Clocking the wheels
Biased wheels cannot have obvious defects that are able to be detected by traditional
inspections and tune ups. They are by nature invisible to the human eye. You need to find
them statistically, by clocking the wheel. This involves observing a wheel and recording
observations. You can then see if the actual odds differ greatly from the expected probability
of a perfect wheel. That is, on a European roulette wheel you should see each number to
come up around 1 in 37. The House pays 1 to 35, so numbers that come up more often that
1 in 35 would have a positive expected value.
So if by clocking a wheel for a 1000 observations, you find that Black 26 came up 1 in 30.
For whatever physical imperfections Black 26 is coming up 1 in 30 instead of 1 in 37. Put
another way, you have found a wheel with a bias for Black 26. If you had bet $10 on Black
26 straight up for the last 1000 spins then you would have a profit of $1,996. Observing
around 1 in 30, you would have seen Black 26 win 33 times and lose 967. So you would
have won $11,550 ($10*$35*33) and lost $9670 ($10*967), giving a profit of $1,996
($11,550 - $9670). (Note: betting larger will give bigger long run profits but will also cause
bigger dollar amount swings up and down in the short run. So if you want to bet more, you
must make sure you have the bigger bankroll to take short term swings).
The question for you is, will this roulette wheel show a bias for Black 26 for next 1000 spins?
The central limit theorem says that the greater the number of observations, the closer you
come to the true probabilities. Put another way, the more numbers you collect the more
accurate your evaluation for bias will be. Following the above example, you might see in the
first 100 observations that Red 14 was coming up 1 in 25 but over the next 900 observations
Red 14 balanced back out to have an overall odds of 1 in 36. So if you had only taken 100
observations and thought that wheel was biased for Red 14, then you would have lost
money for the next 900 spins. Short term deviations and fluctuations are quite normal. By
clocking a wheel for very large numbers of observations you are trying to weed out the short
term random fluctuations from the true long run odds. So the basic rule is, the more numbers
you collect the better.
(This is why the casino is happy to let players write down numbers for a short while, so they
overbet on false short term illusions of pattern. But if you sit at a table and write numbers for
8 hours everyday for 2 weeks they will start to get very upset!)
Personally, I also like to check that the bias makes some sense. We are looking for biases
because of some physical imperfection. These imperfections are unlikely to be exclusively
biased for a single number. Rather some loose fret might be slowing the ball down more than
usual and making the numbers behind it more likely to come up. So you should check to see
that the numbers surrounding the potentially biased number are also coming up more than
expected. So if we see Black 26 coming up 1 in 30 and we see Red 3 and 0 coming up 1 in
32, then we can be more sure that there is some physical flaw in the roulette wheel.
Famous bias wheel attacks
The most famous bias wheel attack was conducted by Joseph Jaggers. Mr Jaggers, with a
team of 6 clerks, clocked all the roulette wheels at the Monte Carlos. They found only one
wheel showing significant bias. In their bias wheel attack Mr Jaggers managed to walk away
with $325,000 - a huge sum for 1873!! (Read more : Joseph Jaggers bias wheel attack)
More recently, in the early 1990s Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo took massive numbers of
observations of the roulette wheels at the Casino de Madrid. He then used a computer to
make a statistical analysis of his collection of observations. As expected he found statistical
evidence of biased wheels. He then used a rotating team of family members to bet on the
most likely numbers. Once the Casino de Madrid owners realised what was happening, they
banned Gonzalo from the casino entirely. The casino operators went further, taking Gonzalo
to court for cheating. The Spanish courts ruled in Gonzalo's favour, saying that he had not
influenced the actual operation of the casino's roulette wheels. Gonzalo was able to win well
over a million euros over several years.
Advice on execution
You need to decide on what degree observed of bias you are willing to accept before
committing a large chunk of your bankroll on an attack. Some people will only accept at least
1 in 25 others might be happy with 1 in 30. The more bias you want, the less likely your
actually going find a wheel with that much bias but on the flip side the more bias observed
reduces the ;monetary risk with the attack and the faster you will accumulate profits. On the
other extreme, a bias of only 1 in 34 is probably too tight to make a decent profit and may
more likely be short term deviation.
You need a large number of observations while not giving away to casino operators that you
are collecting large number of observations. Depending on the casino environment, there
are few ways to do this but you will have to work the best way for the specific situation. Some
casinos have pokies or slot machines near roulette tables, this lets you sit at a slot machine
for long periods and still observing roulette numbers from a distance. You can run a rotating
team of observers to clock the roulette wheel for short periods each. You can use a small
video camera to record the roulette numbers while it appears you are just blindly gambling.
The key is not to get marked recording large numbers.
While bias wheel attacks are not illegal, casinos will use their right to refuse entry on some
trivial grounds to stop your attack. If they are cunning, they may switch wheels in anticipation
of a bias wheel attack.
You will also need to know the casino's own schedule for wheel maintenance and possibly
rotation. You want to start clocking just after maintenance and continue until the next
maintenance. If you have a way of definitely identifying a specific roulette wheel, it may be
interesting to see if potential bias continues after a regular maintenance check.
This is more a hint, but I do have a variation on the standard clocking. I cannot give it away
but the way casinos are checking for wheel bias themselves does not match the actual
operations of the roulette game. If you can work this out, you will find a big gap between the
casino's own bias wheel checks and finding actual imperfections in wheels.
Carrying out a successful bias wheel attack requires a lot of patience, cunning and skill. It
may not give you the high of being on a hot rush, but when you walk out of a casino after
getting away with such an attack you will have quite a different high. It is worth it for those
willing try. Remember, with casino's knowing about the potential for bias wheel attacks, you
have quite a short window of opportunity between maintenance of the wheels so you need to
be quite organized and ready to move quickly. Also, be satisfied with having a few big
winning sessions. If you are too showy or get marked you will quickly find yourself on a
blacklist.
In anycase, I hope you found this a useful introduction to biased wheel attacks.
Good luck with your bias wheel attack!
