Poker Cheating and Casino Cheating Blog: American Roulette

Dice Sliding...Let's get to the bottom of it...or top of it.

2019-04-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Did one of those dice slide?

I have often posted about ongoing and repetitive cheating scams that have no business being either. By that I mean they should neither be ongoing nor repetitive--but they are both. Lately, my articles on the subject have mostly been about cheating scams initiated by dealers and floor personnel, especially on baccarat tables.

But actually, the ongoing and repetitive scam that boggles my mind the most is on craps tables and it's called "dice-sliding."

We've all heard about it over and over again.
We've all read about it over and over again.
And many of us have seen it, perhaps not over and over again, but seen it.

So why then does this scam continue to be successful against so many casinos in so many jurisdictions?

To be honest, I don't know. And then again, you cannot apply logic to casino cheating, as I do know quite well since the majority of my casino cheating moves during a 25-year career absolutely defied logic and were successful mostly for that reason.

So, that said, because you have read and heard it over and over again, I am going to write one more time what dice-sliding is and how it can effectively be stopped.

Dice-sliding is when the shooter rolls the dice and one or both of them do not tumble end-over-end through the entire length of the roll. Therefore, it is an illegitimate roll.

What is a legitimate roll? Three things: 1) Both dice have to leave the shooter's hand at precisely the same time; 2) Both dice must tumble the entire length from the shooter's release until the end of the roll; 3) Both dice must hit the back wall and tumble back toward the shooter until they land.

It is THAT simple. If craps crews strictly enforce those three requirements on their games, dice-sliding can be almost but not 100% totally eliminated, in spite of the sliders' strategic positioning and diversionary bets at the table. Those dice-sliders who can overcome these enforced requirements...well, I guess we'll just have to let them.

Three important things to note. The first is that speed bumps and wires running across the craps table to prevent dice-sliding are as ridiculous as they are ugly, at least in my opinion. Good sliders can get by those obstacles simply by avoiding the dice contacting them. And too boot, if the dice hit the back wall and tumble back, the bumps and wires wouldn't matter even if they were effective.

The second thing, extremely important, is that once a "No Roll" is called by either the stickman or boxman (if boxmen exist in your casino), the stickman should immediately go out and knock his stick into one of the dice before it stops on a number. This action prevents the players at the table from seeing what number would have come out, and therefore prevents all kinds of problems and arguments between customers and casino personnel.

Just imagine one of your trusted high-rolling craps players with thousands of dollars on the layout when he has a big winner on a dice-slide that looked really good and legitimate. You might soon find yourself minus one big craps player!

And finally, note the difference between a legitimate tumble and a very good but illegitimate spin. Good sliders can tumble one of the dice while spinning the other in a fashion that makes it look like a legitimate tumble. In this action, the die spinning is rotating and gives the impression that is tumbling when it isn't.

Like Forest Gump says in the movie, "That's all I have to say about that."

And I will not write this article over and over again!

Watch Out for the Asian Dealer-Made-a-Mistake Baccarat Scam!

2019-03-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

WATCH OUT!

Over the weekend I read an article about the Star Casino in Sydney, Australia suing a baccarat player from Singapore over A$43.2 million it says he owes in baccarat losses. The Singaporean gambler, Wong yew Choy, is not paying up, however.

Choy does not dispute he lost the money, but he does say that he lost the money only because the baccarat dealer on the game where he lost it made mistakes.

This story immediately reminded me of a current big-time baccarat scam out there. I do not know if Mr. Choy is using the same scam to try to defraud the Star Casino, but I do know a scam that several groups of high-limit baccarat players use to defraud casinos all over the world.

The "Asian" baccarat scam is not limited to Asian baccarat players, but I've been told it may have originated in Asia, and I know it is carried out all over the world, from major gambling capitals to US Tribal casinos.

Here's how it works:

These players always play in groups, and they are not hardcore cheats, but they will take huge shots at you if you give them the chance.

