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You got lucky 13 times in a row. It happens. And since you were only playing with "a couple hundred bucks" you were probably at a $5 or $10 limit table. The casino wasn't worried that you were going to break the bank, it's more likely you were asked to leave because of your behavior. The numbers on the wheel don't correlate to the numbers on the table, so there is no betting strategy where you can make multiple multi-number bet combinations to offset any risk. Not even with a single zero wheel. Did you consider a win as one of your numbers hitting or an actual net gain? Run your strategy over 5000 or 10,000 spins and you'll see it doesn't work. You got lucky in the short term and it wasn't due to skill. Put the money in your pocket and walk away, because streaks like that are rare.

Are you implying I was behaving inappropriately? Sorry, I am not one of those idiots. I was the only player at the table. I was sitting across the way from the dealer betting. I was actually engaging the dealer in occasional chit chat while running the patterns in my head.

With regards to what would happen over 5,000 or 10,000 spins, yeah, of course, the odds are the odds.

That said, I went across the street to another casino and did just as well.

Will it happen again? Who knows? Probably not.

> Also, is there an implied Terms Of Service you agree to when entering a casino?

Yes, there is. It reads something like this:

"This is private property. When you are no longer welcome, you are a trespasser and if you don't leave, we will call the police".

Assuming this wasn't a case where an insider broke into security and installed a transmitter onto a specific video feed, isn't there an argument here as to who owns a presumably unencrypted RF signals?

No. Most gambling locales have a law against the use of hidden electronic devices to assist play. It has nothing to do with airwave rights.

The security you describe doesn't match current home automation standards let alone high end commercial practices. Casinos live and die by their monitoring systems to prevent in house theft - it's pretty much guaranteed that stuff is traveling on secured wired networks.

you cant' improve the probability in roulette with a pattern

I didn't say I improved the probability of the game. I improved the probability of my betting decisions producing favorable outcomes. Huge difference.

Think of it as betting by considering the physics of the game vs. in complete ignorance. Betting single numbers, black, white, dozens, columns and rows is absolutely moronic once you stop to think about how the game actually works.

So what physics did you take into account?

We're being trolled by robomartin, which is not normally acceptable behavior on HN.

No you aren't, roulette is not an RNG, it is a PRNG. If you take into account the initial marble velocity and rate of rotation of the wheel, you can seriously reduce the probability space of where the ball will land. Further, this can be modelled statistically pretty simply.

To win at betting with roulette you only need to bet on a set of numbers, where the probability of the marble landing on that set is pretty good, and the payout of winning over time covers the losses from being wrong.

So say you can accurately guess which 1/4 of the wheel will capture the marble. (and there are no greens... the real math is the same but uglier a bit). You put down equal bets on the 9 numbers represented by that. Each beting round will net you a 4:1 payout.

Now say you can only guess that 1/4 of the wheel, 50% of the time. You will still average a 2:1 payout.

Guessing the 1/4 of the board 50% of the time is not that hard, you just need to calculate the linear drift of the time the marble passes a fixed point, and know the frequency of "loops" that is too slow for the marble to stay on the track. Accounting for the rotation of the board is straight-forward, it is almost constant for a given play. The 50% covers the wierd bounces. Just calculate board position for the time that the marble will get below the threshold, and the marble position as well, and you've won. A person can't do it well, but an arduino is overkill for it.

Edit: further notes on this- casinos will be able to detect this easily. All they have to do is look for people on hot streaks that are "too hot", then compare betting placement with wheel positions. And they generally kick people out who are winning too much anyway, even if they can't prove 'chaeting'.

There was a book on this a few years back: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140167129/jimloyshom...

And this is why shoe computers are banned in casinos!

Google Glass will make this hack so simple, the casino's will have to ban them from being anywhere close to a roulette table to reduce team cheating possibilities.

Google Glass would already be banned on the gaming floor of most casinos, because they tend to ban all photography.

This seems highly unlikely to be practical, given chaos. If this system shows high sensitivity to initial conditions, then we probably can't know the various inputs to enough precision to get any results.

