Biggest Roulette Wins

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It is quite difficult to explain why people are always interested in “record-breaking events” or just “big stories” about anything. And this is exactly the case with roulette. You could find many fans of the “biggest roulette wins” tales, even among those who have never entered a casino floor to make a wager. And, perhaps, almost everybody’s dream is to win big one happy day — not necessarily at the roulette table, by the way.

It’s no secret that being lucky can be very important in life. In this regard, the game of roulette is just a symbol of being much luckier than others. Everybody knows that the house always wins in the long run. But in the shortest possible run, in only one spin of the roulette wheel, you can be either lucky or not. And, in some cases, you can be very lucky and win really big. Just spin the wheel and win a fortune – isn’t it tempting? What’s more, is we know that it happens. All these stories are real.

However, it is quite difficult to compare the results of the biggest roulette wins in history as the value of the money changes over time. Take Charles Wells, for example – he won 2 million French francs in 1891!

Charles Wells and His Two Million Francs

How much was it? Today it would have been tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Suffice it to say that construction costs of an average battleship of that time were around 25 million francs, and the Eiffel Tower commissioned in 1888 cost 7.7 billion francs. How could one possibly win such an unthinkable fortune at a roulette table?

Charles Wells (full name Charles De Ville Wells – yes, De Ville, believe it or not) was born to intelligent parents. Working as a shipyard engineer in Marseille, France, he had been earning 1,000 francs a year. At the age of 27, he sold the patent for a device (attention here!) regulating the speed of a ship’s propellers. Does this fact have anything to do with his biggest roulette win that has made him widely known as, “The Man Who Broke the Bank in Monte-Carlo?” Nobody knows.

Anyway, his further career was only cheating and frauding, with short intervals taken to gamble and much longer intervals to serve time in British and French jails. He cheated on investment funds and security papers, public companies and ‘pyramid’ schemes – his frauds even made the French government introduce more control on private banks.

But it still remains a mystery how exactly he won his two million francs in Monte Carlo. Was it a special device – like the one he had invented a long time ago to control the rotation speed of a ship’s propellers? Charles Wells is reported to have won 20-25 consecutive spins of the roulette wheel. How is it possible? He said he applied an “infallible system,” but of course he never disclosed any further details. The casino security staff investigated the case very thoroughly and followed every possible clue, but still found nothing.

Charles Wells became known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank in Monte Carlo.” There was even a popular song with that title. But he died almost penniless in 1922, having taken the secret of his “infallible system” to his grave.

Ashley Revell and His $135,000 Life Savings

One of the biggest roulette wins in Vegas happened not long ago – just in 2004. Ashley is an Englishman, too, but in many ways, his story is the opposite of Well’s. Ashley had never been a cheat. He was the kind of man to save his hard-earned money each day. We do not know for how long he had been nourishing his idea before he showed up at Plaza Hotel & Casinos in Las Vegas in 2004.

His idea was to sell all his property – everything he owned, including his house, car, his watch and all his clothes (well, he did not really sell all his clothes) – in order to make only one wager at roulette. It might sound crazy to many punters, but this attempt had an idea behind it. Ashley knew that, statistically, the more you play, the more you lose. The accumulated results of many small bets only materialize the edge the house always has, and that is what he definitely wanted to avoid. He made just one wager, putting $135,000 on the red. When the ball landed at red 7 pocket, he got his money back plus the payout 1:1 – so, his winning was $135,000, which doubled his net worth.

Ashley cleverly invested his fortune, which now constituted $270,000, in an online poker company and then in a company helping people to find jobs in the gambling industry. Unlike many other big winners, this sudden wealth never spoiled his life. Ashley is still doing well. Besides, his story was so compelling that it inspired some filmmakers to produce a couple of TV series based on it. But was Ashley Revell the first one to attempt this thrilling one-wager roulette strategy?

Chris Boyd and His $200,000 Win

Apparently, Ashley Revel had a predecessor, whose name was Chris Boyd. Chris was a programmer living in the UK. In 1991, he decided to save some of his earnings for one trip to Vegas and one bet at a roulette table. It took three years for him to pinch his pennies before he flew to Las Vegas with the same idea of only-one-bet – the $220,000 in his pocket. Back then, not every casino in Vegas would accept such an enormous bet.

The famous Binion’s Horseshoe Club had the upper wager limit of $100,000, but after some long talks, Chris somehow managed to persuade them. They even made him a service of excluding (covering) double zero from their American roulette wheel, effectively turning it into European roulette and increasing his chances of winning from 47.4% to 48.6%. So, Chris put his $220,000 on red.

Interesting to mention: the ball landed on red 7 – exactly the same slot that would bring Ashley Revell his astounding win 20 years later. You may think it was only a coincidence; maybe it was, but, on the other hand, sometimes we call “coincidence” something we can’t really explain.

Chris Boys seems to be a reasonable guy. He is still doing fine, never making another attempt to play roulette – he says one attempt to test his luck was more than enough as he found out that yes, he was lucky.

Sean Connery Profiting $27,000

This winning does not look so outstanding, especially compared to the story of “The Man Who Broke the Bank in Monte Carlo.” But it certainly requires attention as it was Sean Connery, the famous movie star and gambling enthusiast, who had used quite a strange betting system.

In 1963, he traveled to Saint-Vincent, Italy, where he had been making multiple bets on number 17. Single-number bets are the riskiest – the odds of winning are 1:36 at European roulette! Sean wagered twice, losing. But his third bet on 17 was successful. He decided to go on and won again. Believe it or not, his next bet was again on 17, and he won a third time running! The probability of not hitting the same number three times in a row was astronomical high – 50563 to 1 – but Sean was really lucky that night.

Eight years later, Sean Connery would star in a movie as James Bond. This role in “Diamonds Are Forever” gained him world fame. James Bond played in a casino, hitting number 17 again!

You May Also Want to Know:

• What numbers hit the most on roulette?

There are no slots on the roulette wheel where the ball will hit more often than others, and the casinos make sure of that. The wheel is an analog device that generates random numbers. The results of the ball landing are recorded and analyzed to make sure the wheel is not biased. If there is a tiny deflection from the randomness, the wheel is maintained or replaced.

• What was the most money ever won in a casino?

An unknown young man won $39.7 million casually playing at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas, just passing time as he was waiting for a basketball game. He had spent about $100 at a slot machine before the jackpot music started to play, and the numbers $39,713,982.25 began to flash. That was the all-time biggest casino win in Las Vegas.

• Is roulette a game based only on pure luck?

It is, but not entirely. The gambler needs to make a betting choice, but it has to be a reasonable choice. While there is no proof that any betting system can gain the player an advantage over the house, there is proof that good bankroll management and other practices to responsible gambling are really needed.

• What are the longest streaks in roulette?

In American casino history, there is one record streak of 32 consecutive spins when the ball landed on red. It happened in 1943, and the wheel was not biased.