You may have heard them before: tall tales of roulette players who outsmarted the casino with shrewd techniques, or who just got very, very lucky. Actor Sean Connery, for instance, once allegedly placed three bets in a row on number 17 and won all three times. This later turned out to have been a promotional stunt for the first James Bond film.
Ok, so James Bond didn’t really turn out to be the lucky guy he is in the movies, but throughout history there have been roulette players who managed to crack the system and made fortunes playing roulette. Read their incredible stories here.
Joseph Jagger
In the nineteenth century, this engineer (reportedly a distant cousin of Mick Jagger) noticed that roulette wheels were not completely random, but had a tendency towards certain numbers. Applying his theory to a favourite wheel at the Monte Carlo casino in Monaco, he managed to win the modern-day equivalent of three million in three days.
However, the casino caught on to him and changed the wheel he was playing on. When this proved not enough to keep Jagger away from his beloved wheel, they instead replaced the metal dividers on the wheel every night, and Jagger’s winning streak sadly came to an end.
Charles Wells
The Monte Carlo casino in Monaco had quite a lot to put up with from British players in the nineteenth century. Notorious player Charles Wells also frequented it and played the bank several times. One theory is that he cleverly exploited a defect in the roulette table. Since his incredible winning talent attracted a lot of attention, it was also suspected that Wells collaborated with the casino.
Wells himself attributed his roulette success to his Wells Pendulum system, which compares betting on fifty-fifty outcomes to swinging a pendulum back and forth. Wells was later convicted of investment fraud, so did he perhaps also cheat at roulette? We can only guess.
Richard Jarecki
Like Joseph Jagger, this German doctor, often mentioned in the same breath as his wife Carol, discovered how to make a profit from defects on roulette wheels. By observing and analysing thousands of spins, he uncovered patterns in which wheels more often ended up on certain numbers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he and his wife scoured casinos in Europe and made millions. He became so notorious that casinos held meetings about him and tried to thwart him by purchasing new roulette wheels and implementing stricter controls. Jarecki eventually stopped playing himself and took his secrets to the grave in 2018. The reason for his silence? He wanted to keep the game fun for other players.
Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo
Spain’s Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo became obsessed with roulette wheels when he noticed that they often ended up on the same numbers. Like Jarecki, he analysed thousands of spins of the wheel and discovered tiny imperfections on the wheels, then processed all the data on his computer.
The money poured in and a trial followed, but fortunately for him, he was acquitted. The court concluded that there was nothing illegal about his strategy and so the doors of the casinos opened back to him. Garcia Pelayo has said that his method does not guarantee that you win every round, but it does offer an advantage that allows you to beat the casino in the long run.
Christian Kaisan
This professional gambler from Germany also devised a way to predict roulette outcomes in the 1970s. With his ‘Kesselgucken’ method, he could estimate which part of the wheel the ball would land on based on movements of the croupier and the ball. ‘Kesselgucken’ means as much as ‘looking at the roulette wheel’.
He won one pot after another until German casinos started banning him. Moreover, casinos worldwide have since modified their wheels to make the method more difficult. Therefore a tip from Kaisan, should you want to give it a try yourself: use the method mainly on older roulette wheels.
Playing online roulette on mobile devices
Unfortunately, the clever techniques of these famous players only apply to physical roulette wheels, but that doesn’t mean that playing roulette online can’t also be really cool. You can play our roulette games on any mobile device, such as your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Play online roulette for free
Maybe you’re not that familiar with roulette yet and want to try it out first. For that, we have handy demo versions of our roulette games, on which you can try out the game for free. Especially online, roulette remains a game of chance, but at least you can get familiar with the rules and bets. Who knows, you might even become a star player yourself!
Whether you play at Casino777.be or any other online sportsbook, always remember to bet responsibly. Here at Casino777.be, player welfare is our top priority. For more information on responsible gambling, visit our tips and resources page.
