Quinc said:
I've been playing alot of roulette lately and i've been searching for information on clocking a roulette table? i'm not sure if thats what its called or not. I've only been able to find is people selling roulette systems.
If you guys could help me out with any links or other info on this that would be great.
Thanks in advance
-Quinc
This is all I've got. The computer use has been illegal for Nevada casinos since '86. As for non-computer clocking, there's some material available, but its not worth the effort. Better to clock dealers' spin-signatures at wheel-of-fortune. zg
- EXCERPT ZENGRIFTER INTERVIEW -
Didn’t you once work with a roulette computer crew?
Not a crew, actually, I did some post-prototype R&D with UNLV physics professor Harry Fechter. I met Harry on a fluke when he called me and introduced himself as “the guy who built the hidden blackjack computer” that Eddie Seremba had been wearing when he was pulled up at the Frontier and then hit the newspaper a few days previously. The year was 1977 and I had run a biz-opp ad in the Las Vegas Sun looking for backers. Harry remarked that “even with a computer the edge is so small at blackjack,” and that he had something more powerful.
I was familiar with the theory of computer-aided roulette prediction from Thorp’s revised Beat The Dealer, Allan Wilson’s Casino Gambling Guide, and Richard Epstein’s Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic. Theory held that such a computer could achieve a 40% edge over American roulette! I guessed right and was invited to meet the good doctor.
I met Harry at his nearby home and he gave me a tour of his garage laboratory - among his inventions were a card deck-sized dead car battery starter, a solid-state no moving parts refrigeration chest, a couple of blackjack computers, and the object of my visit... a city phone book-sized second generation roulette computer!
I asked this local outstanding scientist why he would be dabbling with these cutting-edge commercial projects, what with his busy UNLV academic schedule and ‘CTSA’ (cosmic-top-secret-atomic) clearance consulting at the nearby Mercury nuclear test site. He lamented that after his son died a few years previously he realized what he really wanted in life, “to make a great deal of money.”
So he had a yellow pages sized roulette computer? Was it viable?
He had done an outstanding job of R&Ding the prototype, considering that this was pre-micro electronics. The algorithm it was based on was obtained from Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon, using his own academic credentials.
Prior to roulette, Harry helped fellow UNLV professor Koko Ita develop the Ita ‘Green Fountain’ count (first generation SilverFox), and he had then built two of the first hidden blackjack computers to be employed successfully.
The roulette computer, as Harry had developed it, was intended for one person to deploy - slung with a strap over one shoulder under a coat, one hand in the coat’s pocket on a control fob, and an ear-phone delivered Morse-code readout... obviously not practical for actual casino play!
Over a three week period he educated me about biased wheels - the computer exploited a bias that was found in 8 out of 10 wheels: most wheels are not perfectly level, and even being off one-half degree from level would cause the ball to fall from the track at the same spot most of the time. Harry reminded me several times that micro-electronics were just “around the corner” that could produce a third-generation model reduced to cigarette pack size - we envisioned the next-generation miniature with eyeglass mounted micro-switches tripped at the user’s temples by jaw clenching!
My job was to re-think/work the application concept - retrofitting a Radio Shack FM transmitter to the audio-based readout - transmitting to a confederate wearing a small transistor radio. And I was to line up the BR.
Anyway, Harry was after all a college professor and he got cold feet. To my knowledge his roulette machine was never successfully put into play.
- END EXCERPT -
