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Man won $624,000 in a single day from casino after figuring out ‘trick’ behind roulette wheel

Home> News> Money

Published 16:37 26 Dec 2024 GMT

Man won $624,000 in a single day from casino after figuring out ‘trick’ behind roulette wheel

Gonzalo García-Pelayo ended up in a spot of trouble with the casino as a result

Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck

A man won over $1 million across two years on a roulette table with one spin landing him over $600,000.

In the early 1990s, Gonzalo García-Pelayo got a group together made up of his friends and family and started to analyse the roulette wheels at Casino Gran Madrid in Spain.

Numbered 0 to 36, the roulette wheels have 37 slots which theoretically gives you a one in 37 chance of winning but García-Pelayo questioned whether some numbers come up more frequently than others.

He noticed there were certain imperfections with the wheels which meant some numbers won as often as every 28 throws as opposed to 36.

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So, García-Pelayo used sophisticated computer modelling techniques and worked out which numbers were more likely to occur and ended up winning a whopping 600,000 euros ($624,850) in one single day and over a million euros in total.

However, the casino ended up taking legal action against him.

The odds were off (Getty Stock Images)
The odds were off (Getty Stock Images)

In 1994 the casino realised what García-Pelayo and his friends had been doing, subsequently banning them from the venue.

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The case was taken to court where a 10-year long battle ensued and a judge later ruled García-Pelayo had not cheated and the casino must open its doors back up to him.

However, he resolved to not go back as was 'too well known' after the whole debacle.

And García-Pelayo isn't the only one to have taken advantage of a flaw in the system either.

A mechanic named Joseph Jagger was working in a casino when he realised a wheel had a certain bias to the numbers: 7,8,9,17,18,19,22,28 and 29.

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He spread out his bets and over the course of just several days he ended up winning a whopping two million francs, Bettors Insider reports.

Others have taken advantage of dodgy wheels too (Getty Stock Images)
Others have taken advantage of dodgy wheels too (Getty Stock Images)

Richard Jarecki also noticed a wheel in a European roulette had a certain favouritism towards a few numbers and ended up hedging his bets and winning big over the course of several years, switching casinos too to avoid getting caught, amassing over $1 million.

However, similarly to García-Pelayo, some casinos clocked on and soon banned him from ever returning.

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And well, Ashley Revell took a slightly different approach, fully deciding to let it be the luck of the draw, selling off everything he owned and betting his entire life savings on a single roulette spin - I guess that's one way to do it.

Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images

Topics: Money, World News

Poppy Bilderbeck
Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck is a Senior Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. Poppy is most comfortable when chatting about all things mental health, is proving a drama degree is far from useless by watching and reviewing as many TV shows and films as possible and is such a crisp fanatic the office has been forced to release them in batches.

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