Slashdot Mirror
Beating Roulette With Computers & Lasers
MeerCat writes "The BBC are reporting that a group of gamblers who won more than £1m at the Ritz Casino by using laser technology have been told by police they can keep their winnings.
A laser scanner linked to a computer was allegedly used to gauge numbers likely to come up on the roulette wheel.
Of course this could be Labour spin to try and get people excited about the idea of cheating at mega casinos"
Unless they were using a laser to shoot the ball into the number they wanted, there's nothing at all illegal about this in the U.S., and I'm heartened to read the U.K. either.
"No more bets... And the number is 7... ZAP! I mean 19... ZAP! I mean 22... ZAP! I mean 13... ZAP! I mean 3... The winner is 3! You win again."
I'm a big tall mofo.
The UK Labour party intends to legalise large "American style" casinos, which are currently illegal in the UK. The bill faces stiff oposistion.
Though recently they backed off from the idea by reducing the number of initial casinos to about six (I cant remember the original number) as there are fears here that they'd cause more crime and more poverty in the surrounding area due to the envitable rise in gambling addiction.
No
The famous MIT story is that teams didn't use any kinds of computers. You don't need to use computers to beat blackjack either. But they did get kicked out of casinos since they're private property and they dont like cardcounting. The fact it's legal is irrelevant.
Casino marketing manager:
"There is a portion of the population that think that casinos are stupid waste of time because the odds say that the players CAN'T win.
"Well... time to put a stop to that! Let's tell these smarties that very smart people that study the roulette wheel a lot can predict where the ball will land with some kind of accuracy. We'll suggest that people can tilt the odds in their favor! Haha!
"But we all know that the steps to winning are:
1. Get out casino mentioned in the news and in faux "cheating vegas" documentaries.
2. Encourage these smarties to get themselves to the casino and play some roulette. Those smarties will think they are "honing their predictive capabilities."
3. Profit!
Heck, it worked for Blackjack... let's get them into roulette too!
Why would mega-casinos cause gambling addction to rise in the UK? . . . a country where there are bingo parlors, casinos, slot machines and bookmakers (bookies for you yanks) already legal and seemingly found throughout the country.
Are we somehow to assume that the siren's call of a megacasino is somehow more compelling than that of the bookmaker and bingo parlor located round the corner?
Yeah, but then you have the problem of the "ball" jumping up and biting into some poor guy's head. The next thing you know you've got a casino full of zombies running around and eating the cocktail waitresses - and have you ever tried to bludgeon a zombie with a croupier's rake? It's no crowbar, that's for damned sure.
Oh... wait.
"Hermit" crab?
Never mind...
see
The Eudaemonic Pie
or "The Newtonian Casino" as the UK print was called
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Casino rules != The Law
They probably did break casino rules, and they have almost certainly been banned from going back. But, that doesn't mean they broke the law.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
IANAGAE (I am not a gambling addiction expert) but to me, it would seem far more likely that someone could get addicted to a megacasino with it's flashing lights, sounds, atmosphere, progressive jackpots, everything. They're just much slicker than anything else that people are used to and as such, it's far easier to become addicted. So yeah, I guess that would be a safe assumption.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
It was in a cell phone
And some theory behind it from the previous slashdot article.
Sorry, BS.
It's a game of chance, yes, however, saying "it's not fair to those not similarly equipped" is irrelevant. You are not competing against other players at the table in any way. You winning or not has no effect on their ability to play, or to win. You are competing against the casino.
The "spirit" of the game is guessing what's going to come up next based on the information available to you and everyone else at the table. If I am smarter than the guy next to me, is that an unfair advantage? If I count cards at blackjack, is that "unfair"? (No, it's not, but will likely get me asked to not play blackjack anymore at that particular casino)
This is not about fairness or anyhting like that, it's purely about profit. Odds are in favor of the house. This device shifts the odds in favor of the players, therefore, the casinos cannot afford to operate the game if these devices are permitted on the premesis. Plain and simple. The same reason they do not allow card counters to play blackjack for too long, becuase they would continuously lose money.
If there was no law on the books against this, then rightly so they should walk away with the money. The casino should do more to protect itself from this.
Your preception of what they did is wrong. What makes the roulette wheel work is that no one, with the naked eye, can measure the initial conditions well enough to predict the outcome. From the articles discussed in various links, the group apparently used a laser to measure spin rate and other variables when the roullette wheel was set in motion. Then a computer estimated the final position of the ball. They had a brief window in which to do this. Bets must be placed before the wheel spins three times. If the reports are true, they could do this on a completely fair wheel.
In other words, they were NOT looking at long term averages and saying, for this wheel, the ball lands an unusual number of times on 6. They were looking at the initial conditions of the spin and used to physics to say on the spin, the ball will likely land here. They reduced the odds from 1 in 32 to 1 in 6.
I'm banned from Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort for card counting. Just basic deck-weighting, nothing fancy. Usually if they think you're card counting, they offer you free drinks. They always watch gamblers who aren't drinking (espeically if the drinks are comp) extra closely, and they will at the very least take away your notes or calculator, if not ask you to leave.
Can somebody tell me what this means? Why would Labour (which I assume to mean the UK Labour Party) want to get people excited about cheating at mega casinos?
Gambling in casino's in the UK is restricted to private casinos, where you have to register as a member 24 hours before being allowed to make any bets. There are betting shops (bookies) which allow people to make bets on races, but they have to keep the inside of the shop obscured (usually by posters) to avoid anyone falling to temptation. Many pubs and nightclubs have the odd slot machine (fruit machine) with the spinning reels, but they don't really rake in more than maybe 300 pounds a week, and have to have the theme changed every 4-5 weeks, otherwise the punters lose interest. There's also the traditional beach arcades, where you could play various skill games for a pound coin.
The Labour party was caught out with some dodgy visits to and from the Los Vegas casino owners, over the "tightening of gambling laws". The argument goes that since the Internet is allowing people to gamble from home or work, they need new legislation to ban the slot machines from pubs/night clubs, and that these should be replaced by dozens of new super-casinos able to set up all across the UK, especially in deprived areas. The Labour party spin is that this would allow the average UK member of the public to share in the glamour of high society gambling (image of men in tuxedo's and women in elegant evening gowns), although in reality the casinos would simply have hundreds of electronic slot machines linked up for national prizes.
Given the land shortage in the UK, there are far more practical uses for regenerated industrial sites. These include health and fitness centres, shopping malls, conference centres, office blocks, mixed-income housing, with casinos right at the bottom of the list. Especially since there is no real public demand for more casinos.
And there is also a growing public suspicion that New Labour seems to disregard anyone or any business who atttempts to earn a basic living (let alone make a fortune) from honest hard work, but is only interested in people who are prepared to recklessly gamble their own money eg. the obsession with getting "young people" to become entrepeneurs, or getting experienced senior managers to remortgage their homes in order to set up their own companies, or having multi-millionaires buy out companies with declining sales, and simply rebrand everyone and everything with uniforms and company logos.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads