Beating the Casinos with Derren Brown

Beating the casinos – well, Derren Brown couldn’t do it, so why do we possibly think that we can?

Derren Brown has infamously tried to beat the casinos by working out a strategy to win at roulette. He gambled £5,000 of an unwitting fan’s money on a single spin of the roulette wheel, but failed to get the right number. He was close though – so close. He bet on number 8, but the ball landed on number 30, number 8’s neighbouring number. If he had won the fan ‘Ben’ would have won £175,000, but as it now stands, he just gets his £5,000 back.

Some people are convinced that Derren ‘failed’ on purpose – either because legally he wouldn’t have been able to give the money to Ben anyway, or to get us geared up for his next show or his new Science of Scams website. Whether he failed purposely or by accident remains to be seen, but getting as close as he did to winning the £175,000 is pretty impressive!

So how did he make us believe he could do it?

The word Roulette is a French word, meaning ‘little wheel’ and it is believed that the French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal invented it in 1657 when he was experimenting with perpetual motion devices. He did not intend his roulette to be used for gambling, but in inventing it he pioneered the mathematical field of probability.

The roulette is now a dominant symbol of casinos, and it is the sheer thrill and unpredictability of playing that makes it so enjoyable. People, without the aid of electronic devices cannot beat the roulette wheel – which is what made what Derren did so utterly amazing. After all, even Einstein said that the only way to win at roulette is to steal the other players’ chips! This doesn’t stop people trying to find scientific solutions to what is technically a mathematical problem, and are constantly trying to come up with ways to minimise losses and increase winnings – what gamblers call ‘systems’. Some examples of these systems for roulette include the Martingale and the Labouchere – both of which... don’t work!

In 1961 the first wearable computer designed to beat the casino at roulette was invented, which predicts through physics which section of the wheel the ball will fall in and is now known as ‘sector targeting.’ This does work, which is why all American casinos have banned them, and if you’re found to be wearing one you can be prosecuted. When three gamblers won £1.2 million on roulette at the Ritz casino in 2004, they were instantly arrested in the belief that they had used sector targeting equipment. They hadn’t – it is believed that they had used a technique called visual prediction, which is what Derren used on his show to beat the casino.

We saw him on a motorway fly-over revealing exactly how far the cars below were going AND we saw him predict exactly what number square of a numbered squash court a squash ball was going to land in, the second after it was thrown. Pretty incredible viewing, and a sure indicator that he could and would beat the casino!? Sadly even Derren, whether he intended to or not, didn’t succeed in beating the casino, so it’s wise to remember that when you play, you are doing it for fun and excitement, as well as the POSSIBILITY of chance intervening and helping you win!