They play normally without cheating. They wait patiently for a dealer to make a mistake on the third-card rule, which does not happen often, but it does happen. For those of you Table Games people who have dealt or supervised baccarat, you know that the most common dealer error on the third-card rule is when the Bank hand is 3 and the Player hand hits a third-card 8. The Player hitting an 8 against the Bank 3 is the only time the Bank will stand after the Player takes a third card.

I myself, a former baccarat dealer, remember that I made more mistakes in that hand-situation than any other.

So...back to the baccarat group waiting for that mistake...It indeed comes but guess what?...they don't say a word, even if that third-card-draw error cost them money.

Instead, on the next hand, and with a sudden fury like a tidal wave, the entire group bets the maximum on either Player or Banker, all of them betting on the same side. They will hurriedly sign markers to get more chips if they don't have enough in front of them to make the maximum bet.

That next hand is dealt. If they win, great!

If they lose?

What do you think happens? Do you know?

Of course you know!

They claim the mistake the dealer had made on the previous hand. The Table Games supervisor asks them why they didn't claim the mistake when it happened. The group replies that they just realized it!

Sure! (sarcastic). If there's one thing I can tell you it's that these baccarat players know the third-card rule as well as any Table Games person who's been dealing and watching the game for 30 years!

So surveillance is called and the previous hand is reviewed, and sure enough the dealer mistakenly hit that banker hand of 3 after the player drew an eight. The floor supervisor immediately stops the game and instructs the dealer to rectify the amounts paid and taken on the previous hand in accordance with the surveillance review.

But wait one second! Do you think for another second that this high-rolling baccarat group is going to be satisfied with that?

Of course not!

So the lead player (these groups almost always have a lead player whose bets the others follow) declares that the mistake on the previous hand led to their losing this current hand, and therefore they want their lost money back.

Even if going back through the played cards shows that they still would have lost the big hand anyway, the group leader will claim that the whole karma of the shoe went bad because of the mistake, and that in their culture this is the same as the order of the cards being changed for the worse.

Of course the supervisor, and by now the shift manager who surely had arrived at the table, won't have any of this nonsense, but then the group throws them the malicious curveball.

The leader says, "If you don't give us the money back for that bad-karma hand, we will take our action elsewhere and never come back here again!

Voila!

Any Table Games executive's first thought might be to say to the group, "Go ahead and take your action somewhere else."

But on second thought, that executive may think, "Wait a minute! This group of big-time baccarat players is good for $ 2 million a year in losses." Then he or she looks at the table and sees 9 maximum bets of $10,000 each. So it's $90,000 the group wants returned to them.

Only $90,000.

So what does the casino do? The group's threat may be real, depending upon where this actually happens. If it happens in Macau or Las Vegas, where they can play high-stakes baccarat in dozens of different casinos, sure as hell they can get up all pissed-off and you never see them again.

But if you happen to be the only high-stakes baccarat casino within a few light years, you can call their bluff.

I have witnessed this ugly scam firsthand one time. I will not name the casino, but they sure as shit refunded the money.

So, how do you protect yourself from this? The first thing is reduce your dealers' third-card-rule mistakes as much as humanly possible.

How do you do that? You make sure that your best baccarat dealers are on the games and that the ones learning break into these games slowly, by dealing significant periods of time on slower, lower action games.

Beware of this scam!

Rash of Cheating and Stealing incidents at Vancouver, B.C. Casinos

2019-03-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Evidently, casinos in the beautiful Canadian province of British Columbia are having some compliance problems with cheating and other unlawful incidents. This is the second wave of such incidents that I can remember.

Parq Casino Vancouver

The first incident, of course, was another clumsy yet effective insider-dealer cheating scam that saw three dealers on card games at the Parq Casino passing off chips to their player agents, netting some $120,000. The dealers were fired and formally charged with crimes.

The second incident, again no surprise, was a case of money laundering at the River Rock Casino. No details were given except that the crimes date back to 2017.

A third incident was, however, a bit surprising. Apparently some former River Rock dealers have gone into business for themselves, but not the usual way by cheating in collusion against the house. These enterprising dealers decided to open up their own casino! Which, of course, is illegal. Their casino was duly raided.

