How to Cheat at Roulette and Why It’s a Bad Idea

Roulette features very little strategy in comparison to many casino games. The only skill in roulette involves choosing the right game and properly managing your bankroll.

Both French roulette (1.35% house edge) and European roulette (2.70%) offer you a good chance to win. But some players aren’t satisfied with merely having a low house edge.

Roulette advantage-play methods like dealer signatures and wheel bias are murky at best. This means that cheating is the only way to beat the game with certainty.

You may be surprised to learn that it’s not hard to cheat in roulette. In fact, there are multiple ways that you can gain an edge through cheating.

But using nefarious ways to beat this game can have dire consequences. That said, I’m going to cover different ways to cheat in roulette, along with why it’s unwise to do so.

Roulette Cheating Methods

Most roulette cheating methods are clearly illegal, especially those involving sleight-of-hand tricks or tampering with the wheel. Others are more ambiguous based on the gaming jurisdiction, including anything dealing with technology.

But if you’re going to cheat, you at least have a chance to avoid jail time with technological means.

Here’s a closer look at the main roulette cheating methods. You’ll notice that some of these are very simple, while others involve a higher degree of difficulty.

Past Posting

Past posting is one of the aforementioned sleight-of-hand techniques. It’s been used by roulette cheaters for centuries thanks to its simplicity.

Past posting involves placing chips on the winning number after the ball comes to a stop and the winner is determined.

This concept is so easy that anybody can try it. But the key word is “try,” because it’s very hard to past post without being caught.

You need perfect timing and fast movements to pull off this cheating method. If you take too long or your timing is off, the dealer, pit boss, and/or security cameras (upon review) can catch you.

Pinching

Pinching is similar to past posting in that you’re trying to make a quick move with chips. But the key difference is that you’re removing a losing bet from the table after the ball has stopped and the outcome is decided.

Pinching requires the same skillset as past posting, other than the fact that you’re making the opposite movement.

Famed casino cheat Richard Marcus was a master at pinching and other roulette sleight-of-hand moves.

He and his team used an elaborate method to switch out $5,000 chips at the bottom of a bet with low-value chips following a loss. But if the bet won, they’d leave the $5k chip in the stack.

Marcus made a fortune through his cheating techniques but was eventually caught and banned from all Nevada casinos. He now works with casinos to help catch cheaters and is a lecturer on the subject.

Colluding with the Dealer

Sometimes a gambler and roulette dealer work together to cheat the house. And the most popular way to do this involves the dealer past posting for another player and/or accepting late bets.

Of course, they also pretend not to know each other to avoid potential scrutiny from other players and security.

Once at the table, the gambler makes bets like normal. And the dealer will discreetly add chips to their winning bets and/or pretend they don’t see late wagers being placed.

This scheme works best during slow hours when there are no other gamblers around to see the suspicious activity. Having players around who aren’t part of the plot increases the chances that the perpetrators will be caught.

Such an event happened in 2016 at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. A dealer and player made between $20,000 and $30,000 through collusion.

The dealer would place chips on winning numbers that the player could claim. But another gambler suspected cheating and reported the dealer and player to casino management.

The casino reviewed the footage and contacted the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to handle the matter. Their investigation uncovered that a table games supervisor was also in on the cheating.

Magnetic Balls

Another deliberate way to cheat roulette games is by using a magnetic ball.

This is actually more complicated than it sounds because you can’t just put a magnet under a specific pocket. Otherwise, your cheating plot would quickly be uncovered when the ball frequently landed in the magnetic pocket.

Instead, this method requires a combination of a magnetic roulette ball and electronic device. One such example happened in an Austrian casino in 2003.

A team of roulette cheaters planted a remote-controlled magnetic roulette ball on the table. They also used a hidden watch to create an electromagnetic field that could force the ball to go into a specific part of the wheel.

The team wasn’t able to win every spin. But controlling the ball with this degree of accuracy allowed them to win £250,000 in profits.

Their plot worked for several weeks until a croupier’s cufflink got stuck to the wheel when he reached across it. Floor supervisors then figured out that the players had been using a special device to create magnetism.

