Roulette - hitting a section of the wheel.

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#1
Met a lady recently who told me in her youth she worked as a roulette croup at a West End (of London) casino. With the stories, she claimed that after a while of working there she'd progressed to the stage where she could spin the ball in such a way she could guarantee hitting a section of the wheel (block of 7-9 numbers?) everytime. She said it was very useful for when she was being hassled by rich clients, and meant she could guarantee they'd lose every bet and eventually pi$$ off and play on another table.

I've heard claims like this from other ex-croups but have always been sceptical. Any consistency in the ball spin, combined with the deceleration of the wheel, will be upset by the nodules built into the bowl. I've noticed that even when the track is spinning very slowly, where the ball hits one of these and the trajectory is deflected, in the time it takes for the direction of the ball to change a block of around 5 numbers will have moved round. If one isn't hit by the ball then the trajectory will be uninterrupted.

I think it may be possible to hit a section of the wheel pretty consistently, but I would think that not more than a third at best could be "targeted", and then with a pretty hefty margin of error.

Anyone looked at this?

Although I think any bias in the game will be from the action of the croup, when they alternate the directions of the spins, spin long and short spins of the ball, and I've even been told at one place a different ball is used on every spin (using three of different weights that, supposedly, react differently when they start to dance across the slots), my view (at present) is that examing this with a view to getting an edge on the game is pi$$ing in the wind. I'd love for someone to prove to me otherwise though.
 

Jack_Black

Well-Known Member
#2
UK-21 said:
Met a lady recently who told me in her youth she worked as a roulette croup at a West End (of London) casino. With the stories, she claimed that after a while of working there she'd progressed to the stage where she could spin the ball in such a way she could guarantee hitting a section of the wheel (block of 7-9 numbers?) every time. She said it was very useful for when she was being hassled by rich clients, and meant she could guarantee they'd lose every bet and eventually pi$$ off and play on another table.

I've heard claims like this from other ex-croups but have always been sceptical. Any consistency in the ball spin, combined with the deceleration of the wheel, will be upset by the nodules built into the bowl. I've noticed that even when the track is spinning very slowly, where the ball hits one of these and the trajectory is deflected, in the time it takes for the direction of the ball to change a block of around 5 numbers will have moved round. If one isn't hit by the ball then the trajectory will be uninterrupted.

I think it may be possible to hit a section of the wheel pretty consistently, but I would think that not more than a third at best could be "targeted", and then with a pretty hefty margin of error.

Anyone looked at this?

Although I think any bias in the game will be from the action of the croup, when they alternate the directions of the spins, spin long and short spins of the ball, and I've even been told at one place a different ball is used on every spin (using three of different weights that, supposedly, react differently when they start to dance across the slots), my view (at present) is that examing this with a view to getting an edge on the game is pi$$ing in the wind. I'd love for someone to prove to me otherwise though.
This is a recently intriguing subject for me; however, I've noticed when one posts such questions like this, it attracts spammers, and suspicious first time posts from new members claiming the validity of one system over another. With that being said, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. It would be a skill that could be attained through thousands of hours, and I'm sure croupiers have worked that many on the wheel. Maybe this particular was exaggerating, but who knows? Is sectoring 1/2 rotor possible? I'm sure. 1/3? probably. 1/5? Well, we could make it into an olympic sport to find out.

The ball question. The croups know what they do. I frequent a place that keeps 2 different balls at the table. The dealers that know and like me use the heavier ball, the ones that are by the book anal, switch it up, I guess as according to house policy. This ball weight would be one of the key determining factors as to the quality and playablity of the game. Much like scouting around looking for deep pen., good rule set BJ.
 

Sonny

Well-Known Member
#3
Steve Forte talks about this in Casino Game Protection. He makes some very good arguments that it is not possible for a dealer to have any significant control over the outcome of the spin. It seems like the incredible timing and consistency required are beyond human capacity. Being able to predict the outcome is far easier than being able to control the outcome. I haven't done much research into this but Steve's argument is quite convincing. Thorp published some papers on roulette prediction that seem to support this as well, although not directly. This sorta falls in the same catagory as controlled dice shooting - some people believe it is possible and a few people even claim that they can do it, but it has never really been proven. Like you guys, I am very skeptical.

-Sonny-
 

21forme

Well-Known Member
#4
I recall seeing an episode of Breaking Vegas where a European family (from Spain, IIRC) specialized in finding beatable roulette wheels. They were eventually banned from all the casinos.
 

Jack_Black

Well-Known Member
#5
I believe that was the family that searched for biased wheels. a completely different ballgame, and frankly something I wouldn't waste my time with. btw, 21forme, there are plenty that I've seen that has the potential for biased wheel play, but who wants to sit and record at least 3000 spin results, and then analyze it for bias? especially at a low limit game?
 

assume_R

Well-Known Member
#6
I also am very skeptical, even that they can be predicted, much less controlled. It wouldn't be hard to disprove skeptics though - roulette tables usually have their numbers posted. You'd just have to find the most consistent dealer you can, log his numbers for many many hours, (perhaps taking shifts doing this), and see if they all fall in any of the same range. I HIGHLY doubt it.

I am skeptical because any slight perturbation in the time you introduce the ball, to the speed you throw the ball, etc. will be exponentially increased with each random action (i.e. each hop). So if a roulette wheel has 4 and 8 next to each other, and one time you threw the ball when a 4 happened to be directly in front of you and the next time when the 8 happened to be in front of you (fractions of a second difference), the final resulting location of the ball will be very very different. I'd say almost no correlation to where you introduced the ball. A computer device with a high video camera and good custom software could definitely help - but that's cheating, a whole different kind of AP :rolleyes:

Regarding dice control in craps, perhaps some people have mastered it, but that's the reason the rules say the dice have to hit the back wall - the little triangles jutting out exponentially increase any randomness in your initial throw.


Edit: I see Abenzio beat me to it by discussing spotters compiling large amounts of data on certain croupiers or roulette wheels to check for correlations.
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#7
If you accept that bias in wheels and croups exist, unless you wanted to spend your whole life clocking wheels and watching croups the only way I can see it would be possible to take advantage of this would be to collude with the croup - and bet on numbers s/he is aiming to hit.

This would, of course, constitute conspiracy to defraud, or cheating - both of which are indictable offences in the UK. The case of whether using one of these computer based gizmos to track the deceleration of the wheel and ball constitutes cheating or not is yet to be tested in the courts of England and Wales, Scotland and NI.
 
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