# Why would you rig a roulette wheel?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156
**Category:** The Game Room
**Created:** [January 3, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156 "2022-01-03T19:46:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/21 "2022-01-04T18:01:58Z")
> [@JoePockets](#):
>
> Humphrey “ Rick” Bogart was very generous with his at Ricks Cafe !
Not that it matters to the plot, but how exactly would Rick do that? Was there one (maybe two?) numbers that could be rigged? (Fucking magnets! How do they work? 🙂 ) Could it be easily changed, and that day was 12’s day, so Rick of course knew it?
Of course, Rick gave the game away by being so obvious. Maybe no one cares?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/22 "2022-01-04T18:09:08Z")
[quote=“Just\_Asking\_Questions, post:21, topic:957156”] (Fucking magnets! How do they work? 🙂 )
[/quote]
In movies (and comic books) magnets can do _anything_.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/23 "2022-01-04T18:11:09Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> In movies (and comic books) magnets can do _anything_ …
Nowadays, they’d just call it “quantum rigging”. Especially if it were an MCU film, or Star Trek.
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### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/24 "2022-01-04T18:18:27Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> Why? I assume people normally bet on the numbers equally.
Not really. Gamblers are a notoriously superstitious lot, and that biases them towards some numbers and away from others, often for cultural reasons (lucky 7 in North America and Europe, unlucky 4 in Japan and China).
Then there are a lot of people who bet their birthdays, which if they include the month, biases them towards 1-12 and away from higher numbers.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/25 "2022-01-04T18:51:36Z")
> [@Horatius](#):
>
> Then there are a lot of people who bet their birthdays, which if they include the month, biases them towards 1-12 and away from higher numbers.
Slight hijack but if you pick lottery numbers, choose all of them over 31. It obviously won’t increase your odds of winning but it will increase your odds of not having to share if you do happen to win.
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### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/26 "2022-01-04T19:03:27Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> Slight hijack but if you pick lottery numbers, choose all of them over 31. It obviously won’t increase your odds of winning but it will increase your odds of not having to share if you do happen to win.
That’s exactly why I know about the birthdays thing 😉
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/27 "2022-01-04T19:53:27Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> Especially if it were an MCU film, or Star Trek.
Everything is nanites in those franchises.
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### Author:  [@3AxisCtrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3AxisCtrl)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2022, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/28 "2022-01-04T22:36:18Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> … it isn’t a stretch to imagine some operators might like a little extra insurance against single big bet losses.
Scene 2 in _The Sting_.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/29 "2022-01-07T10:31:20Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> As always, the trick is to control the greed.
Which is always the main point of failure.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-you-rig-a-roulette-wheel/957156/30 "2022-01-07T13:30:25Z")
The house vig on a single 0 wheel is around 2.5%. Around 5% on a 0 00 wheel. I’m not sure about tables that return half a 2:1 bet on a 0 roll affect the vig. So yes the house is guaranteed to win over time. There is no guarantee they can’t lose money to a high roller in the short term. A large casino owned by a corporation can always wait out the odds since there will be thousands of rolls. In the fictional depictions of the rigged wheels its a small illegal operation run by criminals who don’t want to lose money ever.
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