DOES THE TABLE YOU’RE PLAYING ON HAVE A RIGGED ROULETTE WHEEL?
Have you ever wondered whether the table you’re playing on has a rigged roulette wheel?
I’ve been asked many times whether the wheel I’m dealing on is rigged. Of course, I usually get asked this question when the player is going through an unusually bad losing streak.
Although my answer is always no, I actually have no proof of that. A few years ago, I saw the wheel I dealt on most often taken apart in front of my eyes. It was slowing down too quickly, and the casino manager decided it needed oiling.
So, at the end of my shift, two burly casino dealers came over to my table. The casino manager showed them how to lift the wheel, take it apart, and oil it.
Due to players asking me if our wheels were rigged, I watched in fascination. As everything was taken apart, I desperately looked for some kind of contraption that might prove to be some kind of cheating device. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything amiss. If I had, that would have been a great story!
Common sense tells me that the higher ups wouldn’t risk a rigged wheel in this modern day and age. But who knows? Maybe I’m just being naïve!
A REAL RIGGED WHEEL
So, as I have yet to encounter a rigged wheel, I’ve always wondered how one would work. Maybe there would be some kind of magnetic device that attracted the ball to a particular number. The ball would have to have some kind of metal in it though. I’ve only ever been given plastic or ivory balls to use on my games. Or maybe the dealer would have a pedal under the table. He could press it to control the spin of the wheel somehow. As you can probably tell, I’m not very inventive when it comes to ideas on how to rig a roulette wheel. I certainly have no idea how to put any of my ideas into action.
Seeing as I have always wanted to know how a wheel could possibly be tampered with, I was fascinated when I came across this video explaining exactly how it can be done.
The Games Room Company, in Surrey, England, sells and restores all sorts of fun gaming equipment. Jukeboxes (who doesn’t want one of those in their living room?), pinball machines, snooker tables, and foosball tables are just some of the cool things you’ll find there.
When a roulette table, built in the 1920’s, crossed their threshold, it was immediately obvious that the table needed restoring. While the table was being dismantled a hollow ‘leg’ was found under the wheel. It contained batteries. Big ones!
The fun began as the restorers researched the table and found out that it was most likely built in 1927/1928 and was used in Chicago when the Chicago mafia was at its height. The Games Room Company determined that the table was most likely owned and operated by the Chicago mafia.
HOW THE MECHANISM WORKED
Along the edge of the roulette table was a tiny dummy switch, disguised to look like the screw heads around the rest of the table. When the dealer pressed the dummy switch the battery backs sent an electric signal to a tiny pin, so small that it could hardly been seen, that popped out on the inside track of the wheel, causing the ball to hit it, and drop into the wheel immediately.
The dealer would hit the dummy switch when the ball was in a section of the wheel where no players were playing. Everyone would lose, and the dealer would scrape in the players chips, with the players being non the wiser.
UPDATED VIDEO OF HOW THE RIGGING MECHANISM ACTUALLY WORKED
For the technically minded, this updated video from the Games Room Company, released in May 2017, shows that the mechanism was actually more complicated than originally thought. The restorers exposed the whole table and found electric wiring encompassing the whole table, and FOUR dummy switches that were available to the dealer.
DO RIGGED ROULETTE WHEELS EXIST TODAY?
I’ve worked in a lot of casinos and I’ve never been asked to use such a mechanism as this. So unless something much more sophisticated, that can be used without the knowledge of the dealer, exists today, I’m going to stick myself out on a limb, and say that rigged tables just don’t exist nowadays.
Do you know of a modern rigged roulette wheel? Let me know in the comments below.