Betting Against The Casinos

Fifty years ago, Australia allowed its first legal Casino: not knowing what we were in for. Hugh Lunn was there and knew what was coming.

It’s not just the people at the top of the Casino pile who break all the rules to rake in more money from their brightly-coloured felt tables.

Such rule-breaking starts down on the gambling tables themselves: even before management upstairs has had their go. In my experience on the gambling floor in casinos around the world in the 1960s -- before they were legalised in Australia -- all casinos cheat.

Some on the gambling floor, and, as we have seen in recent Casino inquiries in four states, some at the top.

Australia was extremely naïve about casinos on February 10 1973 when we allowed the first legal one to open at Wrest Point. Our legislators knew absolutely nothing about how they operated, as casinos had been banned in Australia since federation because of a fear they would lead to corruption at the top; and misery at the bottom.

Even toy roulette wheels were banned here.

That opening was such a momentous event that The Australian flew me down from Brisbane to Hobart.

On arrival, I soon realised our casinos were going to be just as profligate as all the ones I’d frequented overseas – the casino sent a Rolls Royce out to Hobart Aerodrome to pick me up! First and last time that ever happened. This brand-new Roller had been imported especially for the use of world-famous comedian Jerry Lewis who had been flown from the USA as the opening attraction in the Wrest Point cabaret.

The Roller was there just for the chauffeur to take Jerry to the golf course: luckily for me, Jerry had decided not to play that day.

In every casino, the rules are inevitably broken because there is just so much money lying around on tables in front of everyone, looking at them. Sitting in neat stacks of otherwise worthless coloured plastic tokens... which are continually exchanged for cash, no questions asked.

Despite all that money, in the 1960s few gamblers sitting at the roulette wheel seemed to notice what was happening right under their noses. Instead, they painstakingly noted down each number every time the little ivory ball fell into a slot…on cards kindly supplied by the casino.

Everyone was trying to devise a winning system to beat the simple rules of arithmetic, as if the next spin of the wheel could possibly bear some relationship to the numbers that had gone before. It doesn’t.

The gamblers should have, instead, been watching the wheel and its croupiers very closely if they wanted to learn how to win.

Firstly, when approaching a roulette table, you should note that the numbers around the spinning wheel appear to be in disarray and not in any logical order, but in fact the order of the numbers – 6, 27, 13, 36, 11 etc – is very deliberate.

Half of the numbers, of course, are red – and the other half black… with the wicked trick of a 37th number in green, which is Zero.

This Zero is “the casino’s number” because it ensures that gamblers who put money on red or black (at even money) still have an extra near 3 percent chance of doing their dough. And, while the payout if you bet on just the one number, and it comes up, is a huge 35-to-one – the little green Zero still leaves the casino with their profit margin over time.

Of course, you can back Zero if you wish – but the casino’s profit margin still applies as there are still 36 numbers against you on a 35 to 1 bet.

There is method in all this madness.

Roulette was devised by the French so that neither the skill of the croupier nor any bias in the wheel could affect the fall of the ball.

Therefore, both halves of the wheel contain half the red and half the black numbers. Thus, any favoured point on the wheel cannot conclusively favour red or black. Similarly, since you can also put your chips (at even money) on 1 to 18 (manque) or 19-36 (passe) each side of the wheel has the same proportion of numbers below and above 18. It’s the same with odd or even numbers – you can back “pair” or impair” at even money – but the wheel separates odd and even numbers so that no more than two of a kind are next to each other.

You can also bet on a block of six numbers (at 5 to 1) but the wheel is designed so that no such block of numbers is contained in any particular part of the spinning wheel.

The roulette betting mat on which you place your chips contains 36 numbers arranged in three columns of 12… and, on either side, a box with a red diamond for bets on the red numbers and a similar box on the other side for black bets. There are also boxes opposite each other for backing odd or even numbers … and one for numbers below or above 18.

Each of these boxes pays even money – which puts the odds exactly even between the gambler and the casino… except for the green Zero which gives the casino its on-going continual never-ending mathematical advantage. (The Zero is in a small box of its own at the top of the 36 numbers.)

The gambler backs a single number by, say, placing a $1000 chip on any individual number which pays 35 to 1 if it comes up. But a big gambler can elect to “surround” a number with chips – particularly in a casino which has an upper limit on bets on a single number.

Thus, he or she will place a $1000 chip on, say, number 32, then a $1000 chip on each corner of the 32 square – thus overlapping the bet into all the numbers from 28 to 36. If the ball were to fall into 32 the gambler would get 35 times the bet on 32 itself -- $35,000: plus 8-1 for each chip on the corners of 32 – another $32,000.  

Of course, if surrounding 32 in proper fashion, the gambler would also place a chip on each of the four lines enclosing 32, overlapping into 29, 31, 33 and 35. If 32 came up this would add a further 4 times 17 to 1, another $68,000.

