How To Beat A Casino: How Derren Brown Cheated And Won Live TV Roulette

Derren Brown, often misspelled as Darren Brown, has a long history of amazing casino tricks. In his well-known Mind Control series, he successfully demonstrated a simple means of counting cards and thereby turning the odds in Blackjack in the player’s favor. The casinos were outraged and the ban on him remains in effect to this day.

I remember Derren well from parties at Bristol University where, as a fellow student, he used to amaze us with his magical feats. Students were often reduced to tears of disbelief over seemingly simple acts for which there was no explanation. He once stopped my friend Greg’s watch and wound a number without going near him. As we stood wide-eyed in amazement, Greg simply frowned and grumbled, “You broke my watch.”

This latest series was heralded as having “some of his most incredible feats to date”, which was quite an ambitious claim when you consider the scale of some of the earlier stunts, such as the Russian roulette incident. This event, billed as the grand finale, promised to reveal the secrets to beating the casino. But was it real or just an elaborate scam? Do casino systems follow a similar scam, or can you really beat the casino?

The answer, of course, is more complicated than that. Every casino game, without exception, includes a house edge, the small edge that means that, over time, the casino always wins. Roulette has one of the smallest odds, at 2.7% at European single zero tables. However, the house edge can change by making small adjustments to the odds, as demonstrated by Derren Brown in his Blackjack method of card counting. Effective roulette systems work in a similar way, although many are simply leveraged doubling strategies that do not produce long-term profits. Math-based systems, such as the Mayer roulette system, alter the odds in a small but significant way that allows players to slowly build a large bank that can then be used to place very large bets, as demonstrated by Derren Brown. for one lucky viewer.

So how did Derren’s system work? Derren Brown used an elaborate speed measuring device to predict the speed and angle of descent of the ball on the roulette wheel. In the TV show, he was out and the viewer loses money from him. Of course, in reality, the law prohibits the use of a system like this in a casino.

To really beat the casino, Derren Brown’s TV show showed a neat trick, but only an effective mathematical strategy will allow you to overcome the house edge and achieve consistent profits.