The cheating gang fled the casino afterward. But surveillance footage identified the four Germans and one Austrian who took part in the scandal.

Wheel Rigging (a.k.a. Wheel Gaffing)

Wheel rigging, or wheel gaffing, is the process of altering the roulette wheel to favor certain numbers.

One way to do this is by loosening specific sections of the wheel. This creates a deadening effect in certain pockets/sections, thus increasing the chances that the ball lands in these spots.

Another way to rig a wheel is by altering the frets that divide pockets. Shaving wooden frets down creates less barrier for the ball to land in the affected pockets.

This carpenter used to hide in bathrooms of nineteenth-century French casinos. He waited until a casino closed, then visited the gaming floor with his carpenter tools.

Dugal used his skills to shave down frets and pockets to improve the odds of the ball landing in them. He would show up with family members during open hours and bet on the biased pockets.

He made a fortune through these manipulated wheels. But his wife eventually turned him in after she found out that he had a mistress.

Roulette Computers and Electronic Devices

In the 1970s, a small group of college physicists nicknamed the “Eudaemons” figured out how to beat roulette through an electronic device.

They used a camera and oscilloscope to track the roulette wheel’s motion. They then calculated a formula using the wheel’s motion to predict where the roulette ball would land.

The result was a computerized shoe that would send electronic signals when tapped. These signals traveled up to the player’s chest via another device strapped to their body.

The number of vibrations sent to the chest-strapped device indicated what roulette wheel sections the player should bet on.

This team was able to make 44% on every dollar wagered thanks to their device. Each member of the team won around $10,000 before they disbanded in favor of dedicating more time to their college courses.

While the Eudaemons may not have made a massive fortune through roulette, they did usher in an era where players used electronic devices to win the game.

One team of players became the subject of a British TV documentary. The team even shared with the documentary crew how their device worked.

Their method involved two players, one making the bets and another watching the wheel. The watcher is important because they need to stand close to the wheel with a concealed device that calculates the speed of the wheel and ball.

Each team member wears a Bluetooth earpiece where the device sends the suggested number(s). The player only has about four seconds to bet on multiple numbers around the suggested pocket.

By placing all of these bets, the team improves their odds of choosing a winning single number.

Some countries and states don’t even have laws against electronic devices. But other places like Nevada do make it illegal to use computerized equipment.

Whether illegal or not, no casino will let you use these devices. And you’ll be swiftly banned from their property if you’re caught.

Why Roulette Cheating Is a Bad Idea

Cheating in roulette games can be really lucrative if you get away with it. Richard Marcus, Pierre Duval, and the Eudaemons all made good money by manipulating the game odds.

The reason why is because you could face legal repercussions, and at the very least, be blacklisted from casinos.

I’m going to discuss the legality behind the matter and why you’re very unlikely to escape with ill-gotten profits.

Roulette Cheating Is Illegal in Many Places

Some roulette cheating methods are illegal regardless of the casino jurisdiction. These include past posting, pinching, wheel rigging, magnetic balls, and player-dealer collusion.

None of these methods require any skill beyond making a concentrated effort to swing the odds in your favor. They’re especially illegal when considering that many involve sleight-of-hand movements, colluding with the dealer, taking/removing chips from the table, or altering casino equipment.

You should never use these cheating techniques anywhere in the world. You’ll not only banned from the casino but also prosecuted with the possibility of jail time.

Computerized devices are a different story because they’re not explicitly illegal in every gambling jurisdiction.

Furthermore, the equipment you’re using doesn’t alter the casino equipment in any way. Devices merely help you predict potential winners through technology.

One more thing to consider is the embarrassment that you’ll face if/when kicked out of a casino.

Even if you’re using devices that are technically legal, casinos are private establishments that can refuse service to advantage players. They’ll quickly toss you out if they detect that you’re using a special device to beat them.

Maybe the embarrassment of being banned from a casino is nothing compared to the big profits you could win. But the possibility of being banned is a major deterrent for some players.

Casino Security Is Too Good

Cheaters can win a lot of money off casinos. This is why gambling establishments invest heavily into security personnel and equipment.

