The Roulette Wheel Secrets Casinos Don’t Want You To Know

This article explains roulette wheel secrets that make spins predictable. If you think roulette spins are unpredictable, think again. There is no such thing as a completely random and unpredictable spin. First, we’ll start with the most important parts:

Roulette Wheel Secrets That Make Spins Predictable

Dominant Diamonds From Wear and Tear

Dominant diamonds: the ball hits some diamonds more than others.
Dominant diamonds: the ball hits some diamonds more than others.

The ball release point is much the same unless the casino rotates the wheel daily. This leads to the ball track being significantly more worn in specific parts of the ball track. And any different in one part has a snowball effect, and the differences become greater over time. Even if the casino rotated the wheel after every spin, it would be impossible to avoid uneven wear.

This is why almost every wheel you’ll find has dominant diamonds, which are diamonds the ball hits more than others. The effect of dominant diamonds is spins become much more predictable. In fact on some wheels, the dominant diamond is so obvious that you almost always know where the ball will fall. And to predict the winning number, you just need to know the numbers under the dominant diamond when the ball falls. Whether the wheel is at an online casino such as LeoVegas, real casino, in another country or in your home makes no difference.

Design

It is much more difficult to design a wheel with random spins, than it is to predict spins with reasonable accuracy. The only way to make a wheel 100% random is by not using a real and physical roulette wheel. Even when the wheel completely randomizes the rotor and ball speeds, there is still at least “some” predictability. And remember the house edge is only -2.7%, so the player only needs slight accuracy to overcome the house edge, and give the player the edge.

Manufacturing Defects

Roulette wheels are made with precision, but they still have small defects that lead to spins not being random. You could have two brand new wheels, and spin the ball and wheel at exactly the same speed, and have very different results.

Poorly Trained or Lazy Staff

Most casino staff have only vague understanding of how roulette is beaten. But the modern and well equipped casinos have the ability to know when their wheels are producing predictable spins, at least with older roulette systems and strategies. But casinos are still behind the modern techniques to beat roulette. One example is most casinos have software that analyzes spins and reveals any significant bias. But it takes the casino weeks of spins before they have enough data to analyze. And a professional wheel bias player can use techniques that find bias before the casino knows about it. These techniques are partially explained on my roulette wheel bias page. But generally I don’t advise wheel bias techniques as there are much better and quicker methods of beating roulette.

The Parts of a Roulette Wheel

The main parts of the roulette wheel are shown with definitions below. You need to be aware of them so you understand explanations:

Parts of the roulette wheel.

The Diamonds

These are the metal deflectors in various parts of the wheel. Some of the roulette wheel manufacturers call them disruptors, because they disrupt the trajectory of the ball. They also have many other names including pins, slats, deflectors and stops.

Roulette Wheel Diamond: designed to deflect the ball
Roulette Wheel Diamond: designed to deflect the ball

One particularly important roulette wheel secret is “dominant diamonds”. This is when the ball hits particular diamonds more often than others. Almost every wheel has dominant diamonds. The most common situation is a wheel with two vertical dominant diamonds.

Roulette wheel manufacturers and casinos make every effort to prevent dominant diamonds from occurring. This is because if the ball is frequently falling at a particular point around the wheel, this is not random behavior, and it assists professional players to know approximately where the ball will fall. Then to get an advantage, the player mostly needs to know the wheel orientation at the time of ball fall. And this is not at all difficult to do.

The Ball Track

This is where the ball rolls. It is typically wood coated with a very tough epoxy plastic. But it is still subject to wear and tear, most notably cracks. Cracks will eventually occur no matter how well-maintained the wheel is. But they occur sooner if the casino does not rotate the wheel. This is because if the ball is always released from the same position, most of the wear occurs at the same point. But even frequent rotation of wheels does not stop dominant diamonds from happening. Even on a flawless ball track, dominant diamonds still occur if the wheel’s table is on a very slight angle. Even just a 1mm height difference is enough to cause a dominant diamond, and it’s very difficult for casino staff to prevent.

A much more durable ball track surface is the Velstone ball track shown below. It has a grainy appearance and is becoming more common in casinos. Instead of cracking like regular epoxy, it tends to gradually wear down but evenly, which greatly enhances the life of the wheel. I have wheels with both the regular and Velstone ball tracks, and in my experience the Velstone ball track lasts twice as long.

Huxley Mk7 wheel with Velstone ball track.
Huxley Mk7 wheel with Velstone ball track.

