Farmer's paper is a response to recent research by Michael Small from the University of Western Australia in Perth and Michael Tse from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. They demonstrate that with a few measurements and a small computer or smartphone, you can indeed tip the odds in your favour. The trick is to record when the ball and a set part of the rotating wheel both pass a chosen point.

Their model divides the game into two parts: what happens while the ball rolls around the rim of the wheel and then falls, which is highly predictable, and what happens after the ball starts bouncing around, which is chaotic and hard to predict. Because the first part is predictable, Small and Tse were able to calculate roughly where the ball would begin its erratic bouncing and therefore in which part of the wheel it was more likely to land.

Using a subtle counting device, the pair was able to predict in which half of the wheel the ball would fall in 13 out of 22 trials. In three trials, the model predicted the exact pocket. That is equivalent to taking the odds from 2.7% in the house's favour to 18% in the player's favour. They confirmed their technique via 700 trials using an automated camera system, which would be too conspicuous to use in a casino.

Farmer says Small and Tse's model is very similar to his own, except that they assume that the main force slowing the ball down is friction with the rim, whereas he found that it is air resistance. Small is confident that casinos are aware of the trick. Casinos could guard against it by closing bets before the wheel has rotated enough times for sufficient measurements.