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I have been asked many times about roulette betting systems and the overall effectiveness of them. Novices tend to believe too much in betting systems and with it the most popular of the lot which is the Martingale. Sceptics basically rip them to pieces but are they correct to do so? Well the true value of roulette betting systems cannot be underestimated. If you wanted to go into a casino on any one individual evening then using a betting system would offer you a fantastic way to end the evening ahead.

One thing that you need to remember about roulette betting systems is that they need not be the Martingale which can quickly spiral out of control because of the doubling up nature of the system. But there are many systems that are used or can be used that are cancellation systems which do not have anywhere the same level of bankroll requirement and certainly do not escalate like the Martingale does.

However where betting systems can prove their effectiveness is when they allow the player to maybe qualify for other casino perks and benefits whilst seeming to be a “player”. Casino comps can sometimes be substantial and it can definitely be in a players best interests to try and qualify for these in the cheapest way possible. In the famous book “Thirteen against the bank” written by Norman Leigh, he described a classic cancellation system that reportedly took the casinos in France for £66,000 which in 1966 was a massive amount of money at that time.

Just how far can you go with regards to cheating inside a casino using illusion and time misdirection? Personally I feel that a great magician could be the perfect person to cheat. I once had a demonstration from a highly trained magician and this is certainly a person who I would not want dealing my poker game for sure.

But time misdirection is the art of performing magic tricks by getting the target to look away from the move while you are doing something. The key with misdirection is that the subject must at no stage feel as if they are being manipulated into looking away. To give an obvious example, any misdirection that was so blatant like finger pointing would likely not work in a magic context simply because your subject is expecting you to do a trick and also to perform some sort of deception.

However in a gaming sense then the player to a certain extent has the advantage. The key to misdirection is to make the subject or subjects want to look somewhere else. I have heard of teams of professional cheats that used misdirection as their primary weapon, obviously these people didn’t reveal their true identities or the casinos in which they operated.

I feel that one of the primary targets for cheats are other punters. These people can be incredibly careless with their bets and money. But the key to extracting money from casinos is not to be too greedy. Past posters get caught because they try for too much too soon. Trying to get £25 on the number when the table maximum is only £25 is asking for trouble. CCTV camera’s will be inspected even if the move actually got past the gaming staff. But getting away with £1 on the number is a far easier proposition and those £35 pay outs at 35-1 really start to mount up over time.

With certain bets on roulette, players can unwittingly increase the house edge against them in that particular situation. One may be forgiven for thinking that the house edge is fixed at roulette but it isn’t and can drift depending on the type of bet that a player places.

I will show a classic example here, one player places a bet of $10 on first and second dozens. This bet wins 2-1 on each winning section and seeing as they can be only one winning bet while the other bet loses, if a number comes first or second dozen then the player wins $10. The winning dozen wins $20 while the losing dozen loses $10 so the net result is a win of $10.

The house edge for this bet is 2.70% but the bet could have been placed better. By splitting the total $20 and placing $15 on the low numbers and the remaining five dollars on the 19-24 six line then he has still covered all of the numbers from 1-24 in the same way that he would have by betting first and second dozen.

If a number from 1-18 comes then the even money low number bet gets paid even money but the bet from 19-24 loses so the bet makes no money but it doesn’t lose any either. This makes the bet seem inferior on the surface but the 19-24 pay-off gets paid 5-1 and this winning bet wins five units minus the one unit loss on 1-18.

The long term pay-off is exactly the same but the difference comes when zero arrives. With the old bet everything is lost but with the new bet then the player gets returned 50% of his bet on low numbers which in this case is $7.50. So every time zero comes the player saves $7.50…….the effect of this reduces the house edge from 2.70% assuming a single zero wheel to only 1.35%.

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I can well understand anyone who thinks that the dealer cannot control a roulette ball. After all, their views and opinions are backed up by scientific evidence and the “pro” brigade don’t have any proof.

It is the lack of proof that is so frustrating but no one will ever convince me that dealers cannot spin sections. I have heard the question asked so many times that if dealers could do this then why wouldn’t more of them work in collusion with punters or friends and associates?

Well I have a very simply answer to that, firstly how would anyone ever get to find out that dealers were doing this. The dealers and the accomplices certainly wouldn’t tell. Secondly in my experience only a very small percentage of croupiers ever have the ability. It takes considerable practice to build up this skill.

The staff turnover in casinos due to the conditions of the job and the fact that the working hours are not conducive to a social life means that many leave within a year or two. So most of the croupiers never get to acquire the skill. Even most of the longer term croupiers are simply not bothered by trying to win money.

But getting an edge is all a croupier can do. The house starts off with a 2.7% house edge, so the dealer needs to affect the result enough to offset this first. Even a very skilled dealer cannot guarantee success. So to make a considerable amount of money doing this would involve having a considerable bankroll and the confidence to be able to withstand losses that may have been far bigger than what you have ever experienced.

This is very difficult, but even if you are successful then the casino will not allow you to remain that way and will take countermeasures against you or any other winner.