The Rotor

This is the inner part of the wheel that revolves with the pockets. It is around 30 kg, and usually they can be interchanged between other wheels of the same design. This particular capability is used by casinos to make roulette wheel bias analysis more difficult for professional teams. This is because the rotor is largely responsible for roulette wheel bias. It is the only moving part on the wheel, and like any machinery, moving parts tend to develop flaws over time. And anything that is not physically perfect is bound to produce less than perfect results. In the case of roulette spin outcomes, and unbalanced or physically imperfect wheel is likely to cause more predictable spins.

The Pockets

These are the areas where the ball comes to rest, and contain all the winning numbers. The designs of the pockets are one of the most frequently changed parts, from a design perspective. The earliest roulette pockets were quite deep, so the ball didn’t bounce much before coming to rest. One problem with this is the spins are too predictable. Generally the deeper the pocket is, the more predictable spins are. But depth of pockets is not the only cause of predictable spins. The pocket separators, which are the pieces of metal between the pockets, can sometimes become loose. This is not easily noticed with the naked eye, but if a pocket separator becomes loose, it can absorb the impact of the roulette ball to a greater degree than other pockets. The inevitable outcome is that one part of the roulette wheel is significantly different to the others, and a wheel bias occurs.

To help reduce spin predictability, some of the pocket designs include:

Huxley Starburst: Triangular pockets that help deflect the ball either one way or another, in opposing directions. Generally it does reduce the predictability of ball bounce, known as scatter. Although it creates a particular condition that makes spins even more predictable. This condition is rare, but not rare enough to make it impractical. The result is a knowledgeable player can increase their edge with patience.

John Huxley's Trangular Starburst pockets. Huxley's roulette wheel secret.
John Huxley’s Trangular Starburst pockets

Low fret: Basically pockets with very low profile pocket separators. Such separators have less of an effect on the ball, so any bias caused by them is minimal. These pockets were designed by George Melas, who is a consultant for one of the roulette wheel manufacturers.

Low fret pockets on Cammegh wheel.
Low fret pockets on Cammegh wheel.

Scalloped: These are similar to low fret, but are like metallic spoon scoops. They have much the same effect as the low fret pockets.

The majority of today’s wheels use the low fret design. In average conditions, overall I find they actually increase the accuracy of predictions. The ball may travel further when it strikes the rotor, but usually the ball bounce from this point is more predictable than with slightly deeper pockets. But other variables make a difference too. For example, the dominant diamonds and trajectory of the ball when it falls.

Which pocket gives the most random spins? It really depends on the ball, the ball trajectory when it falls, the dominant diamond, and the rotor speed. So different conditions have different results. But on average, I find the Starburst pockets to have the highest degree of randomness.

The Base

This is the outer part of the wheel. It is usually wooden with a metal interior. They are extremely tough and even dropping a roulette wheel won’t damage it too much, at least to the point that roulette wheel integrity is affected. A much more sensitive part of the wheel is the ball track, where the slightest scratch can make the difference between weak or strong patterns on a roulette wheel.

The Shaft

This is the shaft that supports the wheel rotor. It is often called the spindle. If the casino staff do not properly care for the wheel, it is possible to slightly bend the spindle. This means that the rotor will spin on a slight angle, and inevitably the ball will land on the lower part of the wheel more frequently.  Sometimes this kind of effect is only present with a particular combination of rotor and spindle, so it is not easily noticed by casino staff.

European Vs American Wheels

Layout of American and European roulette wheels.

You’d already know there are two types of roulette wheels, and that they have black and red numbers between 0 and 36. You may not know the roulette wheel secret that all numbers add to 666. This is why it’s called the “devil’s wheel”. There is the single zero European wheel, and the double zero on the American wheel. Yes the house edge is higher on the American wheel because of the extra pocket. But to a professional roulette player it makes little difference. This is because they’ll predict the winning number with enough accuracy to make the relatively small house edge irrelevant. For example, see the public demo video on roulette-computers.com website, where an edge of over +120% is achieved. This is around 40 times greater than the casino’s edge of -2.7% on a European wheel. And it’s still over 20 times greater than the house edge on the American 00 wheel.

The difference between 20 and 40 may seem significant, but the reality is a player’s winning don’t depend entirely on their edge. The largest factor that limits a player’s winnings is how much they can win without being detected. Because if they are detected, the casino will do whatever is needed to stop the winning – even if it means banning the player.

