by JeffBet | Date of Publishing: 17 December 2024
To cheat at Roulette, players use tactics like sleight of hand, biased wheels and advantage play, sector targeting, laser technology, dealer collusion, and roulette computers.
Players flock to the roulette tables every day in casinos worldwide. Roulette is played with a ball that is dropped into a revolving wheel. The wheel contains numbered pockets, and the goal of the game is to guess which pocket the roulette ball will land in. This guessing is done by placing chips on the table’s betting grid.
Unsurprisingly, roulette doesn’t just attract honest players. It also attracts cheaters. Some ways people claim to cheat in roulette include sleight of hand, collusion with dealers, rigged wheels, and more. Is there any weight to these claims? Today we examine the top roulette cheats to see how they work and how effective they are.
Table of Contents
Sleight of hand occurs when a player physically uses their hand to add or remove chips from the table when they shouldn’t. The most common time when this happens is after the ball lands in the winning pocket.
For example, “past posting” describes the act of adding chips to a winning bet, removing chips from a losing bet, or even moving chips to a winning bet space, which is called “top hatting.” “Pinching” is when a losing bet is secretly removed from the table. Con artists using these illegal techniques can get incredibly adept, fooling even the most watchful croupiers and casino security.
Sleight of hand is perhaps the most common form of cheating at roulette tables. The tactic is very effective, as supported by Richard Marcus, a skilled sleight-of-hand artist who claimed to have stolen thousands with this technique until he was caught in 1999 and banned for life from Nevada casinos.
Biased wheels and advantage play are strategies where players look for imperfections in a roulette wheel that may cause certain numbers to appear more frequently than others. A biased wheel has developed tiny abnormalities in roulette that cause the ball to land in certain numbers more often. In the past, eagle-eyed players noticed such faulty wheels and won huge amounts. Biased wheels are a rarity these days. Casinos employ high-quality wheels that are designed to be accurate and unbiased. The bias tends to be too insignificant for players to exploit even when they develop abnormalities due to usage.
Advantage Play, in this case, also involves looking for numbers that land more frequently due to a biased or damaged wheel. This technique is ineffective (mainly due to excellent modern wheels). Most experienced players refuse to waste the time and money required to “read” such a wheel.
Rigged wheels, balls, and magnets have been a common problem for decades. Two notable characters were Monique Laurent and Pierre Dugal. Laurent cleverly manipulated a remote-controlled ball with a device hidden in her cigarette pack in the 1970s. She fleeced casinos for over a million before her team was caught. Dugal snuck into casinos after hours in the early 19th century, rigged the wheel, and then returned the next day to place his bets. He also won large sums of money before his luck ran out.
Magnets were one of the oldest methods of cheating. By placing magnets in the ball and somewhere on the table, the ball could theoretically be manipulated to land in a certain sector every time. Cheaters bet on orphans to overcome the house edge for this reason and win more in the long run.
Such exploits are not recommended these days. Casino staff and security are not as lax as they were in the past. Unless a staff member is involved, it’s highly unlikely that a player can successfully sneak into a casino to alter a wheel or add magnets or a rigged ball to the equipment.
Sector targeting is the act of releasing the ball to consistently land on certain numbers. Sector targeting is something only the croupier can do. Unsurprisingly, reputable casinos frown upon this. Sector targeting aims to land the ball in a certain group of numbers covered by racetrack bets or other bets that cover wedges on the wheel.
Not much is known about sector targeting historically or its effectiveness. Some players and hosts have claimed that they have seen or done sector targeting, but there is no concrete evidence (as opposed to sleight of hand and wheel rigging).
Laser technology is a recent “hack.” Three people were arrested in 2004 when they used laser technology to determine the speed of the ball, guess the likeliest numbers, and place their bets. They won £1 million at the Ritz Casino in London before being caught.
Dealer collusion is when a casino dealer secretly works with a player or group of players to manipulate the outcome of a game for mutual benefit. It is said that some croupiers are skilful enough to control where the ball lands. Such an individual gives the player inside information in exchange for a bribe or a cut of the winnings. Due to the secrecy of such a partnership, it’s unclear how often this happens, but it’s likely been a part of the casino scene for a very long time. This method can be very effective, provided the croupier has the talent to control the ball.
Roulette computers are devices used to cheat at roulette. The creativity of their inventors knows no bounds but the most common types you’ll find are programs or apps that predict biases in a wheel. Many players press a clicker every time the ball lands. This information is fed into a computer to calculate the future winning numbers.
Such “clickers” are commonly concealed inside clothing. Some people place the clicker in their shoes and press it with their big toe. There have been cases where players pressed the device between their teeth. Once the computer has completed its calculations, the information is relayed to the player via an earpiece. The player then bets on the suggested number and those closest to it, which broadens their chances of winning.
While this method can be effective, it’s not recommended. Casinos can ban players who use roulette computers or refuse to pay their winnings. In some jurisdictions, you can get arrested.
Yes, there are tricks to win in Roulette. Although many tricks are frowned upon by casinos, some of them are not illegal. For example, a player can exploit a biased roulette wheel without consequence. However, finding such a wheel is not easy, and you must invest real money and participate in a large number of spins to pinpoint a bias – if any.
Remarkably, roulette computers are not illegal across the board. In certain places, they are not classed as a criminal act but players are still forced to go to court to get their winnings, as casinos refuse to pay out winnings earned via predictive technology.
No, you cannot cheat at roulette online. Nearly all cheats require the player to be in a real-world casino. Online betting boards cannot be manipulated, so no sleight of hand is possible. Magnets, lasers, and croupier collusion are impossible.
Some fraudsters claim that number prediction (and thus using roulette computers) allows players to con the system online. However, if users visit a reliable provider such as JeffBet, it is impossible to cheat. Online casinos are so confident that number prediction cannot work online that they even provide past results called roadmaps.
Casinos prevent cheating via inspections, mandatory etiquette, and online gameplay security.
These methods of prevention are listed below.
Equipment is regularly inspected for biases and potential tampering. Reputable casinos also do background checks on staff to ensure trustworthy individuals are hired. Extensive security cameras and facial recognition software are also used to watch everything and identify known scammers.
Roulette croupiers must follow certain rules that lessen the chances of dealer collusion. For example, dealers are not allowed to look at the ball and wheel when they initiate a spin. Some casinos also require dealers to change the speed of the spins and use balls of different sizes to make it harder to control the outcome.
Online casinos use robust security software to prevent all fraudulent activities. This provides a secure environment for honest players. This is important as hackers who manipulate an online game might turn their attention to the sensitive account data of fellow players.
Author: JeffBet
JeffBet is an online gambling company founded in 2022. Its product offerings are online casino, online slots, live dealer games, table games and sports betting. The organisation holds regulatory gambling licenses in the UK and Malta.
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