The word roulette is French and translates to small wheel. The origin of the roulette wheel is not very clear with numerous tales that exist today. Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and is believed to be the inventor of the wheel. The game basically involves players who choose to place bets on a colour, Black or white, a number or range of numbers, or state whether the number is odd or even. On betting a croupier spins the wheel and ball in opposing directions. The ball is spun around a circular track around circumference of the wheel. The ball eventually slows down and falls onto the wheel in 37 or 38 coloured pockets of the wheel respective if it’s the European.

The first form of roulette was played in the 18th century in France. The first roulette wheel, with its even/odd and alternating colors, was used in a Paris casino in 1796. The roulette wheel is apparently a fusion of the English wheel games Ace of the Games, E.O. and Roly-Poly and Italian board games namely Roulette(a board game that existed in that name at the time) Biribi and Hoca.
the roulette wheel was introduced to the US from the Europeans, sometime in the 1800’s. The American casinos further modified the small wheel to produce the 31 rocket roulette wheel. Also referred to as “American and European wheels” this one had an extra pocked which decreased the winning odds of a player. The sponsors definitely liked that!

The French novel, La Roulette, ou le Jour” by Jaques Lablee is one of the first books to provide a description of the roulette game and the wheel as it was in 1796. In the year 1843, in a town called Homburg located in German there was the introduction of the single “0″ style roulette wheel by two Frenchmen. According to Hoyle gambling books that were present around 1886 the single 0, the double 0, and eagle are never bars; but when the ball falls into either of them, the banker gets to take every thing that is on the table excluding, the bets made on any of the players. In some forms of early American roulette wheels – as shown in the 1886 Hoyle gambling books, there were numbers 1 through 28, plus a single zero, a double zero, and an American Eagle. German banned gambling in the 1860s causing migration of the Blanc family to Monte Carlo were there was one of the very few legal casinos that existed at the time. In the early 20th century, the only casino towns were Monte Carlo with the traditional single zero French wheel, and Las Vegas with the American double zero wheel.

In the 1970s, casinos began to increase all over the world. It was at Monte Casino and Games that they established a gambling mecca were the single 0 was the common game. From here it spread to the rest of Europe and the world. The double 0 remained dominant in the United States and was not moved by the spread of the single 0.
The French double zero wheel managed to get to Mississippi from New Orleans, and spread towards the west. Cheating was at high levels in this area and eventually resulted in the wheel being placed on the table and a simplier betting layout. This is basically how the American roulette differed from the French roulette.
Nowadays there are several casinos offering roulette games all over the world, with the single 0 dominating in the Caribbean, U.S.A and South America.

(continuing on from part two)

“That and how hard you threw it” replied Duncan.

“I know that buts let us just suppose that we could throw it evenly and at the same speed each time then the bounce would be identical for each surface would it not?” replied Matthew.

Duncan nodded in silent agreement. “Well the ball on a roulette wheel falls from the track as soon as its speed falls to a certain point and that speed is constant from spin to spin. So because the metal rotor is made of the same material then the bounce will be the same in the roulette wheel” remarked Matthew.

“Yeah but you still cannot predict where the ball is going to bounce” interrupted Duncan.

“Yes but I read about a case some while ago where someone got access to a Roulette wheel after the casino was closed and inserted black rubber strips into the number slots that were identical in size. The following day when the casino opened, they went back and started betting heavily on red because the ball would simply not come to rest in any of the black numbers that had the much springier rubber strips in them” remarked Matthew.

“That’s brilliant” said Duncan.

“Yeah it is but it is also impractical” replied Matthew.

“What do you mean?” replied Duncan with a puzzled look on his face.

“Well for a start, I just cannot see how the black rubber strips are going to be the same shade of black as the natural black that is in the roulette wheel. Those strips would stand out a mile.” Said Matthew.

“Couldn’t you put a black rubber strip into every black number in the wheel so that there wouldn’t be a colour difference” replied Duncan.

“You could but that has two very distinct problems. Firstly having a rubber strip in every single black number would mean that red numbers would hardly ever come out because the ball would naturally seek out the least line of resistance. Secondly, placing rubber strips in the roulette wheel is just providing the casino with evidence to which they can prosecute someone. No, what’s needed is a way to get the exact same effect without leaving any evidence at all and it being a lot more invisible than placing rubber pads into the number slots” replied Matthew.

“So what do you propose?” replied Duncan.

“Well I had this idea to smear an opaque resin type substance on the black numbers that would be invisible to the naked eye. When the ball hit the number pocket then it would not be making contact with the metal but the resin substance instead which would have a far different level of bounce than the ordinary metal pockets” said Matthew.

