Incredible Roulette Runs, Wagers and Wins

Roulette has been a very exciting and mesmerizing casino game since the 18th century in France. Incredibly simple to understand and play, the game moves quickly and furiously, and requires no intense strategy or mathematics. Place a bet on a number, a group of numbers, black or red, and wait for the spinning wheel to make you a winner or loser. And the good thing is, if red comes up 10 times in a row, the fickle little roulette ball is almost certainly guaranteed to end up in a black slot the next time, right?

That idea, that an immediate reversal of bad fortune is assumed and guaranteed, is known as the Monte Carlo Fallacy. It is actually so named because on August 18, 1913, a plush casino in famed Monte Carlo was the site of an incredible run on one specific roulette table. A documented record that would go on to last for 30 years, that day the shiny little roulette ball ended up in a black slot at the end of each spin a record 26 times in succession. As black continued to show as the outcome, a near rioted rush to bet on red ensued.

Players doubled and tripled their stakes with each successive spin after 15 straight black outcomes have been delivered. After the incredible run was ended, so were the fortunes of many gamblers. The casino had profited by millions of francs, and the assembled gamblers were taught a valuable and wallet-crushing lesson. Fast forward to 1943 where the opposing red came up a record breaking 32 consecutive times, creating massive winners and losers. And the Monte Carlo Fallacy, also called the Gambler's Fallacy, has as its partner the Hot Hand Fallacy. This will be familiar to you gamblers who have been on hot streaks before.

"Hot" roulette players will stick with a specific color, number or group of numbers just as frequently as the erroneous players mentioned above bucked the trend. And in the early twentieth century Las Vegas' version of Monte Carlo was home to one of the greatest roulette players of all time. William Darnborough won nearly $500,000 in a short seven year span at the storied Monte Carlo casino, an unfathomable amount of money at that time. He was known to have an uncanny ability to predict where the ball would land, and after his amazing run he and his wife retired to a huge estate in England.

In 1971 Doctor Richard Jarecki learn how to spot wheels which were a little bit "off center", and he took his biased-wheel talents to casinos in San Remo and Monte Carlo, winning $1.28 million along the way. And while the runs of black and red mentioned above are incredible, long-time gambler and writer Barney Vinson remembers witnessing the single number seven appearing at least six times in a row on the same table. In 2004 Ashley Ravell placed a bet on red for $135,300 at the Plaza Hotel and Casino, and eight years later longtime dealer Carlos Basaldua bet $66,200 on even at Binion's, with both aggressive gamblers doubling up their money victoriously.