The Rise of Computer-Assisted Roulette

Computer-assisted roulette was invented in the 1960s by American mathematicians. They used a matchbox-sized gadget wired to a timing switch hidden inside a shoe. Jay Doyne Farmer dreamed of creating a utopian community of hippie inventors, funded by gambling profits. He and his partners called their venture eudemonic enterprises, after Aristotle's term for the fulfilling sensation of a life well lived. Like Thorpe before him, Farmer learned that roulette was more predictable than anyone imagined.