Really? People are getting worked up oer this device?:
Professional gamblers are rushing to buy £1,000 devices that they believe will enable them to win millions of pounds in casinos when the gambling industry is deregulated next year.
Hundreds of the roulette-cheating machines – which consist of a small digital time recorder, a concealed computer and a hidden earpiece – were tested at a government laboratory in 2004 after a gang suspected of using them won £1.3m at the Ritz casino in London.
After the research, which was never made public but has been seen by the Guardian, the government’s gambling watchdog admitted to industry insiders that the technology can offer punters an edge when playing roulette in a casino, and the advantage can be “considerable”.
Again, really? This is a big deal? Obviously the casinos will boot anyone they deem to be winning in excess, but wouldn’t it be easier to disrupt this scheme by not allowing betting after the dealer spins the wheel? I don’t know gambling law, especially in the U.K., but if betting after the spin is required, I’d work to change the laws if I owned a casino. Aside from banning the device, of course. Which seems to be the case in most places that allow gambling:
But rather than ban the devices, which are outlawed in many jurisdictions across the world, the Gambling Commission will require casinos to police themselves. Phill Brear, the commission’s director of operations, admits predictive softwares can work but suggested it might be possible to prosecute someone using them under a new Gambling Act offence of cheating.
Or more to the point, wouldn’t casinos just work to counter this by repairing or replacing their roulette wheels?
The government’s national weights and measures laboratory investigated the technique. It is thought the cheats first identify a “biased” wheel, where the ball appears to commonly drop in roughly the same zone. They also look for signs on the wheel of a “manageable scatter”, which means that when the ball strikes a certain number, it will usually fall into a neighbouring pocket. The unpublished report concluded: “On a wheel with a definite bias and a manageable scatter, a prediction device of this nature, when operated by a ‘skilled’ roulette player, could obtain an advantage when used in a casino.”
I wouldn’t sound the alarm for casinos going bankrupt just yet. They’ll adapt and the majority of people dropping £1,000 on one of these gadgets will find themselves more than £1,000 poorer. Such is life in a casino.
Source: Boing Boing