Cheating at Roulette

Unfortunately, the dark side of all gambling is that where there is money involved, there are always going to be people on both sides of the table trying to take it in unscrupulous ways. Luckily, modern gambling (both online and live) is strictly regulated to prevent this from happening. In short, as long as you are playing in a reputable environment, you are being offered a fair game of roulette. For historical context, however, here’s a look at some of the methods employed by both players and the house to cheat at roulette in the past.

The first, and likely the most difficult, technique used by players was called past-posting. Requiring incredible reflexes and sleight of hand, past-posting allowed a quick player to place a bet after the ball had already landed. Since the dealer has to look away from the table to see which number the ball is about to land on, a past-poster takes advantage of this momentary distraction by sneaking a bet on the winning number and being paid for it as if it were a legitimate wager. The use of extra dealers coupled with casino surveillance has all but made past-posting impossible in today’s casinos.

As times change and technology evolves, the more determined cheaters have created everything from tiny computers that fit in their shoes to sophisticated laser scanners that read the spin rate and velocity of wheel to accurate predict which range of numbers the ball will land in. We know about these scams because all of them have been caught — possibly because they were too effective and allowed the cheaters to win a lot more than possible.

You can’t feel too badly for the house, though. Even with the house edge they enjoy, more suspect casinos have used methods in the past to win even more from the players. Most of these methods revolved around manipulating the wheel to either make the more likely to fall into certain pockets or to introduce a protrusion on the track to prevent the ball from falling into a certain pocket.

Thankfully, all of these techniques are now obsolete as long as the casino you are playing at falls under the jurisdiction of a reputable gaming commission.