This makes a total win of $135,000 for an outlay of $9000, with a one-in-four chance that at least one of his numbers will come up – excluding Zero. But that is for the rich or addicted gambler, as he would not even cover his bet if some of his numbers other than 32 came up. In any case, though the gambler might be lucky and win a fortune, unless he is like James Bond and cashes in his chips as soon as he wins, he must lose in the end.

James Bond’s favourite gambit was to put the odds in his favour by backing two of the three vertical lines of 12 numbers – in his case, the first two – with the maximum (back in the 1960s) of $5,000 on each dozen. He thus had two-thirds of the board covered (minus Zero) and, since the dozens pay odds of two-to-one, he stood to profit by $5,000 if a number in either of these two columns came up: which was much better than an even chance of happening.

But, just as with all the systems of betting on roulette, mathematically you lose in the long term: so, if James Bond won on a few spins, he stopped betting – knowing that if a number in column three came up, or Zero, he would lose the whole $10,000.

This is why the non-James Bonds who note down on cards what the ball is doing, to try to establish what it will do next, eventually end up losing.

Each turn of the wheel, each fall of the ball into a numbered slot, has absolutely no connection with its predecessor. The game begins afresh each time the croupier picks up the ivory ball with his right hand, gives one of the four spokes of the wheel a controlled twist clockwise with the same hand and then, again with the right hand, flicks the small light ball around the outer rim of the wheel anti-clockwise against the spin.

Yet around the world roulette gamblers do, and always will, regard as significant sequences of more than two of any single number or of more than four of the even-money chances.

Take the most widely used system: doubling-up.

Having observed several reds in a row, Australian Davis Cup tennis player Ken Fletcher and I put $HK10 on black in Macau at the Estoril Hotel in 1964, resolving to double if it did not come up, thinking black must come up soon. Red came up again: $20. Red again: $40. Zero: $80. Red: $160. Red: $320. Red: $640. Red again $1,280… should we go on? Black must come up soon. Or must it? The next bet had to be $2,560 to recoup our $10!

The temptation was strong to try to win back what had been lost but the bet was now too much.

 Zero. Lucky us.

Which shows that anything can happen on a roulette wheel as the light ball bounces and gets knocked around. I personally saw in Macau 29black come up four times in succession.

You could call cheating a winning system: several versions were used in casinos back in the 1960s.

All around the world croupiers made their money from tips from winners – in the form of chips thrown with panache back across the table -- which were placed in a box built into the table and divided up at the end of the night among the croupiers. The normal tip if a player won on a single number was between the size of the bet – and up to double that amount. This cut the gambler’s odds from 35 to 1 to an effective 33 to 1.

An experienced gambler might tip even more, while an inexperienced player even less: or nothing at all.

I found out why gamblers tipped big in Monte Carlo in 1966.

In a casino (back then anyway) all chips of the same value looked the same – just like money. So, when 50 people bet at a table it was every man (or woman) for himself when claiming who put what chips where. Of course, the five or six croupiers at the Monte Carlo table were watching– but they were biased because they were the beneficiaries of any tips.

When I arrived at the Monte Carlo Casino, I was expecting something exotic and grand – but it was like the interior of a cheap car. Then Ken Fletcher showed me to the Private Casino out the back above the Cabaret. If you slipped in as if going to the expensive Cabaret you could jump in a sequestered lift immediately on your left up to the Private Casino where all the rich of Europe gathered.

It was stupendous: high cathedral ceilings and walls that were themselves paintings and glamorous gamblers like Princess Lee Radziwill (younger sister of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and the most striking woman in the overflowing room) and Peter Theodoracopulos, (now known as Taki The Spectator magazine columnist) the nephew of the casino owner Aristotle Onassis and, next to Peter, a blonde French princess who swore loudly in English and banged the table every time her number didn’t come up. “F**k!”

The roulette tables were the most popular at night so it was difficult to get close to the wheel or the betting mat to place your chips. Ken Fletcher had gambled in casinos in scores of countries around the globe and so he warned me “you must tip the croupiers”. But I didn’t want to.

It was my money – and I didn’t have a lot of it.

To join in the fun, I splurged on six numbers at five-to-one and, amazingly, one of the numbers soon came up. I didn’t tip, causing all the croupiers to frown disapproval. Several bets later I won on a bigger bet and a croupier again made a small pile of my winnings and pushed them up the table with his flat-ended long stick… to the big tipper sitting next to me: who quickly gathered them in.

“Hey, hold on a minute that’s my money,” I protested. “I put that bet on. Give it back you pack of crooks.”

The five croupiers around the table beheld the French head croupier in his high chair at the head of the table who shrugged his shoulders – anyway, the next spin of the ever-whirling wheel of excitement and doom was already in motion.

