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Beating Roulette With Computers & Lasers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the games-people-play-for-cold-hard-cash dept.

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"

8 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Of course no law was broken! by bigtallmofo · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Of course no law was broken! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Well...in Nevada, winning is pretty much illegal. If you're in a game with a guaranteed negative outcome (which Roulette certainly is), and you win, that's prima facie evidence that you're cheating. Just try to leave the casino with your winnings. They'll keep you in a back room and review the tapes until they can figure out what you were doing.

      Ask anyone who's worked in the "gaming" industry. There are NO winners. Sure, the occasional jackpot or lucky player, but that's just advertising.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    2. Re:Of course no law was broken! by GoogolPlexPlex · · Score: 5, Informative

      The chance of winning on the outside of the layout is 18 out of 37, as there is a 0 that makes all outside bets lose.

      Betting on one number has 1 way to win, but 36 ways to lose. But the house pays odds as though you had a 1-in-36 chance of winning, not 1-in-37. So, the house has an advantage over you - in the long term average, they pay out $36 for every $37 they take back. You can easily work out mathematically that all the other bets (ie, splitting a chip across 2 adjacent numbers etc) work out to exactly the same house advantage. (it's about 2.7% or something)

      In fact, short of actually using technology to predict the outcome or to affect the outcome of the spin, there is NO betting scheme, algorithm, pattern or method of placing bets on a roulette wheel that leads to any difference in the house's advantage over you.

      You are absolutely correct, however, in your assertion in that you must know when to walk away with your winnings. An even more important skill is to know when to walk away after losing.

      (In the USA, the presence of the '00' on the wheel actually doubles the house advantage again)

      And finally, a corollary to your assertion that you have won hundreds of dollars at roulette: You have also, on other occasions, lost hundreds of dollars at it.

  2. Re:Labour spin? Huh? by happyhippy · · Score: 5, Informative
    They are planning to allow the opening of several Las Vegas style super casinos around the UK which dont exist here. Currently casinos are limited to small rooms and crowds and are overly regulated. Funnily enough its the Las Vegas casinos who lobbied the idea in the first place.

    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.

  3. Re:MIT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Easy fix by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

  5. Re:Didn't break the law! by radish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"

  6. A slightly more detailed article by EvilMidnightBomber · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was in a cell phone
    And some theory behind it from the previous slashdot article.