by For decades, casinos have mocked mathematicians and physicists who embarked on the process of designing various imaginative and complex systems to win. And then, an unexpected strategy from a simple Croatian changed the game forever.
One of the world’s most mysterious and successful roulette players spoke to his first interviewrevealing how he managed to win at roulette in casinos around the world.
Almost two decades ago, the “master of roulette” Niko Tossa and two of his associates were arrested after they won £1.3m at the luxury casino ClubRitz in the London over several nights.
After examining unlikely theories that the three had used lasers and microcomputers to predict the movement of the roulette, Scotland Yard investigators ultimately found no evidence of fraud. they dropped the charges after 9 months of research.
Niko Tosa: “Simple system, but difficult to copy”
And now, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Niko Tosa claims that his system is simple, although difficult to copy: First, you find a roulette table. Second, you determine where the ball will land when it’s set in motion, but that takes countless hours of practice in home roulette.
Niko Tosa, who lives in a small Croatian village, scoffed at the idea of it being computer-based like a fantasy out of a James Bond movie, telling Bloomberg, “We’re farmers. Call me Nikola Tesla if I had such a device!” he said, insisting that his advantage at roulette was due to absolute mental focusa feat that seems almost superhuman.
The truth is that little is known about Niko Tosa, since even he is a pseudonym. Bloomberg agreed to withhold her real name as a condition of the interview, and her photo was never released.
We believe to be about 50 and lives in a small seaside village south of Dubrovnik, Croatia, the town used for filming “King’s Landing” in the “Game Of Thrones” series.
Although the town is not wealthy even by Croatian standards, Tosa hails from prominent familyaccording to Kit Chellel, the Bloomberg reporter who managed to track him down there and interview him.
Tosa admits to using false names and disguises visiting casinos around the world but going unnoticed and said to have been repeatedly beaten by casino thugs who were angered by his ability to win at roulette.
He is said to have appeared in casinos in Romania, Poland, Slovakia and even Nairobi, Kenya, as he apparently sought more and more gambling venues where he would not be recognized and expelled.
The Ritz Club incident and the crazy theories
And indeed, most of the time it managed to go unnoticed with the exception of the infamous incident at the Ritz Club in London in March 15, 2004.
The private casino, open only to members and visited by blue blood even famous –Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Bill Clinton– permanently closed in 2020, after being unable to recover from the pandemic closures.
In 2004, Tosa quickly came to the attention of Ritz security staff when he visited two friends, a Serbian businessman, Nenad Marjanovic, and Livia Pilisi, a 32-year-old Hungarian described several nights in a row. as “chic and beautiful”.
Security personnel watching me cameras noticed that Niko Tosa, who seemed to be the chef, was walking around the casino on entering until he picked a particular table. He later revealed that he was looking for a table, which he had already won at, as it had been moved to another location.
Tosa and his associates followed the same routine every round: they waited for the ball to start spinning and the second before placing bets, they usually bet on a range of consecutive numbers instead of a single number.
In total, the three, which they started with a few thousand poundsincreased their profits to $1.62 million on several visits to the Ritz.
The following night, when Tosa and his associates returned to the Ritz, the police were waiting for them and arrested them on suspicion of “deception“.
The police, who searched them, however, did not find any hidden device. Cell phones and a Palm-Pilot-type device found on them did not appear suspicious upon analysis.
A search of their hotel rooms revealed only stacks of cash and a list of local casinos marked with encrypted symbols like pluses and minuses.
Authorities also probed the roulette table for hidden devices or gadgets, examined the three men’s safety equipment and searched the dealer working the table, but they found nothing.
In December 2004, after nine months of investigation, the Yar of ScotlandI raised her case on filereturning the profits to Tosa and his associates and telling them they were free to walk away with the money.
Differences in roulette in America and Europe and how they “help” players
To better understand the supposed system of Tosa, it is important to analyze the basic elements of roulette, including significant differences between UNITED STATES And Europe.
In the basic game, the dealer spins the roulette wheel with numbered slots, then releases a ball that spins in the opposite direction of spin.
Players, predictions where the ball will “sit”.they can bet on single numbers, combinations of numbers, even/odd or red/black numbers.
Usually, betting continues until the ball has completed its third turn, at which time the dealer declares:Nothing is going anymore [Όχι άλλα στοιχήματα]”.
THE european castersis very more friendly to players, as they only have one position “0”, which is an automatic win for the casino, while in the United States they have two – “0” and “00”.
This nearly doubles the casino’s edge on US roulette tables, which is typically 5.26%, compared to the 2.7% favored by players in Europe. (In comparison, the casino edge in blackjack is usually less than 1%, making it the game with the best odds for players).
The casino edge in blackjack is usually less than 1%, so it is the game with the best odds for players. Photo: Unsplash
Niko Tosa’s system – What are “neighbor” bets
THE Tosa’s system it is mainly based on what is said “neighboring” issuesin which one bets on a specific number and the two numbers to its left and right, covering a total of five consecutive positions on the roulette wheel.
According to Tosa, the state of the roulette wheel is crucial, and he looks for specific tables where a small flaw or tilt reduces the randomness of the outcome.
Then, by watching the roulette wheel and the ball until the last second before betting closes, he claims to be able to predict where it will “sit” accurately enough to win.
Tosa is said to have kept a roulette wheel at home and spent countless hours honing his ability to study its spin and develop a mental intuition for where the ball will “sit”.
If his claims are true, Tosa has solved a problem that has puzzled mathematicians and physicists for decades.
“No one can win at roulette unless they steal money from the table while the dealer isn’t looking,” he once said. Albert Einstein.
The famous physicist stephen hawking Roulette wrote: “It is virtually impossible to predict the number that will appear. Otherwise, physicists would make a fortune in casinos.”
The Case of Richard Jarek: How He Earned Nearly $8 Million
In any case, Tosa is not the first to win at roulette.
In the 1960s, a young New Jersey medical researcher, Dr. Richard Jarecki, today won the equivalent of $8 million at roulette tables across Europe after spending thousands of hours improve a system.
Jarecki also relied on finding roulette wheels with a flaw that reduced randomness, according to a profile from The Hustle.
The young doctor spent hours watching the roulette wheels through thousands of spins, recording and analyzing the data to see if any numbers appeared more often than expected by chance.
“I experimented until I had a rough design of a system based on previous winning numbers,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1969. “If numbers 1, 2 and 3 have won the last three rounds, [μπορούσα να προσδιορίσω] who were most likely to win the next three rounds.”
When the casinos found out, Jarecki was quickly banned from many because he was making a lot of money. Casinos also quickly adopted modifications to roulette wheels to reduce bias and increase randomness.
After the 2004 incident at the Ritz with Tosa, many casinos also upgraded their roulette wheels to increase the amount of time the ball bounces erratically.
Tosa, however, is undeterred and said he is preparing to embark on another international casino tour.
With information from Bloomberg Businessweek