“Does this substance exist?” said Duncan.

“You bet your life it does, I know this guy who is a lab technician for a chemical company and he says that Oxydysetomide would do what I was looking for” replied Matthew. He went on, “the stuff can be applied and sets like varnish in a few seconds. But the best thing about it is that the substance can be removed by applying petrol afterwards and this breaks it down enough for it to be removed” said Matthew. Look out for part four coming soon no how to scam casinos.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author “Killer Roulette”

Following on from part one and this just served to mask his true feelings, he was very disgruntled with his job and was resentful that he had not had a pay rise in a long time. He hated the fact that some punters were very rude to him but being good friends with the AGM put him into a very awkward situation because it was him that got Duncan the job in casinos in the first place so to complain now would seem like ingratitude. Duncan always knew just how dodgy Matthew was but the two of them had a lot more in common than being life long friends and good drinking buddies. Both shared a very unhealthy interest in scams and con men and would sometimes talk for hours devising intricate theoretical cons either at Duncan’s place or round at Matthews.

As both of them were single then this was easy, Duncan was recently divorced and Matthew was doing what he had always done and that was to flit from partner to partner never staying with any girl more than a few months. Over the years they had discussed ways to rip off banks, credit card companies, motorists, just about anybody and anything. But because of Duncan’s job, Matthew had never before brought up the subject of ripping off a casino….until tonight.

It was the very first time that Matthew had revealed to Duncan that he had a full sized proper Roulette wheel that had actually seen action inside a real casino and as part of real casino games. Duncan was amazed by this and inquired as to how long that he had had it. When replied that he had been in possession of the wheel for over three years then this came as a monumental surprise to him.

“So why didn’t you tell me about the wheel before, can’t you trust me or something?” inquired Duncan.

“It’s not that, I just did not want to put you into an awkward position but with you looking for another job and having that interview on Thursday then I figured that you won’t be in the industry for much longer” replied Matthew

Duncan smiled and said “what’s a matter, did you think that I would blab?”

“No not at all, it just didn’t feel right that’s all” replied Matthew.

“So what have you been doing with it and have you found a way to beat the thing” asked Duncan.

“Maybe” replied Matthew with a distinct twinkle in his eye.

“So come on then, tell your good buddy” replied Duncan.

“Well at first I tried to spin certain numbers but I couldn’t do it and after about six months I packed it in. Then I tried to do the opposite and spin away from certain sections and I thought that I was succeeding at this at first but that proved to be a red herring as well. Over the past three years I have tried all kinds of things to beat this damn wheel but the task has proved to be very difficult” said Matthew.

“But you have found a way haven’t you?” inquired Duncan.

“In Theory, I have yet to try it out and won’t be able to until next week” replied Matthew.

“So come on then what is it?” asked Duncan.

“Well I stumbled on the idea really while playing Tennis and it is quite simple. You know that if you threw a tennis ball at numerous different surfaces then the degree of bounce on that ball would relate to how hard each surface was” remarked Matthew. Look out for part three coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author “Killer Roulette”

I will leave it entirely up to you to decide whether the content of this series is fact or fiction but what you are about to read is based around events that have all happened to a certain extent. The names are fictitious and so is the name of the chemical substance that is used but this chapter tells the story of what could easily be a real scam perpetrated against a casino. It once again underlines the fact of just how vulnerable casinos are and especially when you include inside assists. Like I said, the characters in this series are fictitious but the events are certainly not based on fantasy.

The year was 1991 and Duncan Elway and Matthew Mcdermott were having a meeting around at Matthews house to discuss the possibility of hitting a casino from the inside. Like many other people, they were seduced by the thought of scams and were enthralled by the tales of con men and swindlers. There has always been something appealing and loveable about some of these characters and that is partly why they interest people so much.

But there is an element of the crook in all of us because of how exciting the life sometimes seems from the outside. But Matthew and Duncan have taken this interest to another level and situated inside Matthews basement is a full sized Roulette wheel made by the Paul Tramble Roulette wheel company in Reno. The wheel looks to be in excellent condition and the metallic rotor, canoes, frets and spindle still glimmer and shine like new under the single light that illuminates Matthew’s basement.

Where Matthew came by the wheel he is certainly not prepared to say but Roulette wheels like these can be bought on the open market these days and reconditioned ones can be purchased for a couple of grand. Matthew had his own double glazing business which was hardly pulling any trees up by way of profit and it would be no surprise if the entire thing folded. Matthew was certainly not averse to folding businesses as he had done so several times before and had been officially declared bankrupt owing his business associates considerable sums of money.

