How a renowned researcher thwarted prognosis, disconcerted casino owners around the world and left with a fortune.
On a warm night in May 1969, a crowd of amazed players rushed around a well worn roulette table on the Italian Riviera.
In the center was a 38-year-old deginganded medical teacher in a braided suit. He had just placed a bet of 100,000. $ (715 000) $ in 2019 dollars) on a single wheel turn. When the dealer dropped the little white ball, the room killed itself. He couldn't be that lucky... right?
But Dr. Richard Jarecki didn't put it at random. He had spent thousands of hours designing an ingenious method to win – and that would soon bring him the modern equivalent of more than 8,000,000 $.
From Nazi Germany to New Jersey
Born in 1931 in a Jewish family in Stettin, Germany, Richard Jarecki was immersed in a chaotic world.
Germany was facing economic difficulties and the Nazi party gained support with an anti-Semitic platform that blamed the country's ills on Jewish citizens. Jarecki's parents, a dermatologist and heiress of the shipping industry, were gradually stripped of everything they had. Faced with internment at the beginning of World War II, they fled to America for a better life.
In New Jersey, the young Jarecki found comfort in games like rami, skat and bridge, and took a lot of fun to «usually earn money» To friends. With a brilliant mind capable of retaining figures and statistics, he undertook medical studies, a noble activity that pleased his father.
As a young man in the 1950s, Jarecki gained the reputation of being one of the world's leading medical researchers.
But he had a secret: his true passion lay in the dark and mouldy rooms of casinos.
Strategy
Around 1960, Jarecki developed an obsession for roulette, a game where a small ball revolves around a multicolored wheel numbered at random and the player places bets on the place where it will land.
Although the roulette is considered by many as a simple game of chance, Jarecki was convinced that she could be « beaten ».
He noted that at the end of each night, casinos replaced cards and dice with new games – but expensive roulette wheels remained intact and often remained in service for decades before being replaced.
Like any other machine, these wheels used to. Jarecki began to suspect that tiny defects – shrapnel, bumps, scratches, uneven surfaces – could cause some wheels to land on certain numbers more frequently than the prescribed randomocity.
The doctor spent the weekends commuting between the operating table and the roulette table, manually recording thousands and thousands of turns and analyzing data for statistical anomalies.
« I [experimented] until I had a draft of a system based on previous winning numbers », he declared at the Sydney Morning Herald in 1969. « If numbers 1, 2 and 3 won the last 3 laps, [I could determine] what was most likely to win the next 3 laps.
Jarecki's approach was not new: Joseph Jagger, considered as the « pioneer » of the so-called « biased wheel »In the 1880s considerable sums had been earned. In 1947, researchers Albert Hibbs and Dr Roy Walford used the technique to buy a yacht and sail towards the sunset of the Caribbean. Then there was Helmut Berlin, an ex-tourist who, in 1950, hired a team of friends to follow the wheels and he was fired with 420,000. $.
But for Jarecki, it was not a question of money: he wanted to perfect the system, repeat it and « beat » the wheel. It was the triumphant man of the machine.
After months of data collection, it collected 100 $ (its savings for rainy days) and went to the casino. He had never played – and even though he trusted his research, he knew that he was still facing « element of chance ».
In a few hours, he transformed his 100 $ in 5,000 $ (~ 41 000 $ Today). And with this validation, he turned to much higher stakes.
Breaking Opportunities
In the mid-1960s Jarecki moved to Germany and took up a post at Heidelberg University to study electrophoresis and forensics.
He had recently won a very prestigious Peace Prize (one of the only 12 in the world) for his work on international cooperation in medicine and, consequently, had joined an elite group of doctors and scientists.
But Jarecki had his eyes on a different price: casinos nearby.
European roulettes offered better ratings than American roulettes: they had 37 locations instead of 38, reducing the casino advantage over the player from 5.26% to 2.7%. And, as Jarecki would find out, it was just his type of machine – old, crazy and full of physical defects.
