I always thought it was unwinnable...

September 9, 2024 6:26 AM

How to beat roulette A good story about the cat-and-mouse hunt for someone who, in typical casino anti-hero style, is able to beat the odds and (at least for a time) walk away with a substantial sum of money from a high-end British casino. [archive link], via the amateur
posted by vernondalhart (29 comments total)

my theory with roulette is that as long as the 0s don't come up it's even money
posted by torokunai at 6:52 AM on September 9 [3 favorites]

It wasn’t the amount of money at stake that made the Ritz security team anxious. […] It was the way these three were winning: consistently, over hundreds of rounds.

For those who CBA to read the article
posted by ambrosen at 7:41 AM on September 9

There’s one surefire way casinos could stop prediction: calling “no more bets” before the ball is in motion. But they won’t.

That seems to be the nub of it to me. Never played, but I assumed that was the rule.
posted by Phanx at 7:43 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]

I'd like to believe that it is possible to predict the outcome of roulette in a sub rationale way, with 'feels' as it were, that you could train yourself by watching. It feels like an artifact of negotiating the gods cryptic press releases in times past, maybe a fundamental tendency to believe in the possibility of oracles. I guess I feel so drowned in the dogma of materialism (if that is the right word) that the idea of a slightly mysterious talent has so much appeal for me in contrast to the dirge like list of cognitive biases and gamblers fallacies that are so cynically exploited by the "gaming industry" and the democratic state's video poker and lottery games with their cold statistical precision.
posted by Pembquist at 7:47 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]

If anybody hasn't read 'The Newtonian Casino' I would recommend it.

The true story of how a group of young physicists and computer scientists developed a computer to predict the results of roulette. They then smuggled the device into the casinos of Las Vegas, hidden in the soles of their shoes.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:04 AM on September 9 [4 favorites]

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
posted by whatevernot at 8:12 AM on September 9

I have another theory. It's the dealer that makes the difference.

Here's a job where you are doing the exact same motion every 90 seconds for hours at a time, day in and day out. You develop a particular muscle memory without even thinking about it. A dirty dealer can probably put it in a zone whenever they want, a clean dealer can probably still signal their zone without realizing it.

And when you put up a video display of the last 15-20 rolls in view of everyone, including the dealer, you're literally inviting a bored dealer to try and hit the same number twice.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:36 AM on September 9 [4 favorites]

The real question is: who bankrolled/s this guy?
posted by praemunire at 8:49 AM on September 9

The article implies that he was working with Croatian criminals until they had a falling out over money.
posted by indexy at 8:51 AM on September 9

the idea of a slightly mysterious talent

I kind of like that it doesn't feel mysterious. If true, it's a kind of subconscious pattern recognition, focused on a very very narrow domain of interest. So much of what our brains do behind the scenes is pattern recognition; what patterns around us could we recognize if we focused on just a tiny sliver of the world exclusively?

Meanwhile if more journalists put as much effort into tracking things down as the author of this article did (or had the budget/time to do so), journalism would look different.
posted by trig at 9:03 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]

I remember seeing the original story 20 years ago, about a gang using lasers to knock over a casino. It’s quite pleasing to see the follow up all these years later.
posted by Probabilitics at 9:04 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]

And when you put up a video display of the last 15-20 rolls in view of everyone, including the dealer, you're literally inviting a bored dealer to try and hit the same number twice.

From the link

Features:

• Statistics of last 16 winning numbers
• Percentages of red and black colours

Wow is that evil. Might as well have a bowling ally-style animation of flames and a large flashing "RED IS DUE--BET NOW!!!" whenever those percentages spread out too far, as they often will when your sample size is only the last 16 throws.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:25 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]

my theory with roulette is that as long as the 0s don't come up it's even money

The 0's would have to be removed from the board completely for that to be true. Just the possibility of them coming up (whether they do or not) is enough to affect the odds.
posted by crazy_yeti at 9:33 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]

^ yeah but if you don't bet on them then they are just the house's rake if/when they hit : )
posted by torokunai at 9:44 AM on September 9

Wow is that evil.

Yeah, but it's also clever. I've seen people at baccarat tables writing down every single hand for hours, trying to find patterns in the noise.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:10 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]

I haven't read The Newtonian Casino, but I did read The Eudaemonic Pie (mentioned in the first link). Is it about the same group?
posted by MtDewd at 10:21 AM on September 9

This thread would be incomplete without a couple choice quotes from Croupier:

MARION
Well, that's my poor upbringing. I
didn't go to no private school. I
haven't got no class. I want to
live with a writer. Not a fucking
croupier. I don't even know what
the word means. Croupier.

and:

PUNTER
(to Jack/Clive Owens)
You're wasting yourself. With your
luck you ought to come over to our
side.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:28 AM on September 9

Eudamonic Pie is the US title, Newtonian Casino the UK one, same book.

One of the stories out of that book was a discussion in which they discover that a croupier can throw particular numbers with some reasonable reliability. And, of course, most things that can be predicted by computer can probably be learned.

