Rio roulette wheel reportedly hits seven straight 19s, and, yes, this is really rare

Jeff Romano

Before we specify what this statistic is based on, the odds of it happening are 3 billion to 1.

Those are the odds against a roulette wheel hitting the same number on seven consecutive spins. But that did happen, or certainly appears to have happened, at the Rio at 8:32 p.m. Monday as pro poker player Jeff Romano took a photo of a roulette wheel display screen showing the No. 19 hitting on seven straight spins. The string was broken when the wheel landed on 15, then hit 19 once more for a run of eight 19s in nine spins.

The display screen lists the most recent 16 numbers on which the ball lands on a roulette table. Four of the numbers in Romano’s photo are 20, meaning that in this particular stretch, two numbers were landed upon 75 percent of the time. The string started with a green zero, followed by 20-20-23-5-20-20, then the run of 19s.

The the odds of the 19s hitting seven times in succession as 3 billion to 1 (the original version of the column cited incorrect odds as being 14 billion to one, which statistics experts have since noted were far longer than the single number 19 hitting seven times in a row). Contacted this afternoon to ask for verification of the event and if the wheel has since been tested to make sure it is properly balanced and calibrated, Caesars Entertainment officials had not yet learned of the event.

We’re awaiting word on what is certainly one of the rarest documented roulette runs in the city’s history.

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