Thirteen Against the Bank: The True Story of How a Roulette Team Broke the Bank with an Unbeatable System

240 Pages·2007·0.71 MB·English

by  Norman Leigh

Thirteen Against the Bank
Norman Leigh
High Stakes
This edition published in 2006 by High Stakes Publishing
21 Great Ormond Street, London, WC1N 3JB
www.highstakespublishing.com
© Norman Leigh 1976
The right of Norman Leigh to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise) without the written permission of the publishers.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1 84344 032 6
EAN 978 1 84344 032 1
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Typeset by Avocet Typeset, Chilton, Aylesbury, Bucks
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman, Reading
This book is dedicated to Dianne Roberts, a great lady who stood
by me in my hour of need, and to the twelve gallant and coura-
geous men and women without whom this book would not have
been possible.

Contents
Foreword 9
Chapter 1 13
Chapter 2 29
Chapter 3 49
Chapter 4 67
Chapter 5 81
Chapter 6 87
Chapter 7 95
Chapter 8 117
Chapter 9 127
Chapter 10 147
Chapter 11 155
Chapter 12 183
Chapter 13 197
Chapter 14 209
Chapter 15 223
Postscript 235
7

Foreword
This book is a true and detailed account of how a lifelong obsession
led me to achieve what all expert opinion holds to be impossible –
beating the table at roulette. I have changed certain names and
places to protect the innocent – and the guilty. I fully expect a great
deal of hostility, both from ‘experts’ and from an industry which
needs no lessons in ruthlessness, as you can judge for yourself from
what happened in casinos in London and France to the group of
law-abiding English people I brought together to ‘break the bank’.
Our only crime – to win methodically and consistently at roulette.
If I have found the perfect system for beating the wheel, why
should I wish to reveal it to the whole world? Why am I not
seated even now at the table before a vast pile of chips and
plaques, turning myself into a millionaire? You will understand
the answer to the question when you have read this book. Let me
make it clear – my system is not a secret formula for winning easy
money, far from it. It is damned hard money.
The events described here took place in 1966. Why have I
waited so long to write about them? Simply because it did not
occur to me until one evening in a hotel bar in Hampshire when I
was describing my roulette adventure to a friend, Derek Solity, a
jewellery representative. He said it would make a marvellous book.
The more I thought about it the more I had to agree. But even then
I hesitated. There is a dark side to the mythology of casinos, strange
9
NORMAN LEIGH
stories of disappearances and the like, death and rumours of death.
After all, the gambling industry is not run on the same lines as the
Church of England and has vast profits to protect.
Inevitably, attempts will be made to discredit both my system
and my character. Certainly I am no candidate for canonization. I
have served a term of imprisonment because of incidents totally
unconnected with roulette. Some two years after my return from
Nice I set up a property consultancy in Twickenham and subse-
quently became involved in an alleged fraud case, for which I was
sent to prison. This in turn merged into a criminal libel prosecution
regarding material I published concerning a policeman. Rightly or
wrongly, I elected to defend myself at the Old Bailey rather than be
represented by counsel. I received an acquittal on the major charge
but was convicted on a count of what amounted to publishing
matter which could have resulted in a breach of the peace. For this
I was sentenced to a subsequent term of imprisonment. Let me
make one obvious point – one would not expect to find a lifelong
obsession with gaming at a professional level in a lay preacher. To
some extent my compulsion to make roulette history has been a
jagged reef on which my life several times came near to foundering.
While a certain sleight-of-hand has been used to dramatize
events, I should stress that real names have been changed to
protect the members of my team. In getting cash out of France
we committed an offence against that country’s currency laws,
and as members of an organised syndicate they would have had
tax problems in Britain.
However let me assure the reader – I am willing to accept, in
advance, any challenge whatsoever to the feasibility of my method
for winning large sums at roulette, which I call the Reverse
Labouchère system.
I put myself at no risk – thirteen of us proved that my method
works and we proved it at the table, with real money.
NORMAN LEIGH
Hants, 1975
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