Belle (gambling game)

Belle is a lottery-style gambling game that was carried from Italy to Paris in the seventeenth century, related to other Italian lottery games such as Biribi and Cavagnole. Play centers on a board marked with 104 numbers arranged in thirteen rows of eight columns, paired with a bag holding matching numbered tokens that are drawn to determine the winning number, a structure similar in spirit to later roulette wagering. Players could place bets on a single number, on an entire row of thirteen numbers, or on a full column of eight numbers, with winning bets paying out at either 100 or 96 times the stake depending on the terms agreed, giving the house an edge of roughly 3.85 percent or 7.69 percent respectively. The game later drew the attention of authorities in Austria-Hungary, where it was placed on the Ministry of Justice's list of prohibited games.