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There's a sentence in Edward Thorp's "Mathematics Of Gambling" where he refers to physical prediction methods "approximate calculations yielded an advantage of 15%.
Thorp invented card-counting and made billions on the stock market. He wouldn't have made a statement like that lightly.
My own experiments with roulette prediction yielded some positive returns. There are other reasonably credible individuals who have had some success-Laurance Scott produced some interesting work on the subject.
Essentially what you are doing is just calculating the velocity of the rotor and the ball (expressed in terms of pocket-widths) to work out an approximate location. The obstacles prevent perfect prediction but you often still have enough predictive advantage to overturn the house edge.
My guess would be that the reason there isn't more interest in the subject is simply because there was no mass-market book explaining simply and clearly how to beat roulette. Also, it isn't spectacularly profitable even when done well.
Cue more endless anecdotal bull**** from clueless people....
Thorp was a sort of genius (especially from a money making point of view) but didn't invent card counting. Marcum, Bernstein and many others did invent card counting before him.
In a sense I mean that few serious gamblers would divulge publicly their discoveries and methods.
Laurence Scott books give some hints about visual ballistics strategy but I can assure you that such suggestions won't work on the almost totality of actual wheels.
After knowing that a possible visual ballistics strategy properly applied could get acute players an advantage, modern roulette manufactures have built their wheels with low edge pockets, low weight balls, etc., all factors leading to a huge bouncing effect capable to destroy every favourable prediction.
Nevertheless, certain online sites and/or aut. wheels will feature a very low bouncing effect but at the same time offering a very restricted betting time after the ball is launched.
It's just here that some electronic devices could give the player a substantial edge because the ball/rotor velocities are precisely estimated at the start.
Recent studies (not publicized widely, of course) have shown how to take advantage from the discrepance existing between a perfect random generation and outcomes taken from specific wheels.
In a word, certain roulette outcomes aren't precisely random.
Nobody is going to tell you how this can be done, let casinos to stay clueless.
Maybe anyone who likes to attribute the word "clueless" to people should remember the Socrates adage "
scio nescire"