Roulette Players Who Won Huge Payouts
What makes roulette such an appealing casino game is that it’s all about luck. When you play it, all you have to do is guess which of the numbered pockets the ball lands in. While many people enjoy playing it, only a few have managed to win large sums of money from it.
Although roulette has simple gameplay, only a few were able to win big. © meineresterampe, Pixabay
The Lucky Few Roulette Winners
Roulette is one of the most common table games at online casinos. It’s widely available and attracts many players thanks to its simple, compelling gameplay. But only a few have managed to make money from it.
To earn big roulette wins, you need a hefty bankroll to place large wagers, and you need a lot of luck for the winning number to match the one you’ve chosen.
The players behind the largest roulette wins come from all walks of life. What they have in common is that they’ve had the funds and good fortune to land some incredible payouts.
Charles De Ville Wells
Charles De Ville Wells lived from 1841 to 1922 and wasn’t just some random player who played roulette and won big. He was a very successful gambler, but was also known for committing fraud.
He’s perhaps best known for ‘breaking the bank’ at Monte Carlo Casino. This is where someone wins an amount of money greater than what the table has in reserves. The table is then closed while its reserve is refunded.
For a period of a few weeks from July to August 1891, Wells visited the Monte Carlo Casino, and he stopped by in November of the same year. He became known for his huge roulette wins.
During one roulette session, he supposedly won a staggering 23 out of 30 bets. He’s also claimed to have earned what would be millions in today’s money from playing roulette.
No one knows exactly how Wells earned his big payouts or how he managed to win them. Given his connections to fraud, there’s a chance he didn’t earn his winnings in an honest way.
Joseph Jagger
Another player said to have ‘broken the bank’ at Monte Carlo Casino is Joseph Jagger, a textile industry businessman who lived from 1830 to 1892. It was in 1881 that he became renowned for his roulette wins.
At this time, his business had failed, and he had four children to support. After borrowing money from friends and family, he travelled to Monte Carlo along with his eldest son and nephew.
From his experience in textiles, he knew that spinning wheels were never completely balanced. A roulette wheel, as a wheel that spun, might have some sort of bias. In other words, not all numbers had the same chance of winning.
With this in mind, Jagger spent a month or so studying roulette wheels in the casino. He wanted to determine if some numbers were more likely to win than others.
Using his findings, he placed various bets on roulette and ended up winning around $375,000 (in today’s money). Manufacturers of roulette wheels introduced partitions to make the wheels less biased.
Ashley Revell
This is a rather remarkable story that shows just how much a single spin of a roulette wheel can change someone’s life. In 2004, an English entrepreneur made a life-changing decision that involved a massive amount of risk.
Ashley Revell sold all his possessions and played a very high-stakes roulette game at Plaza Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. He placed a wager worth around $135,300 (at the time) on the winning number being red.
His bet had slightly less than a 50% chance of winning. By a stroke of luck, the ball landed in the number 7 pocket, a red one. Revell ended up doubling his initial wager and became much wealthier.
His total winnings from the bet were $270,600. He would go on to set up an online poker company, though this ended up going bust due to issues with frozen accounts.
Pedro Grendene Bartelle
One of the single biggest roulette wins came from Brazilian businessman Pedro Grendene Bartelle. His story of winning nearly £3.5 million is a classic example of someone betting big and winning big.
He was playing roulette at Hotel Conrad in Punta del Este, Uruguay, when he won the massive cash prize. He placed a £35,000 bet on the number 32 and defied the odds to win.
Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley, who owned Newcastle United football club from 2007 to 2021, hit the headlines when he placed a roulette bet at a London casino and won over £1 million.
He staked a total of £480,000 on the number 17. But he didn’t just place a single bet on it. Instead, he placed every single bet that covered the number.
Even though this can be very risky because you’re counting on a single number to win multiple bets. Having said that, you can still win some bets even if the chosen number doesn’t win.
Ashley’s total winnings from his wagers on 17 came in at around £1.3 million. He took a significant risk but clearly had enough luck on his side as 17 won, and every single bet he had placed was paid out.
Strategies Behind These Big Wins
Since roulette is a game of chance, there’s nothing you can do to influence the outcome of each round. Therefore, roulette strategies focus on betting, i.e. what numbers to pick and what amount of money to wager.
You may well find some strategies that claim to work with numbers and help you predict which ones will win. However, all outcomes in roulette are unaffected by all previous outcomes. There’s no way to predict winning numbers.
Some people pick numbers for certain reasons. Mike Ashley, for example, likely chose 17 because it’s centrally located on the standard roulette betting table. Joseph Jagger, on the other hand, studied roulette wheels to see if they were biased.
In other cases, it seems that people have won down to luck more than anything. Reports of the big wins don’t mention things like specific betting strategies, e.g. the Martingale strategy.
Most betting strategies people use in roulette games aren’t good for bringing in big payouts. This is because of the way they work and the limits they come with.
Conclusion
The takeaway from this is that if you’re going to win big, you have to bet big. Not just that, you also have to be incredibly lucky as the odds are always against you.
If you want to play roulette online, there are lots of top casino sites where you can do this. The best roulette casinos have plenty of games with interesting versions and a wide range of bets.
When playing roulette online, take a sensible approach to the game. Focus on the fun, and don’t expect to win big, especially if your bets are on the small side.
Even if your bets are large, don’t expect to make a lot of money because the chances of this happening are slim. The big winners we listed above are the exception, not the norm.
