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Jeff Romano
A photograph taken and tweeted by poker pro Jeff Romano from the Rio on Monday, June 18, 2012.
Published Tuesday, June 19, 2012 | 2:49 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, June 20, 2012 | 11:14 a.m.
Before we specify what this statistic is based on, the odds of it happening are 3 billion to 1.
Those are the odds against a roulette wheel hitting the same number on seven consecutive spins. But that did happen, or certainly appears to have happened, at the Rio at 8:32 p.m. Monday as pro poker player Jeff Romano took a photo of a roulette wheel display screen showing the No. 19 hitting on seven straight spins. The string was broken when the wheel landed on 15, then hit 19 once more for a run of eight 19s in nine spins.
The display screen lists the most recent 16 numbers on which the ball lands on a roulette table. Four of the numbers in Romano’s photo are 20, meaning that in this particular stretch, two numbers were landed upon 75 percent of the time. The string started with a green zero, followed by 20-20-23-5-20-20, then the run of 19s.
The the odds of the 19s hitting seven times in succession as 3 billion to 1 (the original version of the column cited incorrect odds as being 14 billion to one, which statistics experts have since noted were far longer than the single number 19 hitting seven times in a row). Contacted this afternoon to ask for verification of the event and if the wheel has since been tested to make sure it is properly balanced and calibrated, Caesars Entertainment officials had not yet learned of the event.
We’re awaiting word on what is certainly one of the rarest documented roulette runs in the city’s history.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.
That number isn't right for odds because it is for the same specific number 7 times in a row. In reality, the odds are closer to 1 in 3 billion because it doesn't matter what is rolled the first time, only the remaining six tiems. There is also the possibility that the ball was picked up and put down again in the same spot several times. It doesn't look like the table was in use at the time of the photo.
Is this an extremely rare event or a malfunction or a system controlling the results? What is more likely?
You can't just look at the 19s. you also have to consider the repeated 20s. Something does not look right here. Hope gaming officials see this.
I will make sure to avoid this wheel at the RIO.
Looks to me like the electronic reader is double posting the results. Happens a lot. You'd have to get confirmation from the table players and dealer.
The Fix is broken
what kind of reporter puts this on ? if he checked he would know it's a malfunction. it happens all the time.
I am calling BS...
Dealt "the Wheel" for years and I could put any number I wanted up on the whole display. Has nothing to do with luck. Has everything to do with being a bored roulette dealer...
IF..it did happen...and you put a $10 chip on #19 and let it ride for all 7 spins...you would walk out of the casino with 643,392,968,750 BILLION DOLLARS...The most I ever seen LIVE playing the game was the #9 3 times in a row...and that blew me away.
You probably would have maxed out the table limit on a straight up number after the first hit, definitely after the second. I've seen 3 times in a row. Never four. 7 is unheard of and this definitely looks bogus.
We witnessed "00" hitting 5 straight time in an Atlantic City casino many years ago. After the second time the players were dropping big cash on the number and the casino was paying out big. They closed the table after the 5th time the number hit. I estimated that one player had around $15,000 in chips when they closed the game.
Why write & even publish this without verification that it actually happened???????? Must have been a very very slow news day.
No, the odds of any one number showing up seven times in a row is 3 billion to one. You quoted the odds of a specific number coming up seven times in a row. If there are 4 roulette wheels in each of 100 casinos that spin an average of once every couple of minutes, seven of the same number in a row will show up somewhere every ten years. Cool, but certainly not a once-in-a-lifetime event like a 114 billion to one event would be.
It looks like a ball reader error to me. (remember I'm a test guy!) ...
19 and 20 are situated 180 degrees apart on an "American" style wheel (BIG CLUE). If the wheel is started, stopped, then re-spun (leaving the ball in place) you can easily get the same reading over and over on the ball reader. Maybe someone was just using it for training or it was being clean, reset, re-leveled.
But, most likely, the ball reader is just plain flakey. Happens all the time at Roulette tables (and bacarract too)... that's why there's a disclaimer saying the the number board is there as a convenience to players and it is not guaranteed to be the actual win number.
There actually is a way to win at roulette. The tables always have a very slight advantage if you can find it. No table is ever 100% level, therefore every table has a slight pie shaped area of about 5-7 numbers that come up just slightly more than others. The problem is it may take weeks of watching and recording each number that comes up and then figuring out which pie shaped area to bet on that particular wheel. Difficult, but not impossible.