • In the film Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Robert Downey, Jr.'s character uses Russian roulette to intimidate a criminal, by pointing a six-shot revolver containing one round at the criminal's head. He pulls the trigger and the gun fires, killing the criminal instantly. Upon being asked why he used a live round in the chamber rather than a blank, he says that he believed there to be only a "8 percent" chance of a discharge, rather than 16.667%.
  • In Peaky Blinders, series 3, episode 4, Duchess Tatiana Petrovna plays Russian roulette with Tommy's gun, to his horror and dismay, and she unsuccessfully urges him to play, too, advising him it's exhilarating. When the gun does not fire, she says it's God's will.[30][31]
  • In the episode "Venezuela" of Banged Up Abroad, James Miles and Paul Loseby voice their utter shock and horror when they discover the prisoners playing Russian roulette. After having his appeal refused and facing a 10-year sentence, as well as due to the harshness of the prison life and complete lack of self-esteem, James eventually participated in the game.[32]
  • In the 2014 first season of the Italian TV series Gomorrah, Camorra member Ciro is forced to participate in a game of Russian roulette in order to seal a business deal between the Camorra and a Russian Mafia crew.
  • In the 2011 movie 7 Khoon Maaf, an emotionally broken Susanna shoots Tarafdar, her sixth husband, during a game of Russian roulette.
  • In the 2012 video game Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, one of the challenges presented to students in the game's fourth chapter is a one-player Russian roulette game, which is played by Gundham Tanaka and Nagito Komaeda on two separate occasions. The latter plays an inverted version with five bullets and one empty chamber, surviving thanks to his "ultimate lucky student" talent. Tanaka plays with one bullet and also survives.
  • In the 2014 movie The November Man, Devereaux uses Russian roulette when interrogating Arkady Federov to force Federov to give him information regarding a plan to bomb civilian buildings and trigger the 2nd Chechen war.
  • In the 2013 Australian film These Final Hours Russian roulette is played in "The party to end all parties"
  • A variant of Russian roulette called “hillbilly roulette,” which involves loading a gun with three chambers, and aiming as close as possible to another person’s head without hitting, and requires the person firing the gun to drink a shot of 80 proof or stronger liquor (usually whiskey or moonshine) before each round of play, is referenced extensively in the 2016 novel Nobody's Property.[33]
  • In the film ABCs of Death 2, three characters are seen playing Russian roulette in the scene "R is for Roulette." They play a variant where they do not re-spin the chamber between pulls so one of them would certainly get the bullet and avoid being captured by the Nazi regime. The "winner" (who is certain to get the bullet) decides to shoot his lover in an act of mercy before they are all eventually captured.
  • In September 2016, the South Korean girlgroup Red Velvet (band), released their 3rd Extended play with the title "Russian Roulette". The E.P. lead single has also the same name, and it's a synthpop song that has an arcade sound feel with a retro 8-bit sound source. Its lyrics compare the process of winning someone's heart with a game of Russian Roulette. The music video features the girls sabotaging each other with fatal (off-screen) consequences, such as dropping pianos onto other members and pushing each other into empty swimming pools, drawing parallels to the lethality of Russian Roulette.
  • In June 2017, a video game "Super Russian Roulette" was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game involves pointing the Zapper light-gun accessory at the players own heads, facing off against a computer-generated cowboy and up to 3 human players.[34][35][36]
  • In the 2017 Chinese film Kill Me Please, Wang Xun character seeks suicide by visiting Thailand and plays Russian roulette in a bar.
  • In June 2018, a teen was killed in an altered version of this game, where one was pointing gun towards other's head.[37]
  • In the 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human, depressed alcoholic Lieutenant Hank Anderson is revealed to often participate in Russian roulette while drunk. In the chapter "Russian Roulette", Connor ends up saving and sobering up Hank when he passed out playing Russian Roulette. One ending depicts the character killing himself while in a miserable state.
