• Roulette at Melbourne’s Crown Casino. Both single-zero (European) roulette and double-zero (American) roulette are offered at the casino – lower stake tables use the American design (ranging from a $1 betting minimum to a $5), while higher stake table use the European design ($5 and up).
• Crown Suits: Wins at 2 to 1 odds when your first two cards are of the same suit. If the dealer’s card is also of the same suit as your first two cards, the wager pays 5 to 1. If the dealer’s card is also of the same suit as your first two cards, the wager pays 5 to 1.
• European Roulette is by far one of the most popular and more player-friendly games for Online Roulette. The odds are better as there is only one 0 on the board. American Roulette has a 00 on the wheel and the table. If you are playing Online Roulette, this type has double the house edge (house advantage) compared to European roulette, so most.

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Casinos are in the business of cash.

It’s simple.

They almost always have the house edge, which means that gamblers are working with odds that aren’t in their favor.

Since the house almost always wins, there is a lot of money (cash or other currency forms like bitcoin and gold) in their vaults. This also means that some thief is looking for an easier, softer way to win it big.

There are a lot of casino movies about robbing, crooks, and big dreams.

The Oceans 11 movie franchise is built on this dream.

Just in case you’ve been stranded on an island since the first Oceans 11 movie came out, here’s the plot:

• 2 high rollers (played by George Clooney and Brad Pitt) build a team of criminals.
• They plan to rip off all the money in the casino (Bellagio in Las Vegas) and win back Clooney’s love interest, Julia Roberts.

Casino robberies have been romanticized by Western culture. Rarely do the thieves get away. When they do, it’s not for long.

In this post, I’m going to tell you about the biggest (moneywise) heist in history and the most expensive drink ever sold.

This true story is an example of human faults, betrayal, and not knowing when to call it quits.

The Crown Casino Never Saw It Coming

In 2013, the Crown Casino in Melbourne Australia was swindled out of 33 million dollars (USD). I wish that there was more information on the internet about this, but the casino didn’t even report it to the local police.

You read that correctly.

The casino and its management didn’t report the biggest casino heist in history to the local police.

We’ll get into my theory why later.

A New Zealand businessman was invited to play at the casino’s high roller room. He had been a previous customer.

Much like American casinos, the Crown caters to the high roller players. Bigger bets almost always equal bigger losses. This means more money in the vault. You get the idea.

The businessman, millionaire James Manning, played 8 winning hands of blackjack to win a total of 32,000,000 Australian dollars (33 million USD). This tipped off the Crown Casino’s security.

It turns out that the VIP services manager had recruited Manning to come play in their high roller room that week. Manning was also scheduled to star in a record-setting event when he would buy “The Winston,” the most expensive drink in the world.

The Guinness Book of World Records would be there to record the purchase. The casino’s bar, Club 23, was gearing up for the event and the record being set by the bar.

How Did This Happen?

This heist is reminiscent of the Ocean’s 11 original film. There is hacking, behind the scenes treason, and even a PR nightmare.

This is how it all went down:

• Manning and the VIP services manager worked ahead of time to hack into the casino’s security camera system. According to some tech experts, this is not a hard task.
• Now that they have access to the high-resolution camera across the casino, they can see everything they need to put Manning in a winning player position in the high roller room.
• The VIP services manager is also supposed to be involved in a $12,500 cognac drink launch. We will talk about that later.
• Manning checks into the casino with his family into a VIP villa. This will become the home base of the largest casino heist in history.
• James plays the eight winning hands with the help of the hacked security cameras and signaling from the VIP services manager.
• Casino security is starting to get curious. The Crown’s security team realizes it’s their own VIP services manager that is signaling to Manning how to win each of the hands.
• Manning leaves the casino floor with the biggest win in the casino’s history.
• Manning carries on as if nothing is out of place.
• In the middle of the night, the Crown security team discovers the heist and evicts Manning from the property. Here’s the kicker: Manning had not transferred the winning money (USD 33,000,000) to his personal account.
• Considering the money had not left the casino’s vault, they decided to not press charges. What they did do was expel him from the property, file a no-trespass order, and cancel the drink event.
• The casino didn’t contact local police as the money was still “in house.” Unfathomable, right?

Let’s Drink About It – The World’s Most Expensive Drink

Let’s talk about that expensive cognac drink. Manning was scheduled to buy the world’s most expensive drink. The goal was a PR event to set a world record for the most expensive drink.

What’s in a $12,500 drink?

“The Winston” has 1858-vintage Croizet Cuvee Leonie cognac.

Its namesake comes from the same vintage as Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower shared when they discussed the D-Day landings of WWII.

The Crown Casino Melbourne had a problem — an expensive problem. They had no buyer for their drink. The casino had no way of knowing that the buyer for the record-setting event would also attempt to steal $33,000,000 (USD) from the casino during the same trip.

The Guinness Book of World Records was on-site to view the event. A representative from Croziet, the owner of the 1886 bottle of cognac, was on-site to deliver the $150,000 bottle of cognac.

The event had been marketed worldwide to media and other industries. This was going to put Club 23 on the map.

So, what is a bar and casino to do with no buyer for their record-setting cocktail?

Manning had been banished from the casino, and who else had an extra $12.5k laying around for one cocktail?

The marketing team for the Crown Melbourne was scrambling to find a replacement buyer. This is where my theory comes in.

Great Plans Always Have a Fault

I have been in PR and marketing since I graduated from college. I have never organized an event of this type. I have had to scramble for coverage of a celebrity that decided to cancel an event at the last moment.

If I were on the PR/marketing team for the Crown, I wouldn’t notify the police either. The money is still in house. The buyer has been marketed as buying the drink. No buyer equals find a buyer.

I would silently sweep my $33 million problem under the rug and proceed like nothing happened. I wouldn’t want the blowback and would want to salvage what I could from this event.

The Crown, I think, had a similar idea. Let’s find a new buyer. No harm, no foul.

Almost a Record, but Not Quite

Two of the executive staff from the Crown – Vice President of VIP Services, Ishan Ratnam, and the Chief Operating Officer of Crown Hotels, Peter Crinis – approached Giang Nguyen.

Nguyen is the biggest financial contributor to the Geelong Football Club. Geelong Football Club is a professional Australian rules soccer team based out of Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

Ratnam and Crinis had another problem to tackle. Nguyen is a discreet spender. He is a regular at the Villa at the Crown Tower but isn’t known to throw around money. Unlike Manning, Nguyen wasn’t willing to throw down the $12,500 for the cost of the drink.

They came up with a workaround.

Nguyen would pay for the drink, and the casino would pay him back after the record was set, and the event was over.

Easy, right?

Not so much.

The casino was already swimming in a PR nightmare with the gambling scandal. Even though the casino didn’t report the robbery to the local police, the public knew. It was swirling around like wildfire on social media and traditional media outlets.

This event needed to go off without a hitch. Nguyen showed up and bought the drink with his own money. It was recorded, and the hosting bar, Club 23, would receive the world record for the most expensive drink ever sold.

There was one problem:

The bar didn’t actually sell the drink.

Nguyen showed up at Club 23 wearing casual clothes considering he was brought in for the high-end record-setting event. He was escorted by his friend, Ishan Ratnam.

He ordered the drink and paid for the drink.

He took a sip and left the unfinished drink on the bar.

Obviously, Nguyen was not interested in the record and was unimpressed by the entire event.

This raised some eyebrows with the media. Words soon leaked that Nguyen was paid back for the record expense.

Things went from bad to worse. Nguyen was transparent when he said he was just helping a friend. Not good.

Conclusion

As of the time of this post, the Crown Casino still holds the title for the biggest casino heist and the most expensive cocktail ever sold.

I had planned on sharing with you the top three biggest casino heists in history, but this one was too good to just give a couple paragraphs.

I’ll be posting about the other two contenders for the biggest casino heists in history in the second part of this 2-parter. Stay tuned.

Humans aren’t good at admitting defeat, neither is The Crown Casino Melbourne. I hope you enjoyed this ultra-PR fail story about cheating, casino heists, and marketing flops, check out part two here.

Introduction

The house edge is defined as the ratio of the average loss to the initial bet. In some games the beginning wager is not necessarily the ending wager. For example in blackjack, let it ride, and Caribbean stud poker, the player may increase their bet when the odds favor doing so. In these cases the additional money wagered is not figured into the denominator for the purpose of determining the house edge, thus increasing the measure of risk. For games like Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em and Crazy 4 Poker, where there are two required initial wagers, the house edge is based on one of them only. House edge figures are based on optimal or near-optimal player strategy.

The table below shows the house edge of most popular casino games and bets.

Casino Game House Edge

Notes

Guide to House Edge

The reason that the house edge is relative to the original wager, not the average wager, is that it makes it easier for the player to estimate how much they will lose. For example if a player knows the house edge in blackjack is 0.6% he can assume that for every $10 wager original wager he makes he will lose 6 cents on the average. Most players are not going to know how much their average wager will be in games like blackjack relative to the original wager, thus any statistic based on the average wager would be difficult to apply to real life questions.

The conventional definition can be helpful for players determine how much it will cost them to play, given the information they already know. However the statistic is very biased as a measure of risk. In Caribbean stud poker, for example, the house edge is 5.22%, which is close to that of double zero roulette at 5.26%. However the ratio of average money lost to average money wagered in Caribbean stud is only 2.56%. The player only looking at the house edge may be indifferent between roulette and Caribbean stud poker, based only the house edge. If one wants to compare one game against another I believe it is better to look at the ratio of money lost to money wagered, which would show Caribbean stud poker to be a much better gamble than roulette.

Many other sources do not count ties in the house edge calculation, especially for the Don’t Pass bet in craps and the banker and player bets in baccarat. The rationale is that if a bet isn’t resolved then it should be ignored. I personally opt to include ties although I respect the other definition.

Element of Risk

For purposes of comparing one game to another I would like to propose a different measurement of risk, which I call the 'element of risk.' This measurement is defined as the average loss divided by total money bet. For bets in which the initial bet is always the final bet there would be no difference between this statistic and the house edge. Bets in which there is a difference are listed below.

Element of Risk

Standard Deviation

The standard deviation is a measure of how volatile your bankroll will be playing a given game. This statistic is commonly used to calculate the probability that the end result of a session of a defined number of bets will be within certain bounds.

The standard deviation of the final result over n bets is the product of the standard deviation for one bet (see table) and the square root of the number of initial bets made in the session. This assumes that all bets made are of equal size. The probability that the session outcome will be within one standard deviation is 68.26%. The probability that the session outcome will be within two standard deviations is 95.46%. The probability that the session outcome will be within three standard deviations is 99.74%. The following table shows the probability that a session outcome will come within various numbers of standard deviations.

I realize that this explanation may not make much sense to someone who is not well versed in the basics of statistics. If this is the case I would recommend enriching yourself with a good introductory statistics book.

Standard Deviation

Crown Casino Roulette Odds Vegas

Hold

Although I do not mention hold percentages on my site the term is worth defining because it comes up a lot. The hold percentage is the ratio of chips the casino keeps to the total chips sold. This is generally measured over an entire shift. For example if blackjack table x takes in $1000 in the drop box and of the $1000 in chips sold the table keeps $300 of them (players walked away with the other $700) then the game's hold is 30%. If every player loses their entire purchase of chips then the hold will be 100%. It is possible for the hold to exceed 100% if players carry to the table chips purchased at another table. A mathematician alone can not determine the hold because it depends on how long the player will sit at the table and the same money circulates back and forth. There is a lot of confusion between the house edge and hold, especially among casino personnel.

Hands per Hour, House Edge for Comp Purposes

The following table shows the average hands per hour and the house edge for comp purposes various games. The house edge figures are higher than those above, because the above figures assume optimal strategy, and those below reflect player errors and average type of bet made. This table was given to me anonymously by an executive with a major Strip casino and is used for rating players.

Hands per Hour and Average House Edge

Odds In Roulette

Footnotes

* — House edge based on Ante bet only as opposed to all mandatory wagers (for example the Blind in Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em and the Super Bonus in Crazy 4 Poker.

Translation

A Spanish translation of this page is available at www.eldropbox.com.

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