See you soon

Carl

Years ago when I was a casino gaming inspector (someone who supervises the gaming tables), you could always tell which punters were going to make a move. Or at least you could if you had enough experience and imagination. Because to cheat well then you have to have imagination and creativity. Timing and psychology along with misdirection are the hallmark of a highly skilled cheat.

Amateur cheats get caught and this is what an awful lot of people see when they see cheating. So when you see things like this then it is easy to believe that cheating is difficult……it is if you are not skilled in it but relatively easy otherwise. The real skill comes down to timing but that can be said of an awful lot of disciplines.

Timing is key in martial arts and combat sports, key to overtaking in Formula 1, key to a great Golf swing and also key to cheating. Expert cheats create time by using misdirection as a tool to deflect your thought patterns and vision. The above average cheat doesn’t have the skill of a Derren Brown but most of the time they don’t need to have as sloppy staff basically do their work for them.

If I so desired, I could go into any casino in the UK and take money. Even though I have never practiced it and never would……I still know how to do it after many years in casino gambling. I know what staff look for and what details get past them. To cheat well inside a casino then you have to think like a member of staff.

If anybody was paying too much attention to the gaming inspector then this was always a potential warning sign to us. It is different if they are making conversation but someone looking at you is not a natural reaction when there is so much more going off on the roulette table and in the wheel.

see you soon

Carl

It always used to amaze me (and still does) that live casinos like punters to know that blackjack is a game of skill which can be beaten. But yet when anyone exhibits enough skill to be able to do so then they are prevented from playing in the same way or even from prevented from playing at all in some locations.

I find this behaviour objectionable to be quite frank and always have even when I was in gaming. I understand perfectly the casino’s position. At the core of it all is a company who is providing entertainment and nothing more. But if this is the case (which it is) then these companies shouldn’t (even in the past) have lured people in to play the game in that way.

So what they are basically saying is, we want all of the players who think that they can play the game with skill but who are deluding themselves but anyone who really has the skill is not welcome. I don’t mind not being welcome and never have but I have never liked some of the tactics of the casinos where I worked.

Skill can also be obtained on roulette as well, if you don’t think that is true then you obviously haven’t read enough of my posts. Like I said with the biased wheel post yesterday, it is possible for a player to obtain an edge on roulette on the right wheel greater than a card counter can obtain on blackjack.

In all my posts it has become evident to me that I have not revealed any clues as to how to spot biased wheels. What we are looking at here are what should be normal random distributions of numbers.

The next step is to look at if these numbers are appearing outside of what is normal random distribution. Seeing the number 4 arrive three times in four spins is certainly not evidence of bias. Most biased wheels are not biased enough to overcome the 2.7% house edge on single zero roulette.

We now need to get into areas like confidence levels here but in no way am I a mathematician. I just have access to confidential data that is all so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures…..just the sources that they stem from.

Modern Huxley wheels have bias detection software but I believe that most casinos would not employ these very expensive wheels when they could use cheaper varieties. The figures that I have seen recommend tracking a wheel for an initial 200 spins.

This represents the initial assessment, if a wheel has a strong enough bias to be worthwhile then it will show itself during this length of time. The next step is to take a look at the frequencies involved but that is for a later post.

see you soon

Carl
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Question……..would a punter be able to spot a biased wheel with the naked eye.

Answer………Almost certainly not

Question…….Would a casino member of staff spot a bias with the naked eye

Answer……..Almost certainly not

The problem with trying to spot a bias is that numbers frequently come in clusters anyway. In this instance then it is exactly the same as lottery numbers, in fact the chances of either lottery numbers or roulette numbers coming out in equal frequency are very remote. If you had 37 spins of a roulette wheel then the chances that these 37 spins would produce all 37 numbers exactly once would be astronomical.

So this means that numbers are getting repeated quite often in the short term and this is entirely normal and merely part of normal random distribution.

So it is difficult or even downright impossible for punters or staff to spot this with the naked eye as they witness normal events that appear like bias every single day when it actually isn’t.

On a 37 number roulette wheel then the bias doesn’t have to be great to totally offset the house edge. On this 37 number wheel, the odds of any one number arriving are 36-1 and the odds that are paid are 35-1.

But if a certain number (for reasons unknown) was arriving not at a rate of once every 37 spins but once in every 36 spins then any punter who recognised this would be playing equal with the house.

Take that one step further and let us say that a number was arriving once in every 35 spins…..now we are into making money territory. Imagine a player who has found a bias on number 17 and was betting $5 per spin.

He was getting 70 spins per hour on a fast game so was wagering $350/hour. But his number was being hit on average one spin in 35 so he was getting 2 winning bets per hour. At 35/1 plus the $5 bet back then this equates to $180×2 = $360.

He has had 68 losing spins at $5 which is $340 and 2 winning spins at $175 per spin so he is $10 in profit. If he can replicate that then he is making $10/hour from a biased wheel. If he doubles his bet then he makes $20/hour and so on.

