· Using hidden device 'does not count as cheating'
· System can give 20% and 100% advantage over casino
Professional gamblers are rushing to buy £1,000 devices that they believe will enable them to win millions of pounds in casinos when the gambling industry is deregulated next year.
Hundreds of the roulette-cheating machines - which consist of a small digital time recorder, a concealed computer and a hidden earpiece - were tested at a government laboratory in 2004 after a gang suspected of using them won £1.3m at the Ritz casino in London.
After the research, which was never made public but has been seen by the Guardian, the government's gambling watchdog admitted to industry insiders that the technology can offer punters an edge when playing roulette in a casino, and the advantage can be "considerable".
But rather than ban the devices, which are outlawed in many jurisdictions across the world, the Gambling Commission will require casinos to police themselves. Phill Brear, the commission's director of operations, admits predictive softwares can work but suggested it might be possible to prosecute someone using them under a new Gambling Act offence of cheating.
However Mark Griffiths, Europe's only professor of gambling, said using computer devices would not constitute cheating."If someone's got a piece of equipment that calculates where a ball will land, then that is akin to card counting in blackjack. It's not cheating - it's using science to give yourself a better advantage."
Amid the confusion, the commission confirmed that it is advising casinos to refuse to pay people caught using predictive devices, requiring the gamblers to take legal action in order to obtain their winnings. Roulette cheaters say that is unlikely to deter them. The supreme court in Spain recently ruled against a casino that was attempting to ban a father and son, both of whom claimed to have won millions by forecasting roulette.
The most high-profile roulette scam in Britain was executed by a woman and two men who, in 2003, won £1.3m at the Ritz using a device concealed inside a mobile phone. They were arrested but later released and their winnings were returned.
The government's national weights and measures laboratory investigated the technique. It is thought the cheats first identify a "biased" wheel, where the ball appears to commonly drop in roughly the same zone. They also look for signs on the wheel of a "manageable scatter", which means that when the ball strikes a certain number, it will usually fall into a neighbouring pocket. The unpublished report concluded: "On a wheel with a definite bias and a manageable scatter, a prediction device of this nature, when operated by a 'skilled' roulette player, could obtain an advantage when used in a casino."
Mark Howe, who sells the devices for £1,000 from a workshop in Sheffield, claims his software will also work on level wheels. Surrounded by the soldering irons and laser sensors he uses to make his devices, he gave the Guardian an apparently successful demonstration of the software he said earned him a substantial sum before he was banned from British casinos in the 1990s.
The equipment consists of a clicker that records the deceleration speed of the rotor and ball, a remote computer device concealed inside a mobile phone or MP3 player, and an earpiece that instructs a player which zone the ball will land in.
Mr Howe says a gambler with the equipment can gain an edge of between 20% and 100% over the casino, overturning the casino's normal 2.7% edge over customers. "Next year is free hunting for anyone interested in making money from casinos," he said. "All you need to use this is nerves, a good front and consistency."
Keith Tayler, an ex-croupier and gaming inspector, says regulators are unwilling to ban predicting devices because it would amount to an admission that wheels can be biased. "The commission would be opening themselves to litigation or disputes at the table," he said. "The last thing a casino wants is punters arguing about why their numbers have been missed all evening."
The Gaming Commission wrote to Mr Tayler last year stating: "We now agree that roulette wheels can develop a bias of the type you describe and that, particularly with the use of electronic equipment, players can use the bias to predict with some accuracy the segment of the wheel in which the ball will come to rest, thereby giving them an advantage."
No one from the world's leading manufacturer of roulette wheels, TCS John Huxley, was available for comment.
How it works
Clicker Used to record the speed of the rotor and ball, the data acquisition clicker can be concealed in a pen, a watchstrap, a shoe or even clipped to a molar tooth. The device is clicked as the two entities pass reference points to gauge the deceleration speeds. The data is sent to a remote computer
Computer Uses the timings to calculate which number the ball will strike based on an algorithm from data gathered and transmits the information to the earpiece. It is small enough to be hidden in a mobile phone, MP3 player, handbag or cigarette lighter.
Earpiece Placed inside the ear canal, where it cannot be detected, the earpiece relays instructions to the player about where to place bets. It can be worn by many players to place simultaneous bets or one can be swapped between them to confuse casino management.
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