With his wife, Carol, he spotted dozens of wheels in casinos across Europe, from Monte Carlo (Monaco), to Divonne-les-Bains (France), to Baden-Baden (Germany). The duo recruited a team of 8 « watchmakers » who have posted to these sites, sometimes recording up to 20,000 laps over a period of one month.
Then, in 1964, he went on his first strike.
After establishing which wheels were biased, he obtained a loan of 25,000 £ with a Swiss financier and spent 6 months implementing his strategy frankly. At the end of the race, he had earned 625,000 £ (approximately 6 700 000) $ Today).
Jarecki's victories made headlines in the world, from Kansas to Australia. Everybody wanted her. « secret » – but he knew that if he wanted to reproduce the exploit, he should hide his true methodology.
So he concocted a « fantasy tale » for the press: he counted the results of the roulette daily, then passed the information to an Atlas supercomputer, who told him which numbers to choose.
At the time, the game historian, Russell Barnhart, wrote in Beating the Wheel, « Computers were considered to be creatures of space... Few people, including casino managers, were professionally qualified to distinguish myth from reality. »
Hidden behind this technological trick, Jarecki continued to keep an eye on the biased tables – and to prepare for his next big blow.
The worst nightmare of a casino owner
Full of money, Jarecki bought a luxury apartment near San Remo, a sumptuous Italian casino on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Thanks to careful observation, he identified a table that used to land on #33 much more than usual – due to the « constant friction of the ball against the wheel ».
One spring evening in 1968, he drove his white Rolls Royce to the tripot and, in 3 days, won 48,000 $ (360,000) $ Today).
Eight months later, he returned, winning 192,000 $ (1 400 000) $) in a single weekend and breaking the bank (exhausting cash from the casino) with two different wheels twice in one night. On the verge of bankruptcy, the casino owner had no choice but to impose a 15-day ban on Jarecki ... for « Be too good ».
The night the ban was lifted, Jarecki came back and earned 100,000 $ additional (717 000) $) – so much money that the casino had to give him a promissory note.
When Jarecki came to a casino, large crowds gathered to see the master at work. Many reflected each of his movements, placing small bets on the same numbers.
In order to defeat Jarecki, casino owners have rearranged their favourite roulette wheels in different places every night. But the professor knew every vein of the wood – each cut, crack, scratch and discoloration – and he was always looking for them.
« It is a threat to all casinos in Europe », said casino owner Signor Lardera at Sydney Morning Herald. « I don't know exactly how he does it, but if he never came back to my casino, I would be a very happy man. »
« If casino managers don't like to lose, retort Jarecki, they should sell vegetables.
Finally, San Remo abandoned and replaced its 24 wheels at a high cost for the house. It was, they gave in, the only way to stop the best player they've ever seen.
In the decades since Jarecki's domination, casinos have invested heavily in the supervision of their roulette tables in the search for defects and in the construction of wheels less prone to bias. Today, most wheels have become digital, managed by algorithms programmed to promote home.
Roulette to the grave
In total, Jarecki earned 1,250,000 $ (8,000,000) $ Today) by placing big bets on biased roulette tables between 1964 and 1969.
Italian newspaper Il Giorno called « the most titrated roulette player in the world » – a mischievous academic who « [does] not look like a player ». Formerly considered a « egg head » on campus, he became « the hero of every student of his university ».
In 1973 Jarecki brought his family back to New Jersey, where he began a new career as a commodity broker. With the help of his billionaire brother, he multiplied his fortune by 10. He also passed his penchant for games to his son who, at the age of 9, became the youngest chess master in history.
On occasion, casino owners called with partnership offers, but he never bit to hook: « He [loved] to take money from casinos », said his wife, Carol, in the New York Times, « and not give it to them ».
In the early 1990s Jarecki got tired of Atlantic City and moved to Manila, home to a thriving (and poorly regulated) game scene. He will remain there until his death in 2018, at the age of 87.
Nestled in the corner of a lively playroom, surrounded by neons and slot machines, he bet his last bet.
The wheel turned and turned. Like so many times before, the little white ball has landed on its number.
