What about ‘wheel bias’ in roulette?

Now this is a very different way of ‘controlling’ the ball or wheel.

Wheel bias refers to flaws or wear and tear on the wheel itself that can lead to the ball stopping in predictable patterns.

Roulette wheels are built just like they were hundreds of years ago. They are mechanical in nature and thus can be affected by wear and tear. The spindle can become bent meaning the wheel tilts a little in one area. The ball track can become scratched and affect how the ball drops. The frets on the pockets (the edges that separate them) can wear down leading to a ball dropping into certain groupings consistently. The diamonds can become worn, also leading to the ball behaving in a less random way than is ideal. And the wheel may even have defects from the manufacturing process like some pockets being slightly wider than others.

Any and all of these defects can make the roulette wheel predictable and ardent roulette players are always on the lookout for a biased wheel that could tilt the odds in their favour.

How easy is it to find a biased wheel?

This is the problem. It would take an average of 10,000 spins to accurately identify whether or not a wheel has bias. And nobody sits around waiting for that. There are gambling consortiums who do have ‘spotters’ tracking the winning numbers and looking for these tables, but casinos are not stupid. Not only do they know to keep an eye out for these ‘spotters’, but they also have their own surveillance and algorithms that track each wheel at their tables and, if there is even the slightest suspicion of a wheel becoming predictable, it is shut down and maintained or replaced.

Our verdict

In our opinion it is very unlikely that the casino can or will control the ball or wheel in a LEGITIMATE casino. It makes no sense for the casino, with its huge house edge, to want to skim a bit more at the expense of losing players.

BUT

There is a very important word up above: LEGITIMATE. Illegal casinos have no issues with conning gullible players out of their cash and, unfortunately, this means that they CAN control the wheel. From deliberately altering the pockets to purposefully tilting the spindle to installing actual magnets to stop the wheel when and where they want, there is nothing they won’t do to cheat gamblers.

So, make sure you’re playing at a legit casino and you’ll be fine.

Or will you?

Wheel bias can happen. Croupiers with too much time on their hands can develop skills when it comes to releasing the ball. The ball itself can become worn and affect the game. Thankfully, top casinos do everything in their power to ensure that the roulette table is a place of random outcomes. They change the croupiers regularly. They have more than one ball that they use. They monitor the wheel closely. They make sure that croupiers know to vary up the spin regularly.

Because they know that the biggest thrill of a casino and gambling is the element of chance and the more players that know they are on the level, the more players will stream to their tables.