Russian roulette is a game where a player is given a revolver and six cartridges, and must choose to put one round into the revolver’s chamber. If the round is fired and it results in an “even” number on the barrel (i.e. 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.), the player loses the round.
If the round is fired and it results in an “odd” number on the barrel (i.e. 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.), the player wins the round. There are six rounds in a revolver, so if a player loses three rounds consecutively, they are dead. .
There have been many attempts to calculate the odds of shooting oneself in Russian roulette. The most accurate study was done by Austrian mathematician Karl Reinhard who calculated that if a person plays Russian roulette 500 times and loses every time they play, there is a 1 in 36 million chance of them killing themselves.
This means that if you want to play Russian roulette for fun and potentially die, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to kill yourself playing Russian roulette.
