Savvy gamblers are always looking for a wayto gain an edge over the house, and that includes looking to the world of scienceand math for help.

Here well look at chaos theory at its most basic level and whether you can you use it to gain an advantage in blackjack and roulette.

Chaos theory is a complicated mathematical theory that studies the unpredictable and random nature of complex systems.

A complex system could be something like theweather, or the behavior of water boiling on a stove.

It theorizes that a tiny difference instarting conditions will result in a completely different outcome, which iswhat makes the systems so complex to study.

You might be more familiar with the butterfly effect.

The term was coined by MIT meteorologist and one of the pioneers of chaos theory, Edward Lorenz, when he was developing a weather-prediction model in the 1960s.

He theorized that something as small as abuttery flapping its wings in Asia could be capable of eventually causing ahurricane in the Atlantic.

As is often the case in such discussions ofscientific discovery, many nuances were lost in its simplification forwidespread audiences.

And is also the case in many scientific discoveries,there were punters hoping to cash in.

Edward Lorenzs nuanced take on thepredictability of weather quickly began discussions on whether roulette spinscould be foretold, or whether blackjack shoes were complex systems.

And wherever there are gamblers looking tocash in, there is always someone selling a how-to guide that will make it quickand easy.

And in all fairness, both blackjack and rouletteoutcomes certainly do have a sensitive dependence to initial conditions.

So, lets take a look to see if you can usechaos theory next time youre at the casino.

The beauty of blackjack has always beenthat its not a random game.

The probability of the next card isdetermined by the cards that have been dealt preceding it.

And due to the rules of the game, a largenumber of high-value cards left to be dealt changes the odds, sometimes to thepoint where you have the advantage.

Chaos theory is used to find order inseemingly random data, so there is some sense that maybe it could be applied insome way here.

But that is just smoke and mirrors.

We know the difference that each cardsremoval from the game will make, there is no large change from the subtractionof one Ace from a 6-deck shoe.

Six decks of randomly shuffled cardspresent many opportunities for those that watch what cards have been played andknow the value of cards left to be played.

But it does not rise to the level of acomplex system. No small change to our starting conditions can lead to bigchanges by the end of the shoe.

Modeling of millions of shoes of blackjackdoes not reveal any tipping point where things change suddenly anddramatically.

Rather it shows a simple mathematicalprogression of highs and lows. Almost like a song if you will.

The purpose of a roulette wheel from thehouse side of things is to put together an instrument that creates anindependent trial.

One that randomly selects one of 38different numbers from double zero to 36.

But of course, an ivory ball, a woodenwheel, and a moving metal wheel head are perhaps not the best practical choicesfor such a task.

Trust an engineer to quickly figure out asystems flaws. Thats exactly what Joseph Jagger did way back in 1880 when he famouslybroke the bank in Monte Carlo.

Spotting just one wheel out of dozens that seemedto have flaws, he won about $7 million in todays money in an up-and-down weekthat saw the casino realize the problem and attempt a bait and switch with adifferent wheel head.

I personally saw a rather eccentricEnglishman, who went by the pseudonym Harry Gatto, beat two separate wheelheads for more than $300K back in the early 90s after tracking them for months.

There is little doubt that roulette wheelshave been susceptible to attack in the past due to poor maintenance and flaweddesign.

The question is whether they still are, andwhether chaos theory can help in that pursuit.

Here again, on the surface, it appears thatsmall deviations in starting conditions can cause large changes in results.

A slightly bent fret on a wheel head, aworn ball, a groove in the ball track, a slight tilt to the spindle any ofthese can cause a number or segment of numbers to hit more often than theyshould.

But most of these issues are best describedby everyday physics, and while the turn of the roulette wheel and thesubsequent landing of the ball is affected by many more things than you mightat first think, its simply untrue that small differences in things as obscureas humidity or the temperature make a large difference in the speed or,more importantly, the number the ball ultimately lands in.

As far back as the late 70s physicsstudents from UCSC were tackling roulette with computers.

It turns out that by accounting for thespeed of the ball and the speed of the wheel, and then using other calculationsfor the scatter of the ball once it descends onto the wheel head, that theycould bet sections of the wheel that would net them north of a 40% advantage.

The issue here, much as counting cards, is that it is almost instantly observable by a trained professional.

You must first get the info on where theball is, where the wheel head is, and the speed of both, and then stillhave time to get your bets down where a hidden computer tells you to.

While it can now be accomplished by apps onyour phone, you can imagine the frantic betting back in the 80s.

But again, the late betting of coincidingnumbers on the wheel head is a dead giveaway. And this is one of many reasonswhy phones are almost never allowed to be out anywhere near a roulette game.

In rare cases, casinos may wave off newbets after just one or two revolutions of the ball to prevent this type ofadvantage play.

Other approaches from the late 80s and 90sthat looked for tilted wheel heads or other physical issues with the wheelshave also largely been fixed.

Its not uncommon for a larger casino inthe states to do wheel maintenance once a week, or even more.

This will include looking for any issues withfrets and canoes or ensuring that nothing sticky has gotten on a number toprevent the ball from bouncing out easily.

It will also employ a level to make surethe wheel isnt tilted in some way, which may have been how my Mr. Gatto managedto beat those roulette games.

And while collecting reams of data onroulette wheel decisions is what is generally prescribed for locating abeatable game, please note that most casinos already pull that data directlyfrom their electronic roulette scoreboards where it can then be analyzed bypowerful software looking for anomalies.

My advice on anyone wanting to sell you a chaostheory-derived roulette system is, as always, Run, dont walk.

While roulette remains susceptible toseveral different advantage plays, most of these are easily defeated byproperly trained staff and have nothing to do with chaos theory.

And perhaps the best protection of all issimply keeping two balls on the table of differing weights and sizes.

Even the best physics models or anabsolutely stunning supercomputer using some version of chaos modeling wontget far if they are unsure of the starting conditions that they need to make anaccurate prediction.

For something similar, check out:Can Quantum Entanglement Really Help You Win At Blackjack?

See the original post here:

Can You Use Chaos Theory To Beat The House? - Casino.Org News