Garcia-Pelayo was not successful in his chosen career as a record producer. His enthusiasm waned and instead turned towards roulette. At the roulette table he became quite successful. He is known as the first person in the 90s to actually be successful in exploiting the wheel.
There were plenty who felt casino roulette wheels had bias, but Gonzalo was able to prove it. He took advantage of the casinos by looking for the defects. He noticed the roulette wheels could never be perfectly random. After all, what is made by humans will have some imperfection. Each wheel has some numbers where the marble is more likely to drop. Recognising these inconsistencies was Gonzalo’s trademark. He could tell where a marble might drop versus where it will not drop as often. The issues arise from level issues or minute inaccuracies with measurements regarding pocket sizes. Even the wheel’s gears could be an issue.
Gonzalo started his work in Spain, where he was born. He spent months looking at the roulette wheel during thousands of spins. He would record the results and turn to a computer for analysis. He even asked his five children to help. He didn’t wager any money during this time. Instead, he just observed. Once he was certain he had the hot numbers he would put down a wager. The house edge of 5% became his 15% player’s edge. When he felt he would be caught by the casino officials he would move on to a new location and do the same thing over again. Finally, every casino in Spain knew he had a trick going and wouldn’t let him in.
It was at this point he headed for Sin City to try his hand at Las Vegas, USA. He managed to make a profit in Vegas too. Unfortunately, his success led to his becoming too well known all around the world. At the time of his retirement he had $1.5 million in the bank won from various casinos with his roulette scheme. Spain’s Supreme Court ruled in Gonzalo’s favour when one Spanish casino tried to sue him.
The court stated that Gonzalo used his ingenuity and computer programmes to try and get an edge. The court did not find it illegal in any way that the man would study the wheel and go back to computer analytics to determine when to bet. After all, it wasn’t like he was fixing the wheel. Instead, he was just going about it with an educated guess as to where the marble might drop based on imperfections of the casino’s own wheels.
Some call Gonzalo the “Man who took Vegas to the Cleaners” because of his brilliant system. The situation has changed little in terms of wheels and their imperfections, although casinos have tried to fix any mistakes during the creation of the roulette wheels. Most are manufactured on lines like most products to help keep imperfections from appearing. Obviously there is also better technology with cameras in casinos to make certain no one observes the wheels for too long.