Bank Breakers

Although the huge, government-owned casino at fashionable Mar del Plata is the world's largest, it is just as vulnerable as any other gambling house to that once-in-a-million bogeyman, the little gambler with a system that really works. Last week Mar del Plata had to call in the police to help them get rid of a horrifying 30 steady customers, who seemed to have found the dread formula for winning.

The trouble began four years ago when certain small-time gambler, identified only as Senor Delgado, took to studying the whims and behavior of roulette wheels in the small casino at nearby Necochea. Recording several thousand consecutive turns of a wheel, he found that eight or nine numbers seemed to turn up more frequently than the others. By playing a pattern of the high-frequency numbers and rechecking his computations, he began to win modestly but consistently.

Percentage & Average. Any roulette wheel can develop a slight imbalance, or an imperceptible rough spot which makes the friction uneven as it turns. This will favor certain numbers, and a player who discovers it may profit briefly. But a properly run casino checks the wheels constantly and changes them from table to table just to guard against such innocent larceny. The astonishing thing in Senor Delgado's case was that despite all normal precautions he kept on winning, in seeming defiance of the laws of percentage and average.

In 1948 he was certain enough of his system to train four assistants and shift operations to Mar del Plata. There the pupils soon shoved the master into the background and formed syndicates of their own. The worried management alerted the croupiers to keep records on the growing number of consistent winners. By last year the losings to the new syndicates were so high that the casino director was fired.

Curly & Johnny. But that did not cure the trouble. The hottest syndicate at Mar del Plata this year was 20 strong, and raked in earnings estimated as high as 6,000,000 pesos. It was headed by a onetime Nazi sailor, nicknamed El Aleman, who first came to Argentina in 1939 when the German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled after the Battle of the Rio de la Plata. Among the other big moneymakers were fruit hucksters, waiters and farmers, who were soon buying Cadillacs, Buicks and beach property. Known only by nicknames such as El Crespo (Curly) El Vasquito (Little Basque), or Juancito (Johnny), each gang member had his own assigned wheel which he had studied thoroughly. The management routine of shuffling wheels apparently failed because the gamblers knew the wheels so well they could identify them by the tiniest mar or scratch, the faintest off-shade of color in the varnish.

Last week, in desperation, Mar del Plata yelled for help. Although they had broken no law, all known syndicate members were arrested; classified as professional gamblers with bad records and barred permanently from Argentine casinos.

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