To some extent I wonder if the gambling business doesn't benefit from the occasional "no, really, {roulette, or whatever} is a game of skill, and millions of dollars, so glamorous" story. This is the sort of story I'd made sure got published if math education was getting a little too strong for the industry.
posted by straw at 11:04 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]

The 0's would have to be removed from the board completely for that to be true.

Oops I wrote "board" when I meant "wheel"
posted by crazy_yeti at 12:49 PM on September 9

Zero may be your best bet in America.* The house edge on any single bet is 5.26%, and the probability for loss goes up the more times you bet on even payouts, and goes down with more single bets with 35x payouts. So bet according to how long you intend to roulette.

Odds Betting Straight Up Single Numbers

The probabilities when betting single numbers multiple times a row in American Roulette shift radically. Those bets which you can place on any single number, including the 0 and 00 are called “Straight Up”. The odds of winning such a bet are 1:37 while the payout is 35:1.

Betting on Single Numbers 5 Times

If you bet $100 on single numbers in American Roulette 5 times, the probability of winning at least once is 12.5% and with one win over 5 spins, you stand to win $3,100. The maximum loss is only $500 (when you lose all 5 bets).

Betting on Single Numbers 20 Times

If you bet $100 on single numbers in American Roulette 20 times, you need to win at only 1 of those bets to turn a profit. This happens in more than 41% of all cases.

Betting on Single Numbers 100 Times

If you bet $100 on single numbers in American Roulette 100 times the probability of turning a profit is over 49%. Those are the exact probabilities:

*America has two green spots, while Europe has one, making the latter much preferred, and the former a ripoff.
posted by Brian B. at 1:22 PM on September 9 [1 favorite]

what's the chance that this is... not true? The house edge in roulette is pretty big, and a wheel seems pretty hard to predict. There are at least two possible explanations here:

a) it's possible for someone to predict roulette well enough to beat the house

b) Sometimes people say they can beat the house when they in fact can't (and maybe sometimes those same people are lucky, and do beat the house, and point to that as evidence of their prowess), and people like to accept those claims as true and write about them.

Anyone got evidence to support one explanation over the other? (I lean toward B, but who knows)
posted by ManInSuit at 1:49 PM on September 9

America has two green spots, while Europe has one, making the latter much preferred, and the former a ripoff.

I'm guessing you haven't been to Vegas in a while because now they all have triple zero roulette.

Even worse, some casinos hide the third green position as a "logo" on the felt, which is a extra layer of bullshit on top of the 7.69% house edge.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:50 PM on September 9 [2 favorites]

>Oops I wrote "board" when I meant "wheel"

that's just it -- if the 0/00/000 slots said "Bankrupt" like Wheel of Fortune and you couldn't bet on them, ISTM the house rake only happens when 0/00/000 are hit.

But I got the Monty Haul problem wrong originally so I'm not saying I'm right or anything, it's just the way I look at the actual cost of each session vs. the generalized e-v of the bets over the long run.
posted by torokunai at 4:38 PM on September 9

that's just it -- if the 0/00/000 slots said "Bankrupt" like Wheel of Fortune and you couldn't bet on them, ISTM the house rake only happens when 0/00/000 are hit.

The house advantage is from shorting the payout from true odds. The scenario where there are a limited few bankrupt or losing pocket implies that all other pockets are payouts, when they are in fact mostly losing pockets.

Even worse, some casinos hide the third green position as a "logo" on the felt, which is a extra layer of bullshit on top of the 7.69% house edge.

They might be nudging people to the roulette machines, to save labor costs and to help pay for the new machines.
posted by Brian B. at 6:02 PM on September 9 [1 favorite]

Anyone got evidence to support one explanation over the other? (I lean toward B, but who knows)

I thought the article was fairly strong evidence towards A, but 🤷
posted by ambrosen at 3:47 AM on September 10 [1 favorite]

I'm not a gambler, but sometimes I think there should be legal restrictions on how and when casinos can change their own rules, and even if an exploit is found they have to live with it until the next opportunity where they can roll out a "patch". Or better yet, maybe walking through the door is a click-through license where you agree to the rules as they are at that moment and the casino is also bound to respect them as long as you are inside the building.

Like they couldn't force you to give up your previously-unknown edge because it wasn't against the rules when you entered the building, but they could still do all sorts of harm reduction like trying to distract you with free meals or (more extreme) closing parts of the casino floor entirely as you wander around.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:06 AM on September 10 [2 favorites]

Cat-and-mouse games are much more interesting to read about when the playing field has been leveled. It's no fun when the casino can just call the police and kick someone out just on the suspicion of them having found a way to beat the system.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:12 AM on September 10 [1 favorite]

True, it is kind of cute how righteously indignant they get about "cheaters".
posted by trig at 6:18 AM on September 10 [2 favorites]

I had a great system playing craps against my computer a long time ago. Looks like the odds have changed though. Wait for 6 or seven rolls without a 7, and then bet 2 on the field. If you lose, bet another 2 on the field. Then bump it to four for two more rolls, then 8 etc.

The old odds made it so that you would always win, unless you hit the table limit.
Made so much pretend money in that app. Seems like the casinos have nipped that in the bud.
posted by Windopaene at 9:18 PM on September 10