For decades, casinos scoffed at mathematicians and physicists who went into the process of devising various imaginative and complex systems for winning. And then an unexpected strategy from a simple Croatian changed the game forever.
One of the most mysterious and successful roulette players in the world spoke with his first interviewrevealing how he managed to win at roulette in casinos around the world.
Almost two decades ago, the “master of roulette” Niko Tosa and two of his associates were later arrested they won £1.3 million in the fancy casino Ritz Club in it London on several nights.
After they examined unlikely theories that the three had used lasers and microcomputers to predict the movement of the roulette wheel, Scotland Yard investigators were ultimately unable to find any evidence of fraud, so 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 your system is simple, though hard to copy: First, you find a roulette table. Second, you figure out where the ball will land when it’s set in motion, but that requires countless hours of practice at home roulette.
Niko Tosa, who lives in a small Croatian townHe scoffed at the idea of it being based on a computer as a fantasy out of a James Bond movie, telling Bloomberg: “We are farmers. Call me Nikola Tesla if I had such a device!” he declared, insisting that his advantage at roulette was due to absolute mental concentrationa feat that seems almost superhuman.
The truth is that little is known about Niko Tosa, since even that is a pseudonym. Bloomberg agreed not to reveal his real name as a condition of the interview, and his photo was never published.
It is believed to be about 50 and lives in a small coastal town south of Dubrovnik, Croatia, the city used for the filming of ‘King’s Landing’ in the ‘Game Of Thrones’ series.
Although the city is not wealthy, even by Croatian standards, Tosa is of prominent familyaccording to Kit Chellel, the Bloomberg reporter who managed to track him down there and interview him.
Tosa admits that he has used fake names and disguises to visit casinos around the world but goes unnoticed and says that he has been beaten several times by casino thugs who were angry at his ability to win at roulette.
It is said that he turned up in casinos in Romania, Poland, Slovakia and even Nairobi, Kenya, as he was apparently looking for gambling places farther and farther away where he would not be recognized and thrown out.
The incident at the Ritz Club and the crazy theories
And indeed, most of the time it has managed to lie low except for the infamous incident at London’s Ritz Club in March 15, 2004.
The private casino, which operates for members only and is visited by blue blood even famous –Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Bill Clinton– closed permanently in 2020, after failing to recover from pandemic lockdowns.
In 2004, Tosa quickly came to the attention of Ritz security when he visited several nights in a row with two friends, a Serbian businessman, Nenad Marjanovic, and Livia Pilisi, a 32-year-old Hungarian described as “elegant and beautiful.”
Security personnel watch me. cameras He noticed Niko Tosa, who seemed to be the leader, pacing the casino upon entering until he chose a particular table. He later revealed that he was looking for a table that he had previously won at, because he had moved to another location.
Tosa and his associates continued the same routine every turn– They waited for the ball to start spinning and the second before placing bets, usually betting on a stretch of consecutive numbers rather than a single number.
In total, the three they started with a few thousand poundsincreased their earnings to $1.62 million during several visits to the Ritz.
The next night, when Tosa and his associates returned to the Ritz again, the police were waiting for them and arrested them on suspicion of “deception».
However, the police, who searched them, did not find any hidden devices. Cell phones and a Palm-Pilot-type device found on them did not appear suspicious in the analysis.
A search of his hotel rooms turned up nothing but stacks of cash and a list of local casinos marked with encrypted symbols like pros and cons.
Authorities also searched the roulette table for hidden devices or tricks, examined the three men’s security equipment and searched the dealer working the table, but they found nothing.
In December 2004, after a nine-month investigation, the scotland yari raised her case on filereturning the winnings to Tosa and his partners and telling them they were free to walk away with the cash.
The differences in roulette in America and Europe and how they “help” players
To better understand the supposed Tosa system, it is important to analyze the basic elements of roulette, including significant differences between USA and Europe.
In the basic game, the dealer spins the roulette wheel with numbered slots and then releases a ball that spins in the opposite direction of the spin.
players, predicting where the ball will “rest”.They can bet on single numbers, combinations of numbers, even/odd numbers, or red/black.
Betting generally continues until the ball completes its third spin, at which point the dealer declares:no more bets [Όχι άλλα στοιχήματα]».
He european roulettesis very more friendly to the players, because they only have one ‘0’ position, which is an automatic win for the casino, whereas in the US they have two: ‘0’ and ’00’.
This nearly doubles the casino advantage at the American roulette tables, which is typically 5.26%, compared to the favorable 2.7% for players in Europe. (For comparison, the casino edge on blackjack is typically less than 1%, making it the game with the best odds for players.)
The casino edge on blackjack is usually less than 1%, making it the game with the best odds for players. Photo: Unsplash
Niko Tosa’s system – What are “neighbor” bets?
He cough system is mainly based on what is said “neighbor” betsin which you bet on a specific number and both numbers to its right and left, covering a total of five consecutive positions on the roulette wheel.
According to Tosa, the state of the wheel is crucial and he looks for specific tables where some small flaw or bias reduces the randomness of the result.
Then, by watching the wheel and the ball until the very last second before betting closes, he claims to be able to predict where it will “sit” accurately enough to win.
Tosa reportedly has a roulette wheel at home and has spent countless hours honing his ability to study its spin and develop a mental gut feeling for where the ball will “sit.”
If his claims are true, Tosa has solved a problem that it has intrigued mathematicians and physicists for decades.
“Nobody can win at roulette unless they steal money off the table while the dealer isn’t looking,” he once said. Albert Einstein.
the famous physicist Stephen Hawking wrote on the wheel: “It is practically impossible to predict the number that will appear. Otherwise, physicists would make a fortune in casinos.”
The Richard Jarek Case: How He Made Nearly $8 Million
In any case, Tosa is not the first to win at roulette.
In the 1960s, a young medical researcher from New Jersey, Dr. Richard Jarecki, won today’s equivalent of $8 million at roulette tables across Europe after spending thousands of hours perfecting a system.
Jarecki also relied on finding roulette wheels with a flaw that reduced randomness, according to a profile on The Hustle.
The young doctor spent hours watching the roulette wheels through thousands of spins, recording and analyzing the data to see if any number appeared more frequently 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 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 kicked out of many because he was winning a lot of money. Casinos were also quick to adopt changes to roulette wheels to reduce bias and increase randomness.
After the 2004 incident at the Ritz with Tosa, many casinos also further upgraded their wheels to increase the amount of time the ball bounces erratically.
Tosa, however, is not intimidated and has stated that he is preparing to embark on another international casino tour.
With information from Bloomberg Businessweek