The person discussed in this article can not be considered a cheater. He did not break the casino rules but skillfully used blunders in the game and won considerably. We are talking about defects in the roulette wheel he managed to find.
Who Was Joseph Jagger?
Joseph Hobson Jagger wrote his name into the history of the gaming world as a person who won roulette in the Monte Carlo casino. He lived from 1830 to 1892; for that time, these achievements seemed incredible, but the stories about him have many existing eyewitnesses to be sure about their reality. However, there are also many questionable stories about his personality.
For example, you can find versions that he was the ancestor of the famous rock musician Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.
Joseph was a British engineer who worked in the cotton industry in Yorkshire. He was one of the first to find out that the results of the mechanical tape were not completely random because the device was not perfect. To test his observations, he hired six assistants who secretly recorded the number of falls on different numbers in the roulette Beaux Arts in Monte Carlo casino.
Carefully examining the results, he discovered that one of the roulette wheels demonstrated bias in its work. This was expressed in the fact that nine of the winning numbers were much more common than others.
Starting a Career as an Advantage Gambler
On July 7, 1875, Jagger went with that knowledge to the casino and won about fourteen thousand pounds.
In today's money (considering the difference in prices and inflation) it is about seven hundred thousand dollars! He continued to play for three days, winning sixty thousand pounds.
Even other players realized that they should follow his example and started to bet on the same numbers as he did.
In the end, the casino administration discovered what was happening, and the roulette wheels were changed to confuse Joseph. At first, he was bewildered, but his wonderful memory helped him. He remembered a scratch on the wheel and found it in another part of the hall. The rest was a matter of technique, and Jagger won considerably.
The casino decided to act more subtly.
- It changed metal parts and spacer bumpers to the roulette wheel. Its balance changed, and rooms often won became less " lucky."
- Moreover, they did it every day during the technical break. This way, they wanted to return the money won by Joseph.
And it was partially successful. Jagger fought with a tape for two days, constantly losing, and then realized he could no longer win here.
Nevertheless, the money he lost was much less than his previous winnings. He left Monte Carlo with an amount equivalent to today's three million dollars and was never seen after that. Joseph left his last job and was quite rich, not to play anymore and invest money in real estate.
The story quickly spread around the world and forced the casinos to pay more attention to the technical condition of roulette. At least, no one could repeat that in Monte Carlo.
Roulettes in Contemporary Casinos
Modern roulettes from well-known manufacturers work perfectly, but in some casinos, you can still find wheels made by doubtful companies or worn expensive models with some defects.
This practice is not possible in online casinos because a random number generator determines the winning numbers. In respectable casinos, the operation of RNG is tested by independent regulatory agencies, and the results of these audits are published on the casino site.
