A long read from Bloomberg on a Croatian gambler who seemingly cracked roulette, winning millions at casinos across the world apparently without cheating.
“It wasn’t the amount of money at stake that made the Ritz security team anxious. Customers routinely made several million pounds in an evening and left carrying designer bags bulging with cash. It was the way these three were winning: consistently, over hundreds of rounds. ‘It is practically impossible to predict the number that will come up,’ Stephen Hawking once wrote about roulette. ‘Otherwise physicists would make a fortune at casinos.’ The game was designed to be random; chaos, elegantly rendered in circular motion.
“When the Croatian left the casino in the early hours of March 16, he’d turned £30,000 worth of chips into a £310,000 check. His Serbian partner did even better, making £684,000 from his initial £60,000. He asked for a half-million in two checks and the rest in cash. That brought the group’s take, including from earlier sessions, to about £1.3 million. And Tosa wasn’t done. He told casino employees he planned to return the next day.”