Gadget for Gamblers

Roulette players are poor mathematicians. This fact was sharply illustrated in 1913 when a phenomenal record run of one color was reeled off at a table in the Casino at Monte Carlo. The little ball toppled into a black slot no less than 26 times in succession. By the time the 15th black number came up, the table was surrounded by a crowd of gamblers, many of whom placed heavy stakes on the red, figuring that the chances against the black turning up one more time were billions to one. However, since what has occurred before can have no conceivable effect on any given spin of the wheel, the chances against the black turning up once more at any stage of the tun were exactly the same as at any other time--i.e., 19 to 18, or a little more than even.* The failure of the frantic red-players to realize this gave the house a profit of several million francs.

The "systems" played by roulette addicts, if not simply schemes for pyramiding bets, are mostly based on supposed frequency patterns in which numbers or groups of numbers turn up. The casino managements, serenely confident that the best system ever devised will not prevent the house from getting its inexorable percentage, not only permit their clients to play systems but to take notes on the winning numbers, notes on which the systems depend. This week the Casino at Monte Carlo is even placing at the disposal of its sleek patrons a number of machines, designed by Prince Johannes zu Loewenstein, which will make such note-taking easier.

Prince Johannes zu Loewenstein is not a roulette player himself. Scion of an ancient noble German line, he is a 37-year-old Doctor of Philosophy who lives in Vienna, a brother of Hubertus Loewenstein, prominent German Catholic. Passing through Baden two years ago, tall, solemn Prince Loewenstein stopped at the casino to watch a roulette table in action. He was impressed by the jitters of notetakers who tried to write down not only the numbers which turned up, but their colors, their positions on the transverse and vertical rows of the betting cloth and various other group affiliations. There was hardly enough time for all this between spins of the wheel (which take place about once every 50 seconds). Prince Loewenstein decided to invent a machine which would record all the necessary factors automatically in one operation.

After two years of work. Prince Loewenstein had the machine in shape, called it Appareil Chance, patented it in all countries where gambling is legal. Housed in a rectangular box only seven and one-half inches long, the device works something like a combination typewriter and adding machine. When a number turns up on the roulette wheel, the operator spins a knob on the machine to that number. This rotates into position a drum of type carrying all of the number's group affiliations. Then a lever is pressed and the data are printed on a roll of paper, visible beneath a mica window in the box.

When the machine was still nothing but a blueprint, Prince Loewenstein took it to the head of the Austrian State Casinos, who at once signed contracts covering the country's four casinos at Salzburg, Semmering, Kitzbuehel, Baden. Monte Carlo signed a contract for 500 machines, planned to rent them out to note-taking system-formulators for 50-c- for three hours. An Austrian company, licensed as exclusive manufacturer, has been selling the gadgets to the casinos at $50 each. Monte Carlo plans to have its croupiers also use the Loewenstein devices--to check its roulette wheels against possible faulty operation.

* The roulette wheels at Monte Carlo have only one zero slot. If it were not for this neutral slot, of course, the chances on either red or black would always be even.

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