He is returning $10 on every $350 wagered and is returning 2.85% on turnover. To put this into perspective, this is considerably higher than a conventional blackjack card counter. The difference is that once a wheel like this is found then a player can get away with this and perform this far easier than a card counter.

see you soon

Carl

You recall me talking about “The Salmon”…..if anyone does not understand what I am talking about here then see my previous post. The next instance of me seeing him on roulette occurred a few days later.

I recognised him instantly because of his looks and also because of what he had done on roulette a few days earlier. This time I was watching him like a hawk but I was more concerned in allowing him the opportunity to bet so I could observe him more.

What I didn’t want to do was to blow him away from the table by dealing aggressively and also speeding up the wheel to a ridiculous level. So I kept the wheel at the same speed which was quite slow and before long he was buying in for a £5 stack of colour chips.

He watched my spin for a few minutes and then started to bet. His first few spins missed but each of them was not far away and he was unfortunate enough to have three spins where the ball landed next to his number.

He lost his initial £5 but he then bought some more colour chips and started to spread his bets more. Within thirty minutes he proceeded to win back the money that he had lost and about another £50 on top.

I also noticed that when I left the table for a break……so did he. This got me thinking that there was obviously something about my spin that he liked. I became intensely fascinated by what he was doing and he almost seemed unbeatable. It could just have all been luck so I then decided to track the amount of money that he was winning.

I already knew that he was about £650 ahead over the two sessions that I had seen him. Over the next few months, I managed to watch him an awful lot without him knowing both when he was on my table and also adjoining tables that I could observe clearly.

I kept a running total of bets that I could see. I expanded this by bringing in someone else to help me watch him. We both had a keen interest in controlling a roulette ball and visual prediction. The following three months was alarming, out of a total of 44 sessions, “The Salmon” lost just 7 times and each loss was only in the region of about £20-£50 but when he won he would win anywhere from £50-£150.

These were figures which the casino never bothered to clock but his total over that period was that he was ahead in the region of about £2500……now I was really taking notice.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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My first ever encounter with “The Salmon” was memorable. Actually I really ought to point out here that the use of the term “Salmon” has been taken from a blackjack card counter back in the sixties who was dubbed the “Salmon” by casino staff because he was winning and not losing consistently like everyone else. The name came about because Salmon swim up stream against the flow of the water.

This term was in the classic blackjack book “Beat the Dealer” by Ed Thorp and I figured that this name would suit my own version of the “Salmon” on roulette. I recall one early evening at about 7pm, I was dealing on American Roulette 1 when a guy walked up to my table with a couple of his friends. He looked something of a nerd and was about 5ft 9in tall, slightly overweight with a terrible hair style.

He watched the game for a while whilst talking to his associates and he sort of sounded quite irritating. After about fifteen minutes of watching me spin the ball, he then proceeded to place 50p which is £0.50 on number 17. I had no reason to suspect that this wouldn’t be anything more than a losing bet but a few seconds later I was placing the dolly on number 17 and paying him £17.50. He took his chips and put them into his pocket but left the original £0.50p bet on the number.

I gave the ball a big spin and then he appeared to think for a couple of seconds and proceeded to take the cash chips back out of his pocket and place them all back on to number 17. This gave him £18 on the number and this time my eyes were glancing at the wheel as the ball began to slow. With the final half revolution, I knew that it would be close and it was. It bounced around 17 for a second or two until finally coming to rest right in the middle of number 17.

His friends couldn’t believe it and neither could I, this guy had just won £630 from 50p in the space of two spins. A 1260 return on investment but there was nothing to suggest at this stage that this was nothing more than luck and I was sure that it was no more than that…..time would prove me very wrong.

look out for more on “The Salmon”

Carl

Over the years, I have encountered more than my fair share of roulette wheels. From the older high profile wheels to the new John Huxley “Saturn” design with built in bias detection software and electronic readouts.

In my experience, whilst every possible precaution is made by the actual manufacturers themselves to make the wheels unbiased, bias is actually inevitable. Some years ago I was exploring the possibility of bias appearing intermittently and then disappearing again.

I felt that certain atmospheric conditions could contribute towards bias in some instances but I have never been able to properly fathom why this could be the case. Wheels are moved frequently so in the process of moving them then bias can appear.

On several wheels that I have worked on in the past, the diamond shaped canoes have become loose or in some instances the metal pocket dividers that separate the actual numbers have become loose. What happens in these instances is that when the roulette ball makes contact with metal that is loose then the movement of the metal absorbs the energy of the moving roulette ball.

What this means is that the ball is then attracted to a certain area of the wheel and is less likely to be thrown into another area. This type of reaction may seem trivial but when you consider that the house edge at single zero roulette is a mere 1.35% then you can see the effect of a bias and how that can possibly lead to advantages being secured in certain types of situation where you can perhaps ascertain that certain numbers will not arrive on a certain spin.

Think about this for a moment because if you know for instance that given the dynamics of the situation that two numbers will not arrive during this spin then what this means in essence is that you could in theory back all the other 35 numbers where the pay-off is 35-1.

This means that you would return 36 chips and win 1 chip at whatever the chip denomination was. It gets a little more technical than this but this is how you can manufacture an edge at roulette and take advantage of it.

Carl