Archive for the ‘Roulette Systems’ Category

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Biased Roulette Wheels – Cheating at Roulette

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

A biased roulette wheel is one that is off balanced and favors certain numbers over others. Theoretically every roulette wheel is biased in some way or another and some are more biased than others. This is just a matter of physics because no wheel can be absolutely perfect with ideal balance. Anything from wear and tear or microscopic weight differences can cause a wheel to go unbalanced. Even the small engineering flaws can cause it to not spin in a way that would give every spot on the wheel complete randomness.

For practical purposes, casinos have high quality roulette equipment that is as fair as possible. In the past though, casinos had old lower quality wheels that did not spin perfectly. Basically a wheel could be leaning over in one position and because of this, the ball spinning around would land on certain numbers more often than others. If someone was able to figure out what numbers these were, they could make a ton of money from the casino and this actually did happen at some point. In one case, a gambler actually broke the casino!

A biased wheel can be found by using computer software to find a pattern. Every time the ball is spun in the wheel, the number that it lands on gets recorded into the computer. After so many iterations, one can find what numbers the ball lands on more often. In fact, many companies that manufacture the roulette wheels need to use these computers to test out a wheel before it goes to the casino to ensure that there is a large margin of fairness and that there is no major bias in the numbers.

Cheaters can use the same technology to find patterns. It may not be useful to use this software on a brand new wheel, but it can be beneficial if one was to use this software on an old wheel that has seen a lot of use over many years. An old wheel is likely going to have some bias to it due to age and these are the ones that cheaters tend to go after. They can use the software to find the biased numbers and then bet on those numbers because their odds are better than the rest of the numbers. The computer can sometimes calculate the odds as well and depending on what variation of the roulette game you are playing, a lot of money can be won if those odds exceed the house edge or the odds that the casino normally has against everyone playing.

Note that a casino is a business and they need these odds in order to make a profit to stay in business. Every casino game has odds in favor of the casino unless you can find a vulnerability in the game. Dice control in craps is a way to beat the house in craps. Card counting is another method used to beat the house in blackjack. Finding a biased wheel is actually the way to beat the house in roulette.

Interestingly enough, you might find it obvious that you could not find a biased wheel by playing at an online casino but it is possible! You would have to find an online casino with live dealers with an actual roulette wheel otherwise the virtual software version of roulette uses a random number generator (RNG) to select numbers to perfect fairness. Live dealers usually have a real roulette wheel on a web camera where you could use your computer software to find the bias of the wheel over the internet. One of the deterrents is routinely switching out wheels with other random wheels, even at land-based casinos.

The drawback of using biased wheel software is it normally takes at least 5000 numbers to be inputted into the computer to find a pattern. If you have every played roulette in a casino, you know that sometimes you can only get 40 to 100 spins per hour so it would essentially takes days to find a pattern. More importantly, we are not recommending that anyone actually bring this software into a casino because it is illegal. You could risk getting thrown out of a casino and possibly serving jail time. This is just an interesting article for those who were interested.

Posted in Casino Roulette, Roulette, Roulette Strategy, Roulette Systems | 1 Comment »

The Basic Strategy When Playing Roulette

Monday, February 1st, 2010

There is no fixed basic strategy chart or anything like “basic strategy” in blackjack. Really, it depends on what kinds of bets you want to wager while playing this game. Some are won more often than others but they pay less. For instance, if you would like doing outside bets such as betting on red or black, you will generally win slightly less than 50% of the time in the long run and you will win nearly even odds or $1 for every $1 bet. Then there are inside bets such as betting on single numbers or clusters of numbers. You generally land on these roughly 3% of the time but the payout is enormous. Usually you win about $36 for every $1 bet.

The paramount basic strategy though is to not play on an American roulette wheel. Always play on the European wheel, French wheel or anything with only a single zero green slot in it. This automatically improves your odds by a factor of two.

As for betting, the basic bets you should be doing are the ones with low odds like “red or black”, “even or odd”, “high or low”. These are slightly less than flip-of-the-coin 50/50 odds. The reason you should do this is the payout odds are better than the really risky bets like corner bets, row and column bets and single number wagers. In fact, the house edge on a single zero table is 2.70% on outside bets. This is about as good as it gets. In case you were wondering, the house edge is 5.26% on an American roulette table. This means the casino is taking more of your money much quicker. The basic strategy is that you should always make wagers on bets that have a low house edge.

The next basic thing to do play only for a short time. The casino is guaranteed to win in the long run in every casino game. So people usually win if they quit while they are ahead in the short time. For instance, if you are on a hot streak and come out way ahead after 100 spins, the best thing to do is leave because the more you play, the more the odds are against you and eventually your bankroll will evaporate.

As for betting systems like the Martingale, Labouchere, Fibonacci or something else, these are not considered basic strategy and they do not affect the odds of the game or your chances of winning. These are basically different risk management styles or bankroll management to prevent great losses or to keep you in the game longer. Some are even risky and require large bankrolls, so these are dependant on the style of player and size of bankrolls.

Posted in Roulette, Roulette Betting, Roulette Strategy, Roulette Systems, Roulette Tips | 1 Comment »

Why you can never win at roulette in the long term

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I thought this might be an informative topic to blog about. Many people think there is some strategy out there that can beat the system. It is true for something like blackjack where you can count cards to gain an edge, but that is different because each time the cards are dealt, you know a little extra information about what cards are still in the deck as you count the cards that are used up. This of course become obsolete online because the computer reshuffles the whole deck in a few seconds.

For roulette at land based casinos and online though, each spin has no memory or information of the previous spin. Basically every number on the wheel has an equal chance of being hit by the ball. Normally you would think that if you bet red or black, you would eventually break even because there are an equal number of black and red (50/50 odds) right? Well the thing that trumps all the strategies and betting systems is the green slot which holds a single zero “0″. Even though there is an equal number of each color or equal number of even and odd numbers, your odds are diminished because of this green slot.

Basically this is where the casino makes their money, it is essentially a house number but you can still bet on it. Your odds would normally be 50/50 if you bet on black and red. Over the long term though, every once in awhile, the ball will land in the green slot and everyone betting on black or red loses no matter what. In fact, this slot gives the casino a 2.70% house edge or profit margin on a European and French roulette wheel. On the American roulette wheel, there are TWO green slots with a double zero “00″ in the other slot. This means the casino has more green slots in the mix and the ball lands on green more often. In this case, the house has a 5.26% edge over the players, meaning more profits over a shorter time. In fact, the strategy is to never play on an American roulette table, there are utterly no advantages! If you read my page explaining the history of roulette, this table was created way back during the United States gold rush of the 1800′s when casinos got greedy and wanted more money.

Also, the casinos pay out less than true odds so even if there was no green slots and there was a 50/50 absolute chance of landing on red and black, the casino would pay out odds less than 50:50 because they are a business for profit. Betting strategies do make the game more interesting and can sometimes help. For instance, a very rich person could benefit from the Martingale system as long as they didn’t have a astoundingly massive losing streak… Other systems manage your risk and your bankroll essentially but they do not turn roulette into a personal ATM.

Although, biased wheel computer software can really work, yet this is illegal in casinos of course and you can get in trouble if you get caught. It takes a lot of spins for the computer simulation software to select which numbers come up more often from a flaw in the engineering of the wheel. Joesph Jaggers did this in the 1800′s and won a ton of money in Monte Carlo because he was the first to discover a horrendously flawed wheel that let him win over a quarter million francs. This is pretty much the only way you could really win at roulette in the long run, unless of course you collaborate with the dealers and what not.

Posted in Roulette, Roulette Strategy, Roulette Systems | No Comments »

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