By far one of the most deceptive moves in roulette is the column play if it is done well. This usually involves a team of players where one player is at the top of the table looking in the wheel while another is at the bottom betting in colour chips of low value.
The following move is a variation on past posting except past posting is done on the numbers. However the numbers are directly in front of the dealer and are in their direct line of vision. So this makes a past posting move difficult to execute in practice.
However with the column play, a team member is situated right at the bottom end of the table and playing with colour chips. He throws diversionary tactics by placing late bets and leaning across the table. The object of this move is to mask the column bets. But an accomplice simply places a bet on the winning column and when the late bettor straightens up then the bet is there but it isn’t his money.
Now the key to actually executing this bet is for the player who places the late bet on the columns to already become known as a column bettor. So he has already placed a series of bets on the columns of the same value. So say these bets have been $100 then each $100 bet has a value of -2.70% (house edge) so the expectation is -$5.40 for this bet even though the result will either be a $100 win or a $200 loss.
However imagine if just one bet was placed on a guaranteed winning number of $100 then this would totally wipe out the negative expectation of many bets and especially if the player didn’t place a losing bet on another column and so the bet paid 2/1 and made $200. The key here is that the late bettor actually looks in the wheel and then secretly signals to his accomplice what the winning column is.