The Wheel Vs The Betting Table

The sequence of numbers for each wheel are (in clockwise order):

American wheel: 0, 28, 9, 26, 30, 11, 7, 20, 32, 17, 5, 22, 34, 15, 3, 24, 36, 13, 1, 00, 27, 10, 25, 29, 12, 8, 19, 31, 18, 6, 21, 33, 16, 4, 23, 35, 14, 2

European wheel: 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25, 17, 34, 6, 27, 13, 36, 11, 30, 8, 23, 10, 5, 24, 16, 33, 1, 20, 14, 31, 9, 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26

There are 37 numbers on the European wheel, which include 18 black numbers, 18 red numbers, and the green zero. The American wheel has 38 numbers, which include 18 red, 18 black, the green zero, and an additional double zero. Besides the different order of numbers, the only difference is the additional green pocket on the American wheel.

It’s no big roulette wheel secret that the betting table is where you place bets. But many players need to understand it has no influence at all on the winning number. But almost every betting system is based around the table.

Variation of Wheel Number Sequences

In very rare cases, the sequence and order of numbers is different. It generally is only the case with custom made wheels, and not normally wheels created by the most popular manufacturers. An example of this exception is shown in the below image, with the single and double 0 pockets side by side. One of the casinos this has been used is Crown Casino in Melbourne Australia. In this case, besides the added 00 pocket, it is the European wheel number sequence.

Single and Double 0 wheels at Crown Casino Melbourne.

The only way to beat roulette is by predicting the winning number with enough accuracy to overcome the house edge. That’s it in a nutshell. Winning at roulette has nothing to do with the betting table. I’m not aware of anyone who earns a living playing roulette with a system based on the table layout alone.

Old Vs Modern Roulette Wheel Bias

Most people think roulette wheel bias does not exist today. The fact is every wheel is biased to some degree, although the casino is carefully monitor the results of spins to determine the strength of bias. If a roulette wheel becomes too biased, then it is removed and replaced with another wheel. But the problem for casinos is that proper bias analysis takes often 10,000 or so spins.

The earliest bias analysis players analysed a similar amount of spins to uncover bias. This was extremely time-consuming, but otherwise easy because the player is simply compared the actual results to what they would normally expect if the outcomes were random. But because casinos monitor their own wheels for bias, conditions are quite different from modern players attempting to use the same techniques.

The different approach used by modern bias players involves visual confirmations. Put simply, the player will visually observe roulette wheels for signs of physical defects. Normally the defects are not possible to see with the naked eye, but there are a few roulette wheel secrets that make it possible. These secrets are explained on my free page that explains roulette wheel bias, or you can subscribe to my free course. But one example is you can observe the reflection on the metallic part of the rotor that intersects with the wheelbase. If a particular part of the rotor is lower than another, every revolution you will see a slight reflection flicker. This is something that casinos don’t check for, because it requires careful observation with eyes. And it can uncover a roulette wheel bias before the casino has the chance to collect their required data.

Roulette Wheel Manufacturers

The most common wheels are made by John Huxley and Cammegh and Abbiati. John Huxley was the first and is the oldest manufacturer. There are now many other manufacturers such as Abbiati. Links to various manufacturer websites are below:

http://www.cammegh.com
http://www.tcsjohnhuxley.com/en/live-gaming/roulette-wheels.html
http://www.abbiati.it

Professional players must become aware of each model and the features because some designs are inevitably easier to beat, while others are much more difficult. Although even two wheels of the same design can have very different characteristics. Every wheel is unique because they have small but significant manufacturing defects. Also with general wear and tear, the differences become even more significant.

The Most Common Wheels In Modern Casinos

In any casino you visit throughout the world,whether it is online at LeoVegas or a physical casino, the two most common designs are (by far) the ones below:

The World's most common wheels.

Wheels in your casino may be exactly the same model except being a different color. Sometimes the wheels are wooden with a coat of epoxy, or made almost completely of a hardened type of plastic (ABS). The different materials have slightly different resilience to wear and tear, so some tend to last longer. Whether the wheel is at an online casino, real casino, in another country or in your home makes no difference. But no two wheels are identical because they all have small manufacturing defects, and are maintained to different standards. Is there usually a significant difference between two new wheels that are the same model? Yes, but it depends on what you are analyzing.

For example, say you had two brand new wheels of the same design. The ball will bounce virtually identically between two new wheels of the same design. But you may find even if both wheels are placed on a perfectly level surface, one might have a slightly more dominant diamond. These slight imperfections become more apparent over time.

An inexperienced player might look at a wheel that’s easy to beat, and a wheel that’s easy to beat, and not see any difference. So keep in mind the following signs so you know the difference. If you are ever witnessing a demonstration of roulette prediction technology (like a roulette computer), ensure that:

  • It is a modern design: One of the above is best.
  • The ball doesn’t constantly hit the same diamond then fall predictably: Dominant diamonds are extremely common and normal. Just make sure the ball falls in a way that’s consistent with wheels in real casinos. For example, in most casinos, the ball doesn’t almost always hit the same diamond then fall directly down with no bounce. Hitting the same diamond very often is ok, but to be realistic spins, the ball should still often do unpredictable things.
  • The ball rolls smoothly: This is very important because if the ball track is old and worn, then likely the ball not will fall from the ball track in the same place AND will also fall with the same predictable trajectory (angle). And this makes the ball bounce more predictable.

I’m not saying many casinos don’t have very easily beaten wheels. Just that if you want to test roulette prediction technology, don’t test on an easily beaten wheel. The wheel I usually use in demos is a Mk7 Huxley with a Velstone ball track in very good condition. It is more carefully maintained, so is significantly more difficult to beat that average casino wheels. You will know this by comparing the point above to wheels in your own casino.

Automated Roulette Wheels

The more often players bet, the more casinos earn. Live dealers are often slow paying players and organizing chips, so automated roulette wheels were created. These are real wheels, but the ball and wheel as spun automatically by an automated mechanism. Each player places bets on their own touch bet screen.

The earlier versions of automated wheels were easily beaten. But more recent technology has made spins more random, so auto wheels are harder to beat. For example, the Cammegh Slingshot is the most notorious automated wheel. Players are allowed to make bets for some time after the ball is released. But after no more bets is called, the rotor will randomly change speeds. This is specifically to make it harder for roulette computer and visual ballistic players to win.

Cammegh Slingshot auto wheel.
Cammegh Slingshot auto wheel.

Is it possible to beat a Slingshot wheel? It depends on how the wheel is configured. Sometimes it makes almost no difference. Sometimes it makes winning almost impossible. But most often, it reduces the player’s edge by about half. So if a player would normally have a 40% edge, the Slingshot’s random rotor speed ability would reduce the edge to 20%. It’s a large reduction, but 20% is still an enormous player edge.

Understanding The Roulette Table

A fundamental fact about roulette is the winning number is determined by a wheel and ball. It has nothing to do with the betting table, although most systems are based on the table layout. A classic example is if the winning marker (the “dolly”) is placed on number 1, and you bet on number 2, you may think it’s a near miss. But in fact the numbers 1 and 2 are virtually opposite each other on the wheel.

The betting table is deliberately a scattered representation of the wheel, and it’s intended to make players forget about what actually matters, which is of course the wheel itself. Learn more about the types of roulette bets on the table.

Roulette wheel with table at the end.
Most roulette systems are based on the table, which has no influence at all on the winning number.

It still amazes me how often roulette players refer to the wheel as the “roulette table”. I can also see the amount of searches that hit my website with search terms like “how to beat the roulette table”. It has nothing to do with winning roulette, so forget the table. There has never been a system that can beat a table. It has no influence on the winning number. Proper advantage play strategies must attack the predictability of spins on the wheel.

Roulette Wheel Secrets: The Conclusion

If you think roulette wheels have totally random spins, simply check how often the ball hits specific diamonds. The truth is may be impossible to make a roulette wheel with truly unpredictable spins.

At best, a wheel can produce such random spins to make play not worthwhile for professional players. Less than 1% of wheels today produce such random spins. In my experience, almost every wheel design can be beaten one way or another, at least in average casino conditions. But some wheels are in conditions that make play impractical. An example is where it spins very infrequently in a very busy casino, so you cannot get enough data in a reasonable time.

Even with the emergence of new technology and wheel designs, I expect roulette will still be beatable for some time to come. The wheels 10 or so years ago are much the same as they are today. The casinos aren’t panicking about professional roulette players because they primarily rely on casino surveillance to detect professional players before they win too much. That’s why the real key to winning at roulette is not so much the system, but more avoiding detection.

Nevertheless, roulette is getting harder to beat. Nothing lasts forever, and I expect that after around 15 years from now, there may be too few opportunities for professional roulette players to earn a living. It doesn’t mean it wont be possible, but it would just be much more difficult than it is today.

To get the best free roulette systems that really work, see the top 5 proven roulette systems and the video series below. It's the best 100% free information for winning roulette you'll find. It's written by professionals who are really earning a living from roulette.

Most Popular

STAY CONNECTED

4,376FansLike
518FollowersFollow
4,805SubscribersSubscribe