Norman Leigh and his roulette expedition part one

Firstly I would very much like to point out that while what you are about to read did actually happen, the reason for it happening in my opinion is one hundred per cent based on short term luck and nothing else. So why then should I put Norman Leigh and his system players onto my list of heroes of casino roulette if all they did was get lucky using some system. Good question but they are here for reasons other than making money.

Firstly because Norman Leigh became public enemy number one in the eyes of the French casinos in 1966 because he won a very substantial amount of money. That figure was 800,000 Francs and at the exchange rate at the time, this made it £58,000 which was a very tidy sum forty years ago.

Secondly because he scared the French gaming industry so much that they actually barred him from every casino in France. Thirdly because he had the guts and determination to hit back at an industry that had wronged him by how they had treated his father.

The fact that Norman Leigh and his “Reverse Labouchere” betting system has no proven long term mathematical edge is neither here nor there. The fact that he was only active for about two weeks and would have surely lost it back had his team continued should also be largely ignored.

But what cannot be ignored is that his name for whatever reason went into Roulette folklore because of what he did and his account of it in the wonderful book “Thirteen against the Bank”. This tells the story of him and his team of twelve individuals from all walks of life who took on the might of the Casino Municipal in Nice and broke the bank.

I must point out here that the term “breaking the bank” does not mean busting the casino. It means taking all of the chips that are presently on the Roulette table at that time which will still be a fair sum of money but nothing when compared to the financial resources of a large casino.

The only reasons that the French Casinos gave for barring Leigh’s team was because they won systematically, consistently and methodically. Norman Leigh was born in 1928 in London and did his national service for King and country in 1946. He worked as an interpreter for a while but one thing remained and that was his lifelong fascination with Roulette.

Because of the fact that Leigh was sent to prison for fraud in 1968, I have read comments from people who think that Leigh was a con man who tricked twelve individuals into bankrolling a trip to Monte Carlo in 1966 while he basically free rolled with their money.

Look out for part two of the Norman Leigh story coming in part two.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Killer Roulette”