But that did not bother Matthew and to say that he never lost any sleep over it would be a colossal understatement. Duncan worked on reception at the casino near to where Matthew lived and he and Matthew had been very good friends for a long time, since they were school kids in fact. Because of their close friendship, Duncan would regularly reveal information to Matthew that ordinary punters would not have had access to. Duncan was very close friends with an assistant General Manager who worked there, close enough to find things out that would interest a charlatan like Matthew.

Matthew would know first hand how the casino had done on any particular shift either on the gaming tables or on slots, if they had met their targets, who was being promoted and all kinds of confidential stuff. Duncan was a likeable guy and even the gaming staff themselves would open up to him and tell him information simply because everyone trusted him. Nobody perceived him as a threat and he appeared to love his job as he was always smiling and telling jokes. Look out for part two coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”

As I have said many times, the key to taking money from casino roulette is to keep it small and to make it look natural. You may get away with winning or taking large amounts of money for a short while because the casino cannot be sure that you are not just getting lucky and will be reticent to intervene. It is far more productive in the long run to go for small and regular amounts because these when taken over time will add up to more money unless we are talking about a very substantial one off coup.

The concealed push out move has been another very common cheating technique over the years and once again involves the dealer. The move is relatively simple, a punter buys in for four or more stacks of colour chips that resemble the colour of the cash chip that is about to be concealed. The reason for the colour similarity is because the dealer needs the move to appear natural if they get detected.

A much higher denomination chip is mixed in with a stack of colour chips. The stack with the cash chip in it will be situated behind two more stacks of colour as you push them out to the punter. Also, your guiding hand will conceal the chip to anyone else on the table as well thus making it truly invisible.

To strengthen the move, the dealer plans for it in advance. If someone has been playing in black twenty five pound chips then this creates an ideal opportunity to create the move without it looking suspicious if you get caught. As the twenty five pound chips are scooped into the chipping machine with all of the other chips, they should in theory be separated into their respective colours by the machine.

But cash chips do often come through the machine and go into one of the chutes that has colour chips in it thus making what is called a “dirty stack”. As the dealer is compiling the five stacks of colour in order to pass them out to their accomplice who has just bought in, they casually remove a stack of colour chips from the machine with the “dirty chip” in it or in this case, a twenty five pound chip.

If the machine has kept the cash chips separate then it would not be too difficult for any dealer to do this manually while the inspector is busy watching the other table. This is something that they will almost certainly be doing if the ball is dropping on that table and especially if that dealer is a trainee.

So the cheating dealer has ample time to construct a dirty stack of their own in order to pass it out to their accomplice who in turn pockets the twenty five pound and is literally playing for free with the twenty five pound of colour. With an unobservant inspector, this trick can be repeated many times and as long as the player is careful with the cashing out process then they are very unlikely to get detected.

One of the problems that the gaming industry faces is to do with the attitude of the staff that they employ. There are large numbers of croupiers and inspectors who view themselves as underpaid for what they do and in some cases actually are. They take abuse of a psychological and verbal nature on a daily basis and many of them are unhappy in their jobs and do not envisage any long term future in that industry.

This creates an environment where many members of staff literally have stopped caring about doing their job to the best of their ability and are virtually operating on automatic pilot. But it also creates an element of “it is us against them” type of attitude with many members of staff but casino management seem slow to realise this! The real danger for casinos is when a member of staff reaches that meltdown point where they just stop caring and are not overly concerned about losing their jobs.

In my experience as a croupier, I would estimate that an average of about one thousand pound per club per week is swindled by staff who are on the take. This equates to over six million pound a year just in the United Kingdom alone.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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When you play casino games then you will realise that the “blocker” move is really just another variation on past posting. But instead of the move being done on a number, the target for attack is the high numbers. For those of you who are not overly familiar with roulette, the game has thirty six numbers and zero. There are all types of bets available of which one of them is to be able to bet on either low or high numbers.

Low numbers being the numbers that are from one to eighteen and the high numbers being from nineteen to thirty six. To bet on low or high numbers, you do not have to physically place a chip on all of the numbers from one to eighteen or from nineteen to thirty six. Placing your bet on the box designated 1 to 18 or 19 to 36 will do the same job.

But the betting square for “high numbers” is at the bottom far corner of the table which is the furthest away from the inspector. This opens up a potential move and the three man blocker move exploits this to the full. The timing is everything with this move as it is with most moves. As the ball is falling into the number, the dealer makes a signal as to whether the ball is in a low or high number. This is a pre-arranged signal that is only known to the dealer and their accomplices.