 “It’s a bloody rort...” I was saying when a heavy hand landed on my left shoulder. “Hughie,” Kenny Fletcher said, “if you kick up a fuss, we’ll all be thrown out. You’re not even supposed to be in here anyway… I told you to tip the bloody croupiers! But you never listen.”

After that I just watched.

There were two outstandingly beautiful and glamorous women monopolising one end of the roulette table placing small bets like I’d been doing. The American man behind them was a gentleman because he didn’t shove or push his way through to the front despite the fact that he was a big bettor. In fact, he couldn’t believe his luck at the company he was now keeping. I’d have to say he was punching well above his weight.

He kept reaching over the women while asking if they would kindly place his rectangular white 1000-franc chip on 11black, and they co-operated: since we were all in this together.

Eventually 11black came up! This American had won what in 1966 was a small fortune in francs. The croupier made a huge pile of 1000-franc chips and pushed them up the betting mat with his stick --- and one of the women opened her handbag and swept them all in.

He protested loudly; but the chief croupier merely said: “Monsieur, Madame placed the bet.” And that was that.

The casino in Jakarta in 1969 was not a sophisticated scene like Macau or Monte Carlo’s private club. Instead of using the international language of roulette (French) they used English: which took some of the charm away. For example, when the ball started to lose the centrifugal force imparted by the croupier against the spin of the wheel and was ready to fall towards the numbers, the Indonesian croupiers didn’t call out the traditional “Rien ne va plus” (nothing; no more play) they yelled out too loudly: “Stop!”

International gamblers used one of the oldest tricks in the world to win against these inexperienced croupiers.

Two men moved in on opposite sides of the table. When red or black came up, they pretended to argue about a small chip they had on a betting square. In the end, the man standing over the winning square, fist closed in anger, flipped the chip angrily over to the other man – while surreptitiously dropping a bigger value chip in a winning position as he did so.

But it was in Swinging London in 1965 that I witnessed the worst cheating, for the largest amounts.

In this casino, free drinks and food were served and credit was allowed – even encouraged… as apparently has been happening in our Australian “High Roller” rooms.

A typical tourist-gambler, an American, watched for a while, had some drinks and scrambled eggs, then – showing his disdain for the intricacies of the game – dropped a red £1000 chip on each of the nearest available even-money bets along his side of the table: red, odd, and below 18. So J.K. Galbraith was right: “Rich people gamble to show how much they can afford to lose”.

The gambler lit a cigar and turned to his escort to confirm that it all didn’t matter, while the mesmeric ivory ball bounced and chattered around the spinning wheel.

Normally the croupier leaves the ball in the slot after he calls the number. But after hundreds of those, when necessary, at the right moment, he would whip it out… and call a different number. (Club owners did not have to ask their croupiers to cheat – they just had to put them on a percentage of the winnings.)

This gambler’s bet meant that only five numbers on the table, plus Zero, would take all £3000 for the house: these were the black even numbers above 18 – 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28. The croupier was well aware of this -- which would create a difference of £6,000 on one spin of the wheel.

The ball fell, but it was plucked out in the croupier’s hand as he calmly said “Twenty.” (To call Zero might have been too obvious.) I waited for any of the 30 gamblers around the table to object and be contradicted by the croupiers – but the gamblers were all gravely noting down “20” on their cards.

Anyway, once that ball was in the croupier’s hand there could be no argument. All evidence of where it actually fell had disappeared. (You might argue that all this was the 1960s before overhead CCTV – but my question to you is: who is upstairs watching those cameras?)

How then to win?

A casino that cheats is not hard to find. Sit there and wait until a big gambler hits the table. Then, in small amounts, back those numbers that would take his bet: then the house is cheating in your favour.

What I did in London that night with Kenny Fletcher was to put a yellow ten-shilling chip on the five numbers that could take all the tourist’s money – plus Zero. That way, when they cheated him, I won £15 – more than half a week’s wage.

But then I got greedy.

I reasoned that I was deliberately losing money on five numbers while winning on the sixth – whereas I would have been winning £17.10 shillings if I’d only bet on one number. So, next time the chance arrived, I backed just one of the six numbers and leaned towards the wheel looking the chief croupier in the eye to show that I knew what was going on – forcing him to call my number in case I squealed.

That was a cheekiness too far.

At 4 a.m. when Fletch and I left the casino two men in dinner suits were waiting in the darkness outside. The huge one said: “You’ve been cheating. We’re gonna break your arms.”

Ken Fletcher was in London to play Wimbledon and with characteristic nonchalance he said: “I’m playing on Wimbledon Centre Court tomorrow. If you harm us, it will be front page news around the world and your casino will be shut down! Now get out of our way.”

Against the odds, we walked out onto the streets of Chelsea and back into Swinging London.