Predicting the outcome of roulette

[pdonald]

Here's a scientific paper on how to beat roulette! PDF (2.9 MB)

There have been several popular reports of various groups exploiting the deterministic nature of the game of roulette for profit. Moreover, through its history, the inherent determinism in the game of roulette has attracted the attention of many luminaries of chaos theory. In this paper, we provide a short review of that history and then set out to determine to what extent that determinism can really be exploited for profit. To do this, we provide a very simple model for the motion of a roulette wheel and ball and demonstrate that knowledge of initial position, velocity, and acceleration is sufficient to predict the outcome with adequate certainty to achieve a positive expected return. We describe two physically realizable systems to obtain this knowledge both incognito and in situ. The first system relies only on a mechanical count of rotation of the ball and the wheel to measure the relevant parameters. By applying these techniques to a standard casino-grade European roulette wheel, we demonstrate an expected return of at least 18%, well above the 2.7% expected of a random bet. With a more sophisticated, albeit more intrusive, system (mounting a digital camera above the wheel), we demonstrate a range of systematic and statistically significant biases which can be exploited to provide an improved guess of the outcome. Finally, our analysis demonstrates that even a very slight slant in the roulette table leads to a very pronounced bias which could be further exploited to substantially enhance returns.

:Woohoo

[jjtrogen]

nice bit of chaos theory for a monday morning! ta

[Portman]

To achieve a positive expected return there is a better way:

http://www.google.com/patents/US4601470

but is available only for the bank

[rphi6876]

Unfortunately this idea has been around for a long time. Ed Thorp (Same guy who invented card counting) modeled this in the early 60's and is attributed for making the first portable computed to test it out in a casino. Following from this some Uni students from Califiornia did it in the 70's where a book (The Newtonian Casino) was published about them.

More recently this syndicate had a crack at the Ritz http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...encenews.crime

I thought when smart phones came out an app would be quickly made for this. But unfortunately casinos have cottoned on to this and placing your bets last seconds is an easy tell.

Furthermore, I have recently heard that roulette wheels are now being made to account for this. This is achieved by looking like they are decelerating at a constant rate to the naked eye, but actually have micro biases in them to through such a model off.

Having said that if you code it up in an Android app I'll happily buy it for $5

[flok]

i think it's impossible to predict the outcome of roulette in the short term, for several reasons.
if the roulette is not an old model, is perfectly balanced and not damaged, it will produce random numbers because:
1- there are the little rombhus that move the trajectory of the ball
2- the separations between the numbers are lower then before
3- the wheel is flat and lets the ball flow from one number to another easily
4- the ball is not made of ivory anymore, it's sinthetic stuff that is lighter and bounces easily

besides, there's a mistake in the description, when they say "we demonstrate an expected return of at least 18%, well above the 2.7% expected of a random bet".
i wish i had an expected return of 2.7% with random bets, i'd spend the rest of my life in a casino!
the real expected return is MINUS 2.7%, cause we have 1/37 chance of winning, but when we win we get paid 1/36, so in every game the casino is "scalping" 2.7%

[pdonald]

Unfortunately this idea has been around for a long time.

These and some other examples are mentioned (with references!) in the Introduction chapter of the paper.

besides, there's a mistake in the description, when they say "we demonstrate an expected return of at least 18%, well above the 2.7% expected of a random bet".
i wish i had an expected return of 2.7% with random bets, i'd spend the rest of my life in a casino!
the real expected return is MINUS 2.7%, cause we have 1/37 chance of winning, but when we win we get paid 1/36, so in every game the casino is "scalping" 2.7%

My fault, "minus'' got lost when I copy & pasted the abstract.

[custard]

The paper deals with constants. Every new croupier will have an influence on the ball depending on whether he/she is a twenty stone rugby player or page 3 model. So, "constants" are not things which are constant for long in roulette and the paper is no use as a money maker. Interesting but not rewarding.

I once saw a "wheel of fortune" in Thailand at a carnival. I watched it for long enough to realise that it was warped and that the wheel nearly always stopped at the same group of numbers. Everybody else was too dull to realise this. It was necessary to pick numbers by drawing a piece of paper out of a box and it was not possible to select numbers of one's choice. It was a complete scam and I explained it to my wife and said that I was going to expose these cheats there and then. She explained that, if I did, I was likely to have an accident in the very near future, possibly even a fatal one. So, unusual for me, I kept quiet as I rather like breathing.

[PC0845]

Every new croupier will have an influence on the ball depending on whether he/she is a twenty stone rugby player or page 3 model.

I agree that Page 3 models can have a huge effect on balls.