# Magnetic interference of roulette ball
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 16, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968 "2003-01-16T14:17:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hammos1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hammos1)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/1 "2003-01-16T14:17:22Z")
See following story- reported in The Daily Telegraph on 15/1/03 and I’m sure elsewhere:
[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/15/1042520670625.html](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/15/1042520670625.html)
Don’t know about you, but my bullshit detector is pinging.
Is this really possible? i.e. :
- influencing the passage of a roulette ball with a device small enough to conceal in a wristwatch?
- Achieving the stated accuracy (to within 3 spaces)?
- Doing so without having all the cutlery, coins, loose fillings etc. in the casino flying towards you?
---
### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/2 "2003-01-16T14:23:58Z")
Some people will go to any length to perpetrate a con. I’ve seen other such magnetic devices used to fool a slot machine, but a roulette table??? I doubt it. And how do they _PLANT_ the ball. That must be tough.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/3 "2003-01-16T14:30:55Z")
I’d like to know that, too. But the article says:
> [@](#):
>
> Police and the casino management have been trying to work out how the gang swapped its ball with the casino’s. Once they had done so, they could repeatedly take advantage of it because roulette balls were kept in a safe overnight and returned to the same table.
>
> \< snip \>
>
> Analysis of surveillance camera footage indicated that the gang was made up of one gambler, two people controlling the roulette ball and two more keeping watch and trying to distract attention from their associates.
So my guess would be that they looked around and found a casino that had a roulette croupier who wasn’t paying attention, and they managed to sneak the ball into play, and then it was just a matter of going back with the Gang of Distractors, and playing.
Also, it says they didn’t win every spin, so it didn’t have any kind of pinpoint accuracy. They averaged out their winnings over several weeks.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/4 "2003-01-16T14:33:26Z")
Nope; I am inclined to disbelieve it; to magnetically control the ball toward a static target is one thing, but to get it to roll into a specific slot (or nearly so) in a rotating wheel - nope, I just don’t see it.
There’s just too much noise in the process; the wheel is rotated in one direction, the ball is rolled around the rim in the other; when the ball hits the wheel it bounces all over the place.
---
### Author:  [@SandWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandWriter)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/5 "2003-01-16T14:47:20Z")
Mangetout - true that there is noise in the system, but I’m sure, with practice, that you could influence the ball into a ‘zone’ of numbers. The article said they could get within three numbers, so they are betting on a range of 6 numbers instead of 36 or 37 depending on if the wheel has a 0 and 00 slot.
That would definately swing the odds away from the house towards the players.
You can not shield against magnatism. You can try to divert the flux lines, but if the ball was highly magnetic and the watch was used to ‘nudge’ the ball off the round into the wheel at the right time…
Besides all that, it obviously worked as they made 668,000 over a period of a few weeks.
-Sandwriter
---
### Author:  [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/6 "2003-01-16T14:50:05Z")
_hammos1
Doing so without having all the cutlery, coins, loose fillings etc. in the casino flying towards you?_
It sounds like one of those incredibly specific Acme cartoon magnets (in which case I wonder why the casino didn’t spot the big zig-zag lines coming from it).
---
### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/7 "2003-01-16T14:52:52Z")
We’ll probably start seeing compasses built into roulette tables now.
---
### Author:  [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/8 "2003-01-16T15:06:45Z")
The article doesn’t say how it worked but it indicates that the ball itself was magnetic.
It’s possible the ball had a small electromagnet in it that they could turn on and off by remote control, if the wheel was metal then flicking on the magnet should make the ball stop or slow down – you’d have to be pretty good to do it.
I doubt you’d be able to use a Bond-like magno-watch gadget to control the ball well enough to a location – so I’m guessing that they could stop/slow the ball somehow.
And **SandWriter** mentions skewing the odds in your favour, I believe I read in another thread that if you can eliminate 3 spaces on the wheel where you can be sure the ball will not land then you have the edge over the house. Any more than that just cuts down the number of bets you need to place.
SD
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/9 "2003-01-16T15:31:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by SandWriter \*
> **Besides all that, it obviously worked as they made 668,000 over a period of a few weeks.**
I’m not so sure that it ‘obviously’ worked - do we have any actual evidence other than that article?
---
### Author:  [@banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/banks)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/10 "2003-01-16T19:10:00Z")
This would be a hard, hard scam to pull. You would really need inside help. I’ve seen people with magnetic “rings” to try to effect the fall of the rotors on a slot machine, but switching the casino’s ball with your own, and somehow controlling it with a magnet in a watch… sounds a rough. I do remember an inside reading about a scam that occurred long ago involving a magnetized ball and magnets placed under the wheel. I beleive most US casinos have countermeasures installed, ranging from magnetometers to sealing the entire wheel/ball assembly in a plastic capsule.
Really, **SpaceDog** ’s idea sounds most reasonable. Still incredible difficult.
I always feel like laughing when I see people trying to influence their slot pulls with a ring. Slot results are generated the instant the player presser the go button by a random number generator. All the rotors do is display the result. All the ring does is make the motor turning the rotor work harder.
Of course, I feel like laughing whenever I see anyone wasting money on slots.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2003, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-interference-of-roulette-ball/148968/11 "2003-01-16T21:29:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mangetout \*
> \*\*I’m not so sure that it ‘obviously’ worked - do we have any actual evidence other than that article? \*\*
Well, to me it doesn’t seem weird enough to qualify for _Weekly World News_ fictional status. It has actual names and places.
The same story has popped up in a few other places, nearly word for word, FW that’s W.
There is a casino in Velden, Austria.
[http://www.casinocity.com/at/velden/ausspiel/](http://www.casinocity.com/at/velden/ausspiel/)
There is a Leo Wallner who is head of Casinos Austria, and who is also, not incidentally, president of the Austrian Olympic Committee. Not that it means anything, just that he’s a real person.
> **[Sydney revelations deepen Olympics corruption scandal](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/01/olym-j30.html)**
>
> Attempts by international and Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) officials to maintain a "squeaky-clean" image for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games collapsed dramatically last week when AOC president John Coates released documents revealing that he, and...
I suppose it could be a hoax using real names and places, but what would be the point? It isn’t even a very interesting story–nobody died, no exciting car chases, no beautiful blondes.
The only other thing I could think of would be that Casinos Austria was trying to cover up an embezzlement or a theft by making up a story about a gang with a James Bondian roulette ball, but again, that doesn’t seem to make much sense. It seems over-elaborate.