Roulette History Board Cache

Hi There,

I’m hoping someone here knows a bit about the workings of the electronic history boards that can be found on each roulette table. You know, the ones that not only tell you the previous twenty or so winners, but also gives you what the “hot numbers” are, the “cold numbers”, what percentage of time the ball lands on red, black, even, odd, the columns and whatnot.

I’m a dealer at a casino, and a guest asked me, “How many previous spins does that board take into account when it gives those stats?” I had no idea. I called the pit boss over. He had no idea. I’ve now asked the CSM, table games director, the training director, and no one knows. I’ve tried searching online, but I can’t find any information at all.

So if you have some insider knowledge about these boards, I’m now fascinated by this question and would love to find out!

And as much as I appreciate guesses, I’m more interested in factual answers (everyone I asked had a guess, which varied wildly). Bonus points if there’s a link to an actual manufacturer’s website with the info!

Thank you so much for your help!

Quote: GusGorman

Hi There,

I’m hoping someone here knows a bit about the workings of the electronic history boards that can be found on each roulette table. You know, the ones that not only tell you the previous twenty or so winners, but also gives you what the “hot numbers” are, the “cold numbers”, what percentage of time the ball lands on red, black, even, odd, the columns and whatnot.

I’m a dealer at a casino, and a guest asked me, “How many previous spins does that board take into account when it gives those stats?” I had no idea. I called the pit boss over. He had no idea. I’ve now asked the CSM, table games director, the training director, and no one knows. I’ve tried searching online, but I can’t find any information at all.

So if you have some insider knowledge about these boards, I’m now fascinated by this question and would love to find out!

And as much as I appreciate guesses, I’m more interested in factual answers (everyone I asked had a guess, which varied wildly). Bonus points if there’s a link to an actual manufacturer’s website with the info!

Thank you so much for your help!
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tbh im not sure either but if there is one thing i know is that those boards are meant to pretty much only attract people to the game and it really means nothing as every spin is independent... although you may already know that

but if i were to guess its probably just the last "20" spins or whatever the board can hold

Welcome to the board. Interesting first post and question. Looking forward to seeing if someone here knows the answer.

My only add is that with enough patience, you could reverse engineer the answers by tracking the numbers on a spreadsheet and seeing how many balls back you need to go in order to match the “hot number”, “cold number” and even bet percentages each time.

Quote:

but if i were to guess its probably just the last "20" spins or whatever the board can hold

Thank you for the reply!

But it has to be a decent amount more than twenty spins. That’s not enough to generate the hot and cold numbers it lists. With only twenty spins, most numbers would be equally hot or cold. Plus, the board often lists hot numbers that don’t appear on the list of twenty most-recently hit numbers, so it has to have a running count going back much farther.

And I appreciate you pointing out that the board just feeds into the gambler’s fallacy, and doesn’t actually affect a single thing about the next number spun, so I can assure you that my question isn’t trying to help me unlock the “real” secrets of the board. I’m just genuinely curious. And the more people in the biz that don’t know the answer, the more curious I get!

unJon, that’s actually a really insightful solution! If all else fails and I continue to hit brick walls, I may just be bored enough one day to try that. Thanks!

Most sites that offer these for sale don't go in to much detail. However, the Matsui America site shows one that appears to work like this: "hot" numbers are the ones that have come up the most in the last 1000 spins, and "cold" numbers are the ones that have gone the longest since they last came up. Since hot numbers have a record for the last 1000 spins, the percentages are probably based on since the device was last reset.

Have you tried asking the companies directly? Do a search on "roulette numbers display" or "roulette results display" to get some manufacturer company websites. It could be proprietary information, but I don't see how determining "hot and cold numbers" is something worth keeping secret.

I sense a marketing opportunity as casinos advise their patrons via a flash message when their favorite numbers are "hot".

I sense a marketing opportunity as casinos advise their patrons via a flash message when their favorite numbers are "hot".

Quote: GusGorman

But it has to be a decent amount more than twenty spins. That’s not enough to generate the hot and cold numbers it lists. With only twenty spins, most numbers would be equally hot or cold. Plus, the board often lists hot numbers that don’t appear on the list of twenty most-recently hit numbers, so it has to have a running count going back much farther.
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There are a bunch of different styles.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that they all use a different number of spins to advertise.

Ideally, they would list "Hot / Cold ... last 100 spins". Or 200. Or 500. Or whatever. (I am pretty sure I've seen at least some boards do this.)

If the sign lists both a count and a percentage, you can do a bit of arithmetic and solve for the size of the history. If a number on the current hot list hits, you can do similar calculation.

Thank you for the awesome help, everyone!

It looks like the plot is thickening! Thanks to ThatDonGuy, I looked up some manufacturers of the display boards (I didn’t see the one we have at our casino, but I can check the actual board for a brand name when I go in tonight). And one of the manufacturers had some screenshots of its board in action (Here’s the link). [edit: the forum isn’t letting me post the link for some reason, even though it works when previewing the post. Sorry!]

The twist is that the same board shows different ranges! For example, one screenshot says the hot numbers are from the previous 60 spins. But then the very next screenshot says it’s from the previous 118 spins. So maybe they have an algorithm that looks back and tries to make the hotter numbers look the hottest they can? Like, “27 has hit four times in the last sixty spins” sounds better than “27 has hit four times in the last eighty spins”, even if both are true. And that makes a lot of sense from a getting-players-excited-and-eager-to-bet perspective.

So maybe some manufacturers don’t make it as simple as just a single block of spins they look at. But as Dieter points out, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that there isn’t a standard answer across the industry.

And billryan, that… is… brilliant!