  • On September 16, 2018, Kevin Harvick was spoke about Russian Roulette for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company when he crashed with Erik Jones for the 2018 South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Game show

In 2002, Game Show Network debuted a television game show called Russian Roulette. It was hosted by Mark L. Walberg.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Abnormal risks". Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  2. ↑ The Fatalist (1840) Lermontov, Mikhail. English translation.
  3. ↑ Georges Surdez, "Russian Roulette," Collier's Illustrated Weekly 30 January 1937; "Russian roulette n.", Oxford English Dictionary.
  4. ↑ "Commonwealth v. Malone". casebriefs.com. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  5. ↑ Rothstein, Edward (19 May 2005). "The Personal Evolution of a Civil Rights Giant". Retrieved 21 June 2017 – via NYTimes.com.
  6. ↑ "Really Old School", The Washington Post, December 25, 1998.
  7. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-03. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
  8. ↑ "Toledo Blade - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  9. ↑ Garbus, Martin (2002-09-17) [2002]. Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of American Law (hardcover ed.). Times Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-6918-1.
  10. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-11-22. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
  11. ↑ "Jon-Erik Hexum's Fatal Joke". Entertainment Weekly. 14 October 1994. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  12. ↑ Transistorized!, Public Broadcasting Service, 1999.
  13. ↑ "Roulette gun stunt 'a hoax'". BBC News. 2003-10-07. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
  14. ↑ BBC1 13 September 2010.
  15. ↑ "MMA fighter 'killed himself playing Russian roulette'". Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  16. ↑ "Drinking Roulette Fun Game". roulettegamesvariety.com. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  17. ↑ "The Beer Hunter". Modern Drunkard Magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-12-09.
  18. ↑ "A Little Night Music". www.theatrehistory.com. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  19. ↑ "Slings & Arrows". theslingsandarrows.com. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  20. ↑ B.Srinivasan (January 1, 2002). "How is the word "Roulette" pronounced?". www.thehindu.com. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  21. ↑ "The Deer Hunter Suicides". Snopes. August 16, 2007. Retrieved April 26, 2013.
  22. ↑ https://genius.com/System-of-a-down-sugar-lyrics
  23. ↑ "Kaizers Orchestra album lyrics - Ompa til du Dør". Archived from the original on 21 July 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
  24. ↑ TV.com. "24: Day 3: 5:00 P.M. - 6:00 P.M." TV.com. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  25. ↑ Matos, Michaelangelo (December 8, 2009). "Rihanna: Rated R — Music". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
  26. ↑ Stuart, Keith (November 9, 2010). "Call of Duty: Black Ops – review". The Guardian. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  27. ↑ "Sergio Aragones, genius cartoonist of Mad Magazine. From the early 1960s". Flickr. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  28. ↑ Aragonés, Sergio (July 1963). "Russian "Russian Roulette"". MAD. E.C. Publications, Inc. (80).
  29. ↑ "hinterland-y-gwylls-richard-harrington-everybody-around-me-sounded-like-pingu". The Guardian. September 11, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Peaky Blinders Recap Series Three, Episode 4, Sickeningly Good". The Guardian. May 26, 2016.
  31. ↑ Debnath, Neela (May 26, 2016). "Peaky Blinders series 3, episode 4 review: A terrifying, unpredictable rollercoasterepisode 4 review: A terrifying, unpredictable rollercoaster". Express.
  32. ↑ Series 2, episode 1 - "Venezuela"
  33. ↑ Nobody's Property (2016 novel), p17
  34. ↑ "Super Russian Roulette: A New Party Game for the NES". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  35. ↑ "Update 16: State of the Saloon — Shipping Update #2 · Super Russian Roulette: A New Party Game for the NES". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  36. ↑ "Shop". Batlab Electronics. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  37. ↑ https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/06/las-vegas-17yo-killed-in-deadly-round-of-russian-roulette.html
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