Casinos have employees inspect roulette wheels and other equipment to ensure that nothing has been compromised. This prevents problems like wheel barraging and magnetic balls.

Casinos plant a number of security cameras around their establishment, too. And they have a department dedicated to monitoring these cameras and looking for suspected cheaters.

Security personnel are trying to look for unusual occurrences in games. This includes any potential colluding between a dealer and gamblers.

The more technologically advanced casinos even have radio frequency transmitter chips (RFTCs), which track players’ wins and losses.

The idea behind RFTCs is to keep cheaters from cashing in counterfeit chips. But their ability to record wins/losses can also detect unusually big winners.

If all else fails, casinos have gaming etiquette to fall back on.

Cheaters who violate etiquette rules one or more times make easy targets for security. The dealer can also help spots cheaters who push the etiquette boundaries.

Are There Any Legitimate Ways to Beat Roulette?

The only cheating method discussed so far that’s legal in some cases involves using electronics. But what if you’re not a technology guru?

Roulette does have a couple of advantage-play methods, including dealer signatures and wheel bias. The only question is how effective these techniques are in comparison to outright cheating.

I’ll discuss their effectiveness below along with whether dealer signatures or wheel bias are worth using.

Dealer Signatures

Earlier, I discussed players using electronic devices to calculate the speed of the ball and wheel. This is made easier with technology because computers are better than the human eye at measuring velocity.

This arises when the dealer is going through the motions and gets used to spinning the ball with the same speed. The result is that their spins end in a predictable pattern, where the ball lands within several pockets of the last winning number.

Three things that you want to look for in regard to dealer signatures include the following.

• Where the ball lands versus the release point in terms of pockets (e.g., 6-8 pockets)
• If the dealer’s spins have a consistent velocity
• If the wheel moves at a consistent velocity

The first point is the most important because you want to figure out if there’s any correlation between the dealer’s release point and the ball’s end point. Assuming you nail this with a high degree of certainty, you can bet on the numbers found in the general area of the stopping point.

You should also count the number of revolutions that the ball makes around a wheel (e.g., 29 revolutions). If you can find consistency in the revolutions and the dealer’s release/stopping point, then you’ve got a good case for a dealer signature.

The last step is to wager on several numbers within the vicinity of the average stopping point. If the dealer releases the ball at 19 and you suspect it’ll land around 12, you can bet on 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, and 26.

Wheel Bias

Wheel bias is a roulette advantage-play method that’s actually created multi-millionaires.

This strategy involves tracking a wheel and recording its results. The goal is to record thousands of spins and later analyze the data for potentially biased numbers.

Wheel bias relies on a roulette wheel experiencing enough wear and tear to the point of favoring certain numbers.

This is a boring and tedious process that requires standing around the casino for a considerable amount of time. But throughout history, players like Billy Walters, Joseph Jagger, and Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo have made huge fortunes off wheel bias.

Absolute not, because this is an outdated method with little chance of working in today’s casinos. And the main reason why is because of the Starburst roulette wheel.

Starburst wheels have metal frets instead of wooden ones like older wheels. This means that the frets are less likely to wear down and create bias.

Very few casinos use wooden wheels any longer, meaning that you’ll be wasting your time when trying to use this strategy.

Conclusion

The roulette world doesn’t feature any shortage of cheating methods. Players have successfully used all of the cheating techniques we’ve covered to win.

Not only are you guaranteed to be banned from the casino if caught, but you’ll also face prosecution.

Winning $10,000 or so won’t make up for the long-term repercussions of having a felony on your record. The casino that catches you will also spread the word and get you blacklisted from a number of other gambling venues.

Plus, developing sleight-of-hand skills or electronics takes time and effort. You might as well put this same effort into becoming good at a skill-based game or technique like poker, sports betting, or card counting.

These all give you a chance to win long-term profits. And the best part is that you won’t be thrown in jail for winning.

Only card counters face the possibility of being banned by the casino. If you’re worried about this, then just stick with poker or sports betting and learn the strategy.

You’ll find that it’s more rewarding to become really good at a casino game, rather than merely cheating.