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A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

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Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#31

Post by bombcar »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
willcipriano wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.

The same theft is present in the lotteries and those are more often than not national affairs with the common pot as the beneficiary. Have you ever seen a wealthy person play the lottery?

Lotteries don't even have the semblance of legitimacy that allowing church bingo parlors does; they're exclusively an optional tax on the poorest members of society. Then again, so many of our sin taxes are.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#32

Post by aklein »

jacquesm wrote: post #21
MrMember wrote: post #10

>Tosa, Marjanovic and Pilisi returned to the Ritz at 10 that night, as promised. This time they were led to a private room where a squad from the London Metropolitan Police was waiting. An officer politely informed them they were under arrest on suspicion of “deception” and led them away to be interviewed at a nearby police station. Once the gamblers were out of earshot, Wootten urged the cops to check their shoes an…

That jumped out at me too. You could lose 500K in a casino and nobody would bat an eye but win 500K and suddenly the police is involved and the casino refuses to pay out. Personally I think if they can't prove that you are cheating that you should be allowed to continue to play as long as you feel like and the casino stays afloat. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. The police automatically sidin…

It wasn’t that they won; the article explains that plenty of people walk out with designer bags full of money. It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. It’s usually just a matter of finding the smoking gun. Although it’s unpleasant that the casino and police assumed it was cheating and not a defect in the game itself (in what turns out to be a naive and self-delusional assumption), is that really that surprising or ridiculous a position to take? The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#33

Post by kilroy123 »

MrMember wrote: post #10

>Tosa, Marjanovic and Pilisi returned to the Ritz at 10 that night, as promised. This time they were led to a private room where a squad from the London Metropolitan Police was waiting. An officer politely informed them they were under arrest on suspicion of “deception” and led them away to be interviewed at a nearby police station. Once the gamblers were out of earshot, Wootten urged the cops to check their shoes an…

Wait until you read about the Native American casinos. They'll straight up not pay if you win without cheating.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#34

Post by bombcar »

zamnos wrote: post #24
htrp wrote: post #15

if these are the people i think they are, they practiced a ton to train themselves to be able to identify the underlying physical aspects, in effect memorizing how to do everything the computer would nominally do. if you know wheel rpm plus an estimate of the speed the croupier throws the ball, you can get a pretty good physics sim of where the ball lands.

There's a similar urban legend about craps. That with enough practice, you can get good enough at throwing the dice at the exact right place to get, again, not a visible advantage, but a just ever so slightly higher statistical advantage. Sounds impossible, but looking at the level of skill a world class athlete has encourages me to believe in this urban legend.

Like many urban legends, there's probably some truth - https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn3j44/dice-control-dominic-... digs into it.

Card counting is well known and casinos encourage it, because MOST people can't do it well enough, and they shuffle often enough.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#35

Post by mrandish »

jfk13 wrote: post #9
staringback wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not expert on casinos, but placing a bet after the ball starts spinning just sounds wrong? Why would casinos ever allow that?

To encourage more betting, in the excitement of the moment when the wheel is spinning one way, the ball is circling the other way, and the outcome is mere seconds away... Slow things down, require all bets to be placed before the croupier spins the wheel and throws the ball, and you'll have taken away some of the mystique and the adrenaline of betting on this bouncing, glittering thing that's happening right now in f…

Having to wait for all bets to be placed before starting the spin would also reduce the average number of spins per hour which would reduce the casino's profit per table-hour.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#36

Post by jacquesm »

aklein wrote: post #32
jacquesm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That jumped out at me too. You could lose 500K in a casino and nobody would bat an eye but win 500K and suddenly the police is involved and the casino refuses to pay out. Personally I think if they can't prove that you are cheating that you should be allowed to continue to play as long as you feel like and the casino stays afloat. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. The police automatically sidin…

It wasn’t that they won; the article explains that plenty of people walk out with designer bags full of money. It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. It’s usually just a matter of finding the smoking gun. Although it’s unpleasant that the casino and police assumed it was cheating and not a defect in the game itself (in what tu…

> It wasn’t that they won;

Of course it was! If they had lost using the same method there would have been no issue.

> It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off.

That's the casino's problem though, not law enforcement. Statistically unlikely equates 'we haven't seen this before' and that should not be enough reason to arrest people. The police should not be in the business of protecting the revenue streams of gambling installation operators. There should be some symmetry here, if the casino is a-ok with making money on gamblers then they should take their lumps when the situation is - temporarily - reversed. LE has no business here, tough luck they should have run a business where the flow is one way by design instead of one with a pretend two way flow.

> The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets.

Which is precisely why the police has no business doing this. The burden of proof with respect to cheating is on the casino, and until they have something solid nobody should be arrested. That's the police acting unilaterally on behalf of one party. A more balanced response would have been to help the players cash their checks, after all the casino did not object to the reverse when the funds were deposited. It's fraud by the casino until proven otherwise.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#37

Post by bagels »

Pulcinella wrote: post #25
willcipriano wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.

Interesting fact: As far as I am aware, it’s illegal to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo unless you are a foreigner (I.e. it is not legal for citizens of Monaco to gamble there). Probably because the country isn’t actually bringing in any new money if locals gamble. There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for…

There's an argument that the casino provides entertainment/thrill in exchange for money. I think your argument could be applied to most money spent on entertainment if you don't consider it to be creating "new value for society as a whole"

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#38

Post by [deleted] »

bagels wrote: post #37
Pulcinella wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact: As far as I am aware, it’s illegal to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo unless you are a foreigner (I.e. it is not legal for citizens of Monaco to gamble there). Probably because the country isn’t actually bringing in any new money if locals gamble. There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for…

There's an argument that the casino provides entertainment/thrill in exchange for money. I think your argument could be applied to most money spent on entertainment if you don't consider it to be creating "new value for society as a whole"

[deleted]

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#39

Post by whichfawkes »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #30
jamal-kumar wrote: post #26

A couple of notes from my own experience in casino hacking fun: 1. if they spot you singularly winning way too hard, they will cut you off 2. if you can distribute the wins wide enough between enough individuals you might get away with it There ARE exploits and you can get away with them. People find them pretty regularly and the ones who get away with it are really organized. My favorites over the past years: Weak P…

“Got away with it” would imply they committed an elaborate scheme. It sounds like they played the game with a strategy and never broke any rules. Except the cardinal one that the House always wins.

Getting away with it in this case just means "not being cheated by the casino".

They're big enough to cheat you using violence or even the judicial system, so if you do this you're strategizing against that as much as you are strategizing to win the actual game.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#40

Post by pmoriarty »

Pulcinella wrote: post #25
willcipriano wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.

Interesting fact: As far as I am aware, it’s illegal to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo unless you are a foreigner (I.e. it is not legal for citizens of Monaco to gamble there). Probably because the country isn’t actually bringing in any new money if locals gamble. There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for…

"There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos."

When you make gambling illegal you just drive it underground and fund organized crime, with all the additional crime and corruption that brings with it.

The arguments against making gambling illegal are similar to many of the arguments against making drugs and prostitution illegal, such as consenting adults should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

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