Over a seven year period, between 1904 and 1911, William Nelson Darnborough from Bloomington, Illinois, challenged the monstrous Monte Carlo casino at roulette, winning close to a half million dollars (in early 1900s currency, mind you). He did this after winning untold sums playing roulette in the United States in illegal casinos operated in saloons. Darnborough was a wheel watcher, a man who could anticipate with an unusual degree of accuracy where the ball would land. After winning his fortune, he quit playing to marry a beautiful young woman of noble blood whose family frowned on gambling. He lived happily ever after on a huge estate in England.
In 1971, Dr. Richard Jarecki operated on the casinos in Monte Carlo and San Remo to the tune of $1,280,000. Dr. Jarecki was a biased-wheel player who looked for wheels that were "off." He found them and stitched together quite a winning streak.
In a three-year period, from 1986 to 1989, Billy Walter's roulette teams won approximately five million dollars from casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, also playing biased-wheels.
But all the above biased-wheel players owe a debt of gratitude to the grand-daddy of biased-wheel play, the man who might have "invented" it, one Joseph Jaggers who won $325,000 in 1873 from Monte Carlo. (How much would that be worth today?) Jaggers staggered Monte Carlo because until that time no one -- and I mean no one -- had ever had sustained a winning streak of his proportions at the famed casino.
Those are some of the men who performed heroically in the face of Lady Luck by using skill at roulette, but what about weird and wild streaks that were just old-fashioned once-in-a-lifetime crazy luck?
Here is an eyewitness account from Barney Vinson, author of the acclaimed books Casino Secrets and Chip-Wrecked in Las Vegas, of something that has only happened twice in "recorded" roulette history:
"Here's a true story, and I saw it happen. At Caesars Palace on July 14, 2000, at 1:35 p.m., the number 7 came up six times in a row at Roulette Wheel #211. To figure the odds of such an occurrence, multiply 38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38, or over three billion to one! The dealer said it was the first time he had seen this in his 27-year career. Another sidelight. After the ball landed on 7 four times, the floor supervisor told the pit boss, 'I'll bet you a million dollars that it won't come up again.' Then here it came again, and again." During this twice-in-a-century event, with players and pit bosses and dealers all agog at the incredible repeating 7, how much money did Roulette table #211 lose? Hundreds of millions? Millions? Hundreds of thousands? Thousands? Nope, a mere $300!
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