Full Name Joseph Oller Name Joseph Oller | Died 1922, Paris, France | |
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Born 1839 Terrassa, Catalonia, Spain | ||
Joseph Oller
Joseph Oller (Josep Oller i Roca in Catalan) (1839–1922) was a Spanish entrepreneur who lived in Paris for most of his life. He co-founded the famous cabaret Moulin Rouge with Charles Zidler and was the inventor of the parimutuel betting.
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Biography
Born in Terrassa, Joseph Oller emigrated to France with his family as a child. Later, he moved back to Spain to study at the university in Bilbao. There, he became fond of cockfighting and started his career as a bookmaker.
Once in Paris, in 1867, Joseph Oller invented a new method of wagering, which he named Pari Mutuel (French for Parimutuel betting). He successfully introduced his pool method system at French race tracks. Nonetheless, in 1874, Joseph Oller was sentenced to fifteen days in prison and fined for operating illegal gambling. Later, in 1891, the French authorities legalised his system and banned fixed-odds betting. Quickly, Oller’s Pari Mutuel spread across most race tracks around the world, but the method was operationalised in engineered systems like that of the automatic totalisator, invented by George Alfred Julius.
In 1870, he moved to London for a while to avoid the Franco-Prussian War. There he came into contact with the world of the stage.
From 1876, Joseph Oller focused his attention on the entertainment industry. First he opened various auditoriums and venues: Fantaisies Oller, La Bombonnière, Théâtre des Nouveautés, Nouveau Cirque and the Montagnes Russes. But it was in 1889, when he inaugurated the famous Moulin Rouge. In 1892, he opened the first Parisian music-hall: Paris Olympia offering new forms of entertainement.
He was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery.