There are a few ways that roulette players have tried to get an edge over the house, in one way or another – using betting systems, lucky numbers, and even using modern technology to attempt to predict where the ball is going to land based on where the ball was released, how fast it was going and how fast the wheel is spinning. The first two concepts are not going to gain you any profit in the long-term, because betting systems are more for fun than for profit, lucky numbers do not actually exist (imagine if two players had different lucky numbers and bet at the same time – someone, if not both, have to lose). The third idea, while not technically illegal, is going to get you into a whole world of trouble if you get caught – plus, you cannot do it on an online roulette wheel!
However, there is one way that you could get an edge over the house if you are fortunate enough to experience it – a biased roulette wheel.
A biased roulette wheel is, to put it simply, a roulette wheel that has a flaw in it which results in the ball landing in one specific number, or in a specific group of numbers time after time. A roulette wheel can become biased in a few ways, but the most basic way is through sloppy craftsmanship – a roulette wheel has to be made with exact measurements, exact weighting and perfect balance. If any of these things are out of line, it can lead to a bias in the roulette wheel. Perfect balance is perhaps the biggest bias that can be encountered, simply because measurements and weighting is done with machinery to make it as precise as possible. With the balance of the wheel, things can slip just slightly, moving the wheel down a little in one section which means that the ball would be more likely to land in the section that is ‘dipped’. If you notice that the wheel has slipped just a tiny bit and one section is favored, place your bets on that section and you should hopefully win.
Another way a roulette wheel can become biased is through general disrepair. There might be dirt in a pocket which makes the ball bounce differently, or a fret between numbers might just slightly off and the ball again bounces differently, causing it to not come out of the pocket as far and slows down at the same point every time, or maybe it just needs oiled and it sticks at the same point of the spin every time. All of these problems will cause a biased roulette wheel.
That is why casinos do their best to ensure that roulette wheels are taking out of play as soon as a fault arises and are rebalanced and repaired – they have lost their edge to the player who has identified the bias. Roulette wheel is of the utmost importance to the casino.
The most famous case of a biased roulette wheel is possibly the tale of Joseph Jagger who visited the Beaux-Arts Casino in Monte Carlo and cleaned them out of two million francs. Jagger was an engineer who identified that roulette wheels could have an inherent balance to them. He set out to Monte Carlo with a team, which identified the one wheel in the Beaux-Arts Casino which showed some kind of bias towards nine numbers on the wheel. He bet according to the roulette wheel bias, and although the casino eventually figured out his ploy (changing wheels around, moving the frets and fittings of the wheel), he still left with a substantial profit, all because one of the roulette wheels in the Beaux-Arts Casino was biased.
If you encounter a roulette wheel that has a bias to it, you can capitalize on this by placing your bets according to where the bias is. But there is one word of caution – try not to bring attention to the fact you have found a bias in the wheel. Sure, if the ball lands in the number 5 ten times in a row, the casino will know something is up with the wheel, but if it is constantly landing in one section of the wheel time after time, it will take much longer to pick up on. So, try and remain inconspicuous, put a couple of losing bets in there and hopefully no-one at the casino picks up on the bias of the wheel until you have left with huge profits in your wallet.
It is worth noting that obviously an online roulette wheel can never be biased in a traditional sense – there are no moving parts to go wrong (unless you are playing live roulette at one of many online casinos that offer the game, of course).