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Introduction

In Ocean's thirteen, the team decides to use loaded balls to rig the Roulette Table, since no Hi-Tech solution seemed to work out for them. They get a Pit Boss to plant the loaded balls for them and then they bet 10 Million dollars on digits numbers 11, 12 and 13. Their spin lands on thirteen and they win the big bucks.

Question(s)

  1. How did they predict the result of the loaded Roulette Ball?
  2. Did anyone else (outside the team, that is) win big on the rigged Roulettes and if so, how?
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  • 2
    This might be better asked over in Physics or Mathematics.
    – DA.
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 19:13
  • 1
    I believe this is mostly "suspension of disbelief" - but the trick lighters had something to do with it.
    – sonnik
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 20:08
  • 2
    I thought they had used some type of magnetic ball or something?
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 21:37
  • @sonnik I remember the lighfters, but as far as I can recall, they were for the Craps Dice, not the roulette balls.
    – Gunnar Södergren
    Commented Jan 29, 2015 at 13:27
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    Funfact: The numbers they bet on correspond to the movie titles (Ocean's 11, 12 and 13),
    – magnattic
    Commented Jan 29, 2015 at 15:45

2 Answers 2

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In the movie they did not explain the roulette hack. The numbers they bet on, 11, 12 and 13 are giving homage to the three movies they created, Oceans 11, Oceans 12, and Oceans 13.

:)

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  • This seems like a valid answer, if they didn't explain it in the movie, then that's the answer.
    – DA.
    Commented Jan 30, 2015 at 1:55
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If you have magnetic balls, and have slipped magnets into the wheel under 11, 12 and 13, then it makes it infinitely more probable that the ball will go to the magnet. Of course, if it's a weak magnet then the ball can conceivably pop out of the slot and into an adjacent one, but it still improves the odds greatly.

My guess is that they didn't risk it and used stronger magnets. A magnet can be charged (think of a junkyard and how they pick up and drop scrap metal), so the lighters that sonnik mentioned in his comment above were probably the "On" switch. The same lighter would be useful in both games, as they're performing the same function; turning the charged magnet on.

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  • 3
    "A magnet can be charged" Electromagnets are different from permanent magnets. It's not about charging or whatever but whether there is current flowing through to generate the magnetic field.
    – JAB
    Commented Sep 1, 2017 at 22:08

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