Consider that a 2 link pendulum is chaotic. The tiniest difference in your estimate of the initial kinematics results in divergent predictions.

Some folks published a paper last year or the year before about their roulette monitoring system. You can improve your odds because you're allowed to place bets while the ball is bouncing. Some physics prof claims to have successfully used a device to count the bounces and decide which half of the wheel to bet on. I'd find the citations for you, but I'm sure you could do that just as fast as I.

One thing to keep in mind, always in such situations[1], you don't have to be right, you just have to be probabilistically right -- that is the goals is to just increase the chances of being right in such a way as to have an edge.

[1] Where you are betting, or otherwise working on odds and long term averages.

I have two questions regarding this:

1) In the age of the smart phones, could one not develop an app to do this calculation for you? It might be tricky to film the wheel, but I'm sure that can be done stealthily somehow.

2) Would this work on online roulette games who claim to simulate the real-world physics of a roulette table?

You can. This is another sophisticated way to cheat. People are using their smartphones to count cards for them which will get them kicked out.

> We're being trolled by robomartin, which is not normally acceptable behavior on HN.

Missed your breakfast this morning?

Relax bro.

The roulette is unbalanced and tilted one way?

No. Read my reply to "eru".

No need to scare-quote the nicknames here.

Not intended that way at all. I didn't even know the term "scare quote" existed.

I won't spell it out here because the fun is in working out these problems, at least it is for me. I'll shove you in the right direction though.

Betting on a single number is foolish. The mathematical probability of hitting any single number is only 2.7%. In other words, the house absolutely loves you.

Dozens and Columns are better, 32.4%. Still, the house advantage is huge.

Even/Odd or Red/Black get you up to 48.6%. Hey, that's a deal, right?

Well, no. The problem with all of these calculations you'll find around the internet is that they are equivalent to picking a random number (or 12 or whatever) out of 38. The problem is that this is NOT how the roulette works.

The roulette has a spinning wheel with numbers separated by fences. The ball spins as well. Along the path of the ball there are also little bumpers that can alter the path of the ball.

Yes, in the long term it is just like picking random numbers. However, if you look at what makes you win or loose at the "micro" level it is a little simpler.

If you bet on a single number the ball only has to move one slot for you to loose. As it lands on the number field the ball has a bunch of excess energy. The surfaces are hard and it bounces around with great efficiency. It can go over one or more number fences very easily.

In fact, if you study every single common bet, single numbers, rows, columns, dozens, color, even/odd, etc. they all share one trait: If the ball jumps over just ONE fence you loose.

If you've played roulette enough you'll eventually run into this stereotype: Big guy. Smells and looks like money. Shows up with piles of cash, gold watch and gold chain around his neck. And starts to place piles of cash on numbers he is pulling out of his anal orifice. Most of the time these guys loose a ton of money. Why? The "one fence" problem.

OK, I think that sets it up. Actually, it is probably beyond obvious at this point. Take a look at a roulette wheel and think about how you should bet to solve the problem that makes every single common bet nearly worthless.

The genius of the roulette is in the wheel.

I don't get it, surely if I bet on only one number and win, my return must be higher than if I bet on even/odds. it's not the probability that counts, rather the expected return.

Look at the table. Find two numbers too bet on.

Now find those numbers on the wheel.

If I drop the ball directly on one of your numbers from, say, 1 inch above the number. Wheel not spinning. How far would the ball have to bounce for you to loose?

Bet on the dozens, columns, rows, black/red and other common ( and convenient) bets. Repeat the exercise.

Stop, please just stop.

You have nothing useful to say yet feel compelled to attack what I am saying. Why?

It has been proven that roulette can be beaten through predictive methods. This is nothing new. Not sure I get your angle when all you do is shoot the messenger.

I am going to take you at your word that you aren't baiting me. Yes, you can (and people have) predicted where a roulette ball will land while it is in motion, particularly if you have the aid of cameras. This is more useful in European Roulette and American Roulette - but it can work.

What you can't do, is come up with a positive expected value through any kind of betting pattern.