For many casino owners, any wins or losses that result from a spin of the roulette wheel should be determined by random chance. They should not be able to notice a pattern in the wins or losses, and the house edge should not be impacted when the wins are analyzed.
However, biased roulette wheels don’t work for the casino. Instead, they work for the player as the roulette players slowly but surely figure out the pattern that the wheel follows. Although biased roulette wheels are hard to find nowadays, there was a time when they allowed players to beat the house edge.
Today, many casinos have installed safety mechanisms, such as automatic wheel spinners and surveillance cameras, that can accurately catch a wheel bias or a cheating player. Here’s all you need to know about biased roulette wheels;
What Are Biased Roulette Wheels?
For a wheel to provide completely unbiased wins, it needs to be perfectly designed. Biased roulette wheels are based on a slight error in the wheel’s making, forcing it to tilt in favor of a particular number, color, or portion of the wheel. If a player figures out a pattern in the wins or losses that a wheel provides, they can use this bias to get more wins.
A wheel doesn’t always fall prey to bias due to the making. Often, roulette wheels get biased over time as they are subjected to wear and tear due to usage. A damaged wheel shaft, pocket dividers, or even the ball can tilt the odds in your favor.
Casinos need to learn how to spot these imperfections if they want to catch cheaters before they incur huge losses for the establishment.
However, if you want to spot a wheel bias, all you need to do is look at the winning numbers and mentally track them. Once you have observed a couple of wins, figure out whether the wheel tilts in favor of a particular section.
Biased Roulette Wheels in History
Here are the top three instances where biased roulette wheels led to big wins for players;
1. Joseph Jagger
Joseph Jagger is known for hiring six clerks in 1870 who visited the Monte Carlo Beaux-Arts Casino and recorded roulette wins for him. Wins were recorded at all of the wheels in the casino, and after an analysis of thousands of spins, Jagger reached a conclusion.
As an engineer, Jagger knew how wheels worked and how wear and tear could influence the final results. His analysis revealed to him the nine numbers that the wheels favored.
Once he had that information, he simply visited the casino and bet on the numbers that he thought would produce a win. Before the casinos could remove the biased wheel, Jagger had already won $120,000.
2. The Computer Team
The famous Computer Team in the 1980s was headed by Billy Walters, who used sports betting to his advantage. Using computers, Walters and his team analyzed sports and casino betting data and used it to their advantage.
In 1986, this team won around $4 million at the Atlantic Club Casino simply by recording roulette wins, much like Jagger. All they had to do was figure out that the wheel favored a bunch of numbers more than the others.
Although they were stopped before they could incur further damage, they soon moved to another casino (Claridge Casino) and won another $610,000.
3. Pelayo
Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo is a retired music producer who is known for his curiosity and interest in roulette wheel tracking. After investing a lot of time and energy in tracking roulette wheels with the help of his family, he managed to find a biased wheel at Casino de Madrid.
Although the Pelayos were caught, and the casino attempted to sue them, the courts concluded that there was nothing illegal in advantage play. Soon, Pelayo and his family moved to Vegas and won millions of dollars there before they were caught again.
Pelayos are known for beating the house wherever they go. They took advantage of biased roulette wheels and came out victorious on the other end.
Do Biased Roulette Wheels Still Exist?
You may not be able to pull off wheel tracking anymore. This is because casinos have become much more technologically advanced and are using surveillance equipment to track their players.
Another reason is the obvious lack of biased roulette wheels in casinos today. Most casinos use an automatic wheel spinner, meaning electronic wheels are becoming increasingly popular. You may spend years recording wins on those wheels and not be able to figure out a pattern.
This doesn’t mean that biased wheels don’t exist. We believe they may exist in some parts of the world, but who has the time and money to risk wheel bias? They exist amongst many unbiased wheels, which are going to give you multiple losses if you go off any pattern.
Most wheels in casinos nowadays operate on the random number generator system. Moreover, information from the wins and losses is also analyzed on a daily basis so that any bias in the wheel can be sorted beforehand.
It is also much easier to spot people engaging in wheel bias from the get-go through high-quality surveillance cameras. Casinos can always politely request you to exit the premises as they don’t have to offer service to you. So, if you are considering exploiting biased roulette wheels, do so discreetly.
In Conclusion
Although exploiting biased roulette wheels may not be illegal, bringing in any equipment that can tamper with the wheel is a crime. Roulette players today may use electronics or specialized magnets that can alter the spinning of a wheel. This can land you in trouble with the authorities.
Keep in mind that the examples listed above are of roulette players that played at a time when technological advancement hadn’t infiltrated the casinos. Today, it is getting harder to use roulette bias, even if it exists, in perfect wheels throughout local casinos.
Why not invest in something worthwhile, such as a roulette betting strategy that can get you much more? We suggest progressive betting or the Martingale technique!
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