Wheel Bias in Roulette.

                                                              

A roulette wheel bias is a roulette wheel which has a defect; that is, there are some numbers which are more often going to appear than they should usually do by the laws of probability. A wheel bias is actually considered to be a threat by casinos, even if the number affected is zero. If a customer realises the fault or defect, they will use it their advantage straight away.

For a bias to be worth playing, it should exceed the probability of coming up of 1/35 even if the raise is just simply 1/37.

Wheel biases can happen due to an in-built fault or simply through wear and tear, although, it is most often the case that defects are caused by wear and tear. Certain numbers on the roulette wheel will be favoured because of the defect. This type of fault is known as a "pocket defect", while other defects augment the probability of a group of numbers or certain portion of the roulette wheel coming up more frequently.

Some probabilities on a defective roulette wheel will be larger than others; even if they are both more likely to arise than they should be were the wheel to be working properly. This is because the defects can be deeper in some areas than others and thus more likely to come up than a more shallow defect, which is still more likely to come up than the none-defective portions. In comparison with the newer roulette wheel, this type of defect does not appear. In a casino in Germany there was a "pocket defect", the defect made it more likely that the numbers 18 and 22 were slightly more likely to come up than probability dictates. The wheel did several cycles where the ball ran the wheel and the little defect augmented the chance of getting 18, the ball touched an angle that raised slightly the wheel in that area and the ball would jump out of the pocket to the side of 18 and land on the number 18, but this was only a small bias.

A larger bias occurs when the frets between the pockets detach themselves. This gives less "bounce" when the ball touches the pocket and thus makes it more likely to "capture" the ball, thus will come up more often. Roulette wheel repairmen and the croupiers often speak of air pockets, where fore example, the felt becomes loose in a particular pocket, or a pocket if double felted (which, incidentally is fraud).

Biases occurring in certain portions of the wheel are also known as "rotor wobbles". The rotor can become slightly out of kilter to the way it should be, this can occur from the results of weekly cleaning when the rotor is removed from the wheel. If at the same time there is also a defect in the circulation of the sides of the wheel where the ball is supposed to go down. The default in the sides can produce a zone of decent where it is more likely to descend than in other zones of the wheel, it is also possible to produce the same kind of bias if the wheel is out of balance. If the latter is the case, the wheel is not considered to have a bias since the number is decided by the rotation of the rotor and there are no pocket or portion biases.

The combination of "wobble" and a defect on the sides can create both portion defects and pocket defects. If the ball stops in the rotor when it is at the lowest point of the "wobble2, the ball will have a tendency to stay as it will find it hard to get out.

A "wobble" can occur if the rotor is constructed from glossy copper that then transmits from the bottom, you can see straight away in this case as the surface of the roulette wheel does not look regular.

The bias in the roulette wheel has little significance in itself you will only be able to play an advantage if there are other factors that exist that increase the frequency of a particular number or portion coming up. Here are some other factors to consider:

The dealer; he will have his on personal techniques for throwing the ball, and this will influence the outcome.
The time of day; humidity and high and low pressure are dependent on the time of day, these will have n influence on the rotor and the ball.
The speed of the rotor; the speed of the rotor can be quite significant, a fast rotor can eliminate some of the potential biases.
The direction of the wheel; casinos change and move the roulette wheels from table to table, an experienced player will take note of any defects of each specific roulette wheel.

A French woman studied a group of professional bias exploiters by spending 22 days playing roulette with them. At one point they were following a wheel with two visible rotor biases. One of the biases was made obvious to the professionals because of a reflection of light 3 centimetres long. At the bottom of some of the pockets you could see different reflections caused by the laser that automatically reads the winning number. This wheel was only interesting to the professionals in the capacity of clocker (a person who counts how long it takes the ball to fall into a pocket from the time it is thrown) and not in the capacity of an exploiter of biases, there was a slope as well the ball having longer than normal bounces. The professionals were mainly interested in bias and did not start playing roulette until two days and 700 games of observation. The professionals, on one table, were selecting numbers in the section 7 places before the number 28; this was because this section was stealing the ball a lot of the time when probability said it should have been landing on around 28. The ball would hit the rotor and continue on its course, but it could almost never enter into the section after 28. When the wheel was spun in the opposite direction and the ball was thrown from the other side, this bias disappeared. To discovered this bias had required a lot of patience and a lot of note taking.

This type of bias is not very common, it is a phenomenon that only appeared following the construction of more recent designs of roulette wheel, where the pockets are deeper. The idea behind it is that the ball passes over several numbers before it stops. Formerly, the ball hit the rotor did a few bounces and then stopped.

In two days these professionals managed to win $3100, they use a logical method and employ the use of Excel and some formulas. Their game uses a combination of visual tracking in the sense of Laurence Scott (Click here for more information ) and of modern bias tracking. In 22 days they managed to win an estimated $20,000 which then had to be divided by three, not bad for 3 weeks work. They could have won more had they stayed longer, but they leave the casinos before they get cottoned on to. Tracking biases is not for everybody, you can still profit from them, but they are beginning to be eliminated as roulette wheels become better designed.