Roulette Assault

In 1873, the Englishman Joseph Jaggers made the first famous biased wheel attack against the Monte Carlo casino. His background was in engineering, working at a cotton mill in Yorkshire. This mechanical background made him wonder whether roulette wheels were perfectly balanced or just as subject to wear and tear as his cotton mills. His hunch was that there would be a natural tendency to deviate from perfect outcomes. To investigate his theory, Jaggers recruited a team of six clerks to clock the six roulette wheels at the Monte Carlo casino. For 6 days straight, the team of clerks recorded every roulette result. Jaggers himself would then subject the results to statistical testing to check whether the results were truly prefect and random. Five of the six roulette wheels were close to random but a sixth wheel showed significant bias. A string of nine numbers, closely connected on the wheel were showing up far more often than a random wheel would suggest. This opened the opportunity for Joseph Jaggers to make his biased wheel attack

By betting only on the numbers showing bias, (7, 8, 9, 12, 17, 18, 22 ,28, 29) Jaggers made $70,000 on his first day. He continued his attack until the fourth day at which time he had amassed a profit of $300,000. Alarmed and suspicious of the consistent luck of Jaggers, the Monte Carlo casino played back. Overnight, the roulette wheels were all switched around. So when Joseph Jaggers played at his usual table the next day, he was in fact up against a different wheel. The Monte Carlo casino’s trap worked. Joseph Jaggers proceeded to lose almost his entire winnings over the day until he noticed that an identifying scratch on his biased wheel had disappeared. Checking the other wheels he found his biased wheel again. With a vengeance Jaggers then proceeded to win $450,000, a truly massive sum for 1873! Again the Monte Carlo casino set another trap. They called for the master roulette manufacturer to be brought to the casino. The biased wheel was then modified with movable frets so that they could be moved to new positions every night. While this did not remove the inherent bias, it did make it impossible to identify. The trap again worked for a time. Joseph Jaggers went on a two day losing streak. Now, he bowed adieu and walked away from the table calling it quits but with $325,000 profit still in his pocket! Jaggers never played roulette again but lived in luxury and ease from his highly successful biased wheel attack. The song "The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo" was written the year he died.