British Gamblers Use Mobiles for Predictions
In 2004, a group from London employed mobile phones with integrated cameras to pinpoint the stopping point of the roulette ball, a deception technique known as “sector targeting.” In December 2004, the court ruled that there was no fraud since their method did not alter the ball’s trajectory; their £1.3 million were released. Discover the rest of the story of this group that mastered the roulette at London’s Ritz.
A team of three gamblers won £1.3 million, over €1.8 million, at the Ritz casino in London. They used a system: a scanner linked to a tiny computer hidden inside a mobile phone. The verdict: this action is legal.
The team was initially imprisoned before being released on bail. When they returned to the police station in December, they learned that the charges had been dropped.
The trio consisted of a 32-year-old Hungarian woman and two Serbian men aged 33 and 38. Their winnings were initially seized. Their legal proceedings lasted nine months. After the investigation, they reclaimed their profits and can now repeat their bets on the roulette wheels of London’s casinos.
The Ritz had filed a complaint against the three gamblers on March 16. These individuals managed to win a fortune in just two nights using a very special mobile phone. It contained a scanner as a peripheral for a mini-computer, which informed the speed of the ball launched by the casino employee.
Data read by the scanner was quickly sent to the computing center. The device primarily had to calculate the possible stopping zone of the sphere at the end of its journey, using various recorded parameters (the ball’s landing zone on the roulette and its rotation speed).
After performing this process, the calculation provided the results on the mobile phone’s console. The team then had to bet among the six numbers obtained. Speed was a key element of the process, as it is illegal to bet after the third spin of the roulette.
The players’ odds shifted from 37 to 1 to 6 to 1; the trio initially collected £100,000 (about €145,000) during the initial trial. They later gained £1.2 million (€1.74 million) when they repeated their feats the following evening. The winnings attracted the attention of the casino officials and Scotland Yard’s casino fraud division took over the case.
This maneuver was subsequently deemed legal: the law only prohibits altering the operation of the roulette mechanism or interfering in any way with the velocity of the ball.