At that precise moment in time, one of the team leans across the roulette table to straighten a bet or to place a late bet. But this is done in a seemingly harmless way but the move is not only a diversion but it also forms a barrier between the inspector and the bottom of the table and especially the outside bet section. The third member of the team then places a sure fire winning bet on the high numbers and gets paid even money.

As long as the bet is for a relatively small amount of money then nothing gets noticed and because the past posting has been done on high numbers and not on a straight up number then it never seems to get detected. It amazes me how many so called experienced gaming staff only ever look out for past posting on the numbers. This blinkered vision makes them fair game for moves like the blocker.

The move is even more effective whenever somebody else is betting on high numbers because their bet can assist the cheater at the bottom of the table in being able to conceal the bet on high numbers behind somebody else’s bet. In fact it is common with this type of move for the guy in the middle who late bets to also place a bet on high numbers himself in order for the higher denomination chip to be concealed, let me explain.

One of the team members buys in for a fair sized amount of colour and places sporadic bets on the roulette layout. But he also places an entire stack of colour chips on high numbers as well. A stack of twenty five pence colour chips will dwarf a single higher denomination chip and will easily conceal it. The stack of chips will only amount to five pound and this bet will be close to breaking even anyway in the long run but the twenty five pound chip that is a certain winner on high numbers will more than compensate for that. This is the sheer power of the blocker move.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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This move is as old as the game itself but yet the casino industry is almost powerless to prevent it on roulette that is dealt by a human dealer. It is the very simple but highly effective process of paying losing bets or bets that were not even there at all. In some cases, bets have been added that were not even there at the beginning of the spin.

For this scam, the inspector or supervisor does not have to be part of it. In fact if they were then this would complicate the process because instead of only two people having to be involved, there are now three. There are a large number of variations with this move and the variations that are inherent in this one roulette cheating method alone are absolutely enormous.

The dealer as usual will pick and choose their targets very carefully when it comes to which inspectors to try this against. Some inspectors are extremely lazy or are not doing their job properly for whatever reason and are in fact fair game for unscrupulous dealers who are colluding. I must admit that towards the end of my career then I was a fair target for this kind of move simply because I was mentally switched off a large percentage of the time.

The roulette dealers know who the observant inspectors are and they are not always the most experienced ones either. One of the ways for a dealer to subtly pay a punter off is to deflect chips on to the splits and corners of the winning number while they are clearing the layout or isolating the number. This can be done very well by even a moderately skilled dealer and even if the move was observed by another punter, it would just look for all the world like a careless and sloppy dealer.

Any bet that is on a split gets paid to the sum of seventeen to one and eight to one for a corner bet and those odds are not small change. The number of times that I have accidentally removed chips from around the winning number from splits and corners when I have been isolating the number are too numerous to mention. It would have been just as easy for me to slide a losing chip onto a winning split or corner as well and I have accidentally done this many times on roulette.

Another way to pay off a punter is to slide a losing chip from the layout onto one of the dozens or columns. Once again this move is highly dependent on the inspector being relatively unobservant which to be quite frank, many are. As far as many of the casinos in England go, the inspectors are not paid enough and most of the action is just too repetitive for them to remain focused throughout the entire shift.

The secret to this is to not get too greedy. Inspectors will mentally tighten up if substantial cash chip action starts to hit the felt. In fact even the placing of one single chip that is of a higher denomination to anything else that is on the table will get mentally logged.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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This is another move that can be easily achieved by any inspector who has the nerve to do it. It can also be done by a punter as well but the one big draw back to this move is that it is far more likely to be revealed on camera as the move is visual and not audible. It involves subtly and very quickly placing a finger over the rim of the casino roulette wheel and deflecting the ball from the ball track and into the rotor. Obviously when this is done, care is taken so that the ball is tripped in such a way as to make the ball go into the desired section that is being bet on.

If you think that this move is very blatant then you would be right but it is nowhere near as blatant as many people think it is if the timing is right and the cover and diversionary tactics are spot on. The roulette ball is deflected from the ball track when it is coming towards the end of its cycle. This is because it is too noticeable if it is deflected any earlier because the ball is travelling much too fast for it to drop from the ball track and would look and sound very strange to the dealer as well as other punters that were present at the table.

One of the stumbling blocks with this cheating move is that some dealers and many punters tend to look in the roulette wheel while the ball is spinning and this would make the move impossible. But if you have punters at the table that are busily engaged in placing their bets or doing other things then the possibility of the move opens up.

It is standard practice for the punter that is involved in the scam to distract the dealer at the last possible minute with a call bet. At that exact time, the inspector trips the ball from the ball track into the section that his accomplice is betting on. For good measure, the call bet will be for the same designated area also and will provide a very tidy bonus should that bet come in as well.

But in no way is this move confined to being done by an inspector or casino supervisor. It would be relatively straight forward for any punter to do the same thing and especially in situations where they have very close access to the wheel and the Inspectors attention is split between two tables or there is no inspector present.

For the bet to have a high degree of probability of winning then the bettor places chips on quite a wide area of the wheel like the Tier section for instance. If the roulette wheel is travelling relatively slowly then this increases the profitability and success of the move because a slow moving wheel will mean that the target area is hit with a high degree of probability. This is a very daring move but very easy to achieve in the right set of circumstances.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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It is a fairly common practice for a casino that takes call bets in the middle of the spin to place the bet on the number or numbers to avoid any discrepancy wherever possible. If the call bet has been so late in coming or would take so long to place that it would cause difficulties then it is simply memorised and placed on the roulette wheel. The call bet is declared by the punter and repeated by both dealer and inspector/supervisor.

Throwing call bets across is also an angle that opportunist cheats try to create and especially against inexperienced staff. They hope that they forget the bet which can be the case if there have been several call bets on the same spin. But just to clear up one small point here, there is a difference between verbally declaring a bet from across the room without any money being placed on the roulette table in question and throwing money in the direction of the dealer and making a verbal declaration of the numbers that you want the bet to be placed on and in what denominations.

In this instance I am in fact talking about the latter where money is tossed on the table in front of the dealer and a bet is declared audibly. But this is definitely an avenue where collusion has existed down the years and will continue to do so whenever roulette is dealt in this way and bets like these are allowed. Strangely enough, it does not take both the dealer and inspector to be involved in the scam. A rookie trainee dealer is far less likely to remember bets that are thrown their way and especially on a busy game where they will have numerous other things to think about.

When the bet is placed on the roulette wheel then it does not take much imagination to realise that if the particular numbers concerned that formed the bet have been forgotten or maybe the dealer is unsure then an opportunity for chicanery arises. The rookie dealer will trust the inspector and will not even question their word even if they suspect that they are wrong.

What makes this move very powerful is that it cannot be picked up by CCTV. All that any camera would pick up would be the dealer placing the bet on the wheel and the inspector looking on. Only if there was an audible back up system in place could you detect any wrong doing here….that or being able to lip read.

One of the ways to fool an inexperienced dealer is to make them believe that they have possibly misheard you. This can easily be achieved by a punter stating numbers that sound like another like seven and eleven for instance or six and twenty six. Whenever an inspector is colluding with a punter in this way then they tend to wait until they get slow confused novice roulette dealers before they try a move like this.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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Situated on every casino roulette game is a cash box or otherwise known as the drop box. This is a steel box that is locked and situated under the table inside another steel box. It has a slot in the top that coincides with the slot in the table top and it is into this slot that any money goes from punters who have exchanged their cash for chips. The cash gets into the box by way of a plastic plunger that is not quite as wide as the slot itself and with an opaque handle.

The cash box has a locking mechanism attached to it which gets reset when the box is emptied during the count (procedure that is usually done at the end of a shift when all the cash is counted and logged) at the end of the shift. So to underline what we have here, we have a steel box situated inside another slightly larger steel box with two slots that marry up with each other. But sometimes problems arise with those two slots not quite being lined up with each other.

It is a common occurrence for cash to lodge in the actual drop box flap after it has been plunged by the dealer. This happens whenever the slots do not line up properly but it can also be manipulated as well. Let us say that a punter has just bought in for twenty pounds worth of chips with a twenty pound note. What the dealer should do in order to try and make a neat clean drop should be to place the note across the slot in such a way so that the slot runs directly across the middle of the note.

Ninety nine times out a hundred when this is done, the note will drop cleanly into the cash box. But sometimes it will get lodged in the cash box lid but underneath the roulette table surface itself and so out of sight of the punters. But not placing the note accurately across the drop box slot will increase the frequency of this event happening tremendously. If the dealer knows full well that they are on the count at the end of the shift then they can plan for this in advance.

The croupiers will be informed at the start of the shift or close to the start if they are on the count or not and can prepare for the move. When the cash box is removed from the steel case that holds it then quite often there will be notes protruding from the slot which can easily be pulled out by anyone that is in possession of the box at that time. At the end of the shift, the casino is devoid of punters and most of the staff have left the building so the number of people who can physically see you has been greatly diminished. Do keep a sharp look out for more casino cheating scams in future parts to this series.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”
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