Back at the Parq casino, a worker from Coquitlam's Hard Rock Casino was caught using phony chips to obtain cash. I don't know if he was arrested, but the Hard Rock Casino did fire him.

And, finally...and thankfully, the last two incidents reported, believe it or not, were the theft of a cigarette lighter and cigarettes by one Chances Casino employee from another, and the theft of two chocolate bars from a concession stand by a Penticton gaming employee.

My take: Well, if Vancouver Casinos can cut this rash of dishonest incidents to just stealing cigarettes and chocolate bars, that might be an acceptable result!

2nd Major Advantage-Play Win Recorded at Online Casino..Major Stuff!.

2019-03-27T11:48:00.001-07:00

Golden but Beatable!

I bet nearly everyone out there has believed and still believes that, apart from hacking, there is no way to beat online non-poker casino games.

Is everyone right?

Absolutely not!

Since Super Bowl weekend 2019, two online casino games offered by New Jersey online casinos have been beat hard, brick-and-mortar-casino style.

They are the Golden Egypt game and the Ocean Magic game. And the take between the two online casino beatings, ,engineered by the same group of advantage players who play both in B&M and online casinos, totalled some $1.5 million.

So how did this happen?

The same reasons that make some table games in B&M casinos beatable: mainly the games' designers, sometimes advantage players themselves, overlooking the true odds of a game and not doing the mathematics.

This does not happen often but it does happen. The biggest B&M casino example of this is when professional gambler Don Johnson saw a huge advantage-play opportunity on Atlantic City blackjack games. He simply calculated that casino rebates to induce big-action play made the game of blackjack vulnerable to advantage play, shifting the odds in his favor.

Johnson ended up beating Atlantic City casinos for a cool $15 million before they wised up.

My suggestion to games designers and casino operations...DO THE MATH!

Read the article about this here.

NFL Star Adam "Pacman" Jones to Plead Guilty to Casino-Cheating...Wow!

2019-03-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

NFL Casino Cheat Pacman Jones

Wow! I understand he allegedly threatened to kill an Indiana Gaming Commission officer, which is not to be taken lightly, but still I can't believe a star athlete is actually pleading guilty to a felony over a casino cheating charge. Just less than a year ago, ex-NBA star Charles Oakley was arrested in a Las Vegas casino for allegedly cheating the same way Pacman Jones was,,,pastposting, bet-capping and pinching bets (removing or reducing losing bets before the dealer takes them), but pleaded to a misdemeanor and walked.

In both cases, the chips involved in the casino crimes were black $100 chips.

There have been several cases of star athletes cheating in casinos, most of them not prosecuted. Why do they do it? I don't believe it is often related to compulsive gambling or a desperate financial situation. I think rather it has more to do with ego than anything else. Sometimes celebrity stardom goes to professional athletes' heads, and those who are famous in violent sports like boxing and American football may be more prone to these types of incidents.

As far as jail time for Pacman Jones, I'm not sure I understand the article correctly, but it appears he will be sentenced to 545 days for the cheating-at-gambling charge and 365 days for resisting arrest and battery on a person, but all but 14 days of both sentences will be suspended, thus Pacman will only spend 28 days in jail and be ready for the 2019 NFL season.

These Macau Multi-Personnel-Driven-Casino-Scams are ridiculous but they seem to work way too long before being discovered

2019-03-22T08:03:00.001-07:00

Zape District of Macau

I keep reading about these scams and remain incredulous as to how and why they keep working. I understand that Macau has tons of huge action and that properly monitoring it all can be difficult, but as well I have read articles saying their surveillance rooms are staffed with much more people per gaming table than anywhere else in the world, and that they are extremely professional and capable people.

I am not saying they're not. I have poured over pages that attest to great credentials for the majority of Macau surveillance directors, but shouldn't their departments be quicker to pick up on some of these ridiculous scams? Or maybe they're just not getting enough help from Table Games on the floor. Or maybe some of the accounts I am reading about these scams are not accurate.

If anyone knows more about the scam I write about below, please let us know.

I read that one un-named casino in the Zape sector of Macau, which has smaller casinos than the main Casino Strip there, was victimized by no less than 5 current or former employees in a chip-fraud scam that netted HK$ 2.5 million before it was busted. The insider cheat team consisted of two surveillance people, two dealers and one PR person.

If I understood this right, their player agent(s) came to the gaming tables and ostensibly changed single HK$ 10,000 chips for ten HK$ 1,000 chips but were given ten HK$ 10,000 chips by the dealers instead, ripping the casino off for HK$ 90,000 each time. Apparently this fraud happened at least 20 times since January when the casino opened.

The scam finally came apart when casino staff (not sure which staff) reviewed surveillance records and then discovered one of the player/agents was wearing a wig.

Wow! This should have been discovered sooner no matter what the appearance of the player/agent was.

Again, I am not sure that this scam went down the way I read it did, but if it did, the fact that it happened in Zape and not the Cotai Strip does not minimize the ramifications of it.

If You Think Cruise Ship Casinos Take Surveillance Lightly...Think Again!

2019-03-16T09:01:00.002-07:00

BEWARE OF THEIR SURVEILLANCE DEPT!

Many people, lots of them casino cheats and advantage players, seem to think that cruise-ship Surveillance Departments are not up to par with those working at land-based casinos. I don't know why this belief exists; perhaps it's because of the party atmosphere found aboard these ships, or some other reasons having to do with jurisdiction, regulatory issues or whatever.

But don't be fooled!

This belief is as false as a fifth-suit playing card!

I have trained two cruise-ship lines surveillance departments. I found each of them as experienced and knowledgeable as the most efficient land-based casinos worldwide, including those in Las Vegas.

In fact, one of them I have very recently trained, a melange of dedicated people from at least 4 different continents, meshed together like a well-trained intelligence agency. These international people have seen various scams bred in various countries and are as sharp as they come!

And this sharpness comes from the top. At Norwegian Cruise Line I immediately noted the relationship between the Surveillance Director and his staff. He was hands-on all the way, and exhibited great patience while helping me reinforce some of the finer points of high-level casino-cheating moves. His people were quite receptive of him, and of me as well. They were already knowledgeable about lots of sophisticated cheating scams and humble enough to want to learn more. One guy in the department was so eager to talk about this stuff that he cornered me in the hotel lobby hours after the training and made viable suggestions on how to detect advanced high-level card-counting teams that I profiled in the class.

And if that were not enough, the senior vice president walked in in the middle of the training and gave a short speech filled with praise and appreciation for his staff that even motivated me! This was a rare event and a pleasure to witness.

And to those of you who work or worked for Carnival Cruise Line when I trained there, I have not forgotten you. When I met some seventy people from the Carnival Surveillance staff, including their Fleet Surveillance Director, I found a very similar situation with very capable people from each continent who are very dedicated to their work.

So...Casino Cheats and Advantage Players:

BEWARE OF CRUISE-SHIP SURVEILLANCE DEPARTMENTS!

More Bad Publicity for MGM National Harbor concerning Casino Cheating

2019-03-05T07:41:00.001-08:00

More anti-cheating legislation problems in Maryland

I recently blogged about an article on Maryland state legislators trying to get laws into the book that make cheating casino table games a crime. I, like many other people in all facets of the casino business--including active casino cheats--was quite surprised to learn that casino cheating on table games has no current place in Maryland's criminal statutes, which means that anyone caught cheating a table game in any Maryland casino has nothing more to worry about than simply being thrown out and barred from the casino.

My blog brought to light the obvious threat to Maryland's casinos brought on by making public knowledge of Maryland's vulnerability to casino cheats. Surely, many cheats of all levels and abilities would take advantage of "riskless shots" against the state's casinos. This means that some serious casino-cheating felonies on Las Vegas gaming tables that would bring certain prison time to offenders currently goes unpunished by the law in Maryland.

Now more facts, damaging ones, are coming out of MGM's National Harbor casino. First off, an MGM representative has told state legislators that more than 60% of all cheating incidents recorded at all the MGM properties worldwide happens at the company's Maryland property.

That is an astounding number!

And no doubt the reason behind it is that casino cheats have been launching an assault against Maryland's casinos. They are coming in droves and taking their shots with nothing more to lose than being tossed out.

MGM National Harbor's surveillance director, Michael Ruggiano, told the House Ways and Means Committe that the Bellagio and Aria casinos in Las Vegas caught a combined total of six casino cheats in 2018 while the MGM National Harbor had some 153 incidents during the same year.

That is another staggering fact!

According to National Harbor's vice president of government affairs, Kerry Watson, there are blogs online that identify Maryland's casinos as a place where cheats can have their "free shots" cheating table games. This, in my mind, is tantamount to encouraging casino cheating in the state's casinos.

What makes all this even more confusing is that the Committee wants more information from the MGM concerning the actual financial losses suffered by the property due to cheating and the MGM seems unwilling to supply that information. The MGM has been pushing the new criminalizing-cheating bills as a way for the state not to lose tax revenues, and the Committee seems to agree, but the fact that the MGM does not want to quantify the amount lost to casino cheats, and the Committee is bewildered by this as it knows that the MGM has all the cheating incidents recorded on video yet cannot or will not provide the figure of the total loss is confusing.

However, Kerry Watson did admit that the reason for the MGM's reluctance is simply that it doesn't want to publicize the figure for fear that doing so would provoke more casino cheats to come to what would be further perceived as a "cheating destination."

Maryland delegate Eric Ebersole said to Watson, “You have the evidence here, you can see these people cheating, so you know how much they won. You’ve cited 153 cases. In those 153 cases, before you ask these people to leave, how much did they take from you in total for the year?"

“The dollar amount is what we’re really interested in here,” Ebersole added, “because one of the problems is that we’re losing money earmarked for education."

That's when Watson told Ebersole that MGM doesn’t want to publicize a dollar figure because it could draw even more attention to MGM National Harbor and the state as a cheating destination. Ebersole replied, “It would help us, though, if we had an idea on the magnitude of this problem. It would help us decide if this is serious enough to give people criminal records, misdemeanors, and felonies for the crimes they are committing.”

By not providing the figures that Ebersole wants, the MGM did not help its cause last Friday. The legislation pertains to crimes that increase in severity based on specific dollar amounts.

Finally, the casino admitted it wasn’t as well prepared when pushing the measure last year.

My take: Hopefully the proposed bill will advance soon, before the ongoing legislative session ends in April. If it doesn't, the MGM National Harbor and the rest of Maryland's casinos are in for another long casino-cheating year.

Interesting Insider $3 Million Baccarat Cheating Scam in Australia

2019-02-22T07:11:00.002-08:00

Unidentified Baccarat Cheat in Australia

Over a ten-day period in July, 2016 at the Star Casino in Sydney, Australia, two unidentified baccarat players won some $3 million at the baccarat tables. Soon afterwards, they were charged, along with an unidentified baccarat dealer, of a collusion cheating scam that allegedly allowed them to win the money. The dealer was accused of manipulating the cards by "sleight of hand" so that he could see their values and then signalling those values to the two players who used the information to be able to bet with a large advantage.

According to reports, bet they did! Their maximum bets reached $250,000.

What makes this case more interesting than most cheating cases in the plethora of insider baccarat scams is that the court apparently agreed that the cheating took place the way the prosecution said it did but acquitted them and let them walk with the $3 million because somehow "no particular person had been deceived by their actions."

What the heck does that mean!

So if I understand this correctly, a dealer and two players scammed the Star Casino for $3 million by way of the dealer illicitly signalling the values of the cards to the players, who, based on that information, made their bets and won three million bucks!

How can this not be cheating worthy of a guilty verdict? Who the hell cares that no particular person was deceived by the cheating? How does that matter? The victim is clearly the casino, not any person, therefore this is a slam-dunk casino-cheating conviction.

Well, the outcome of this trial, whose verdict the prosecution will appeal, will not do much good for Australian and Pacific Rim casinos. Already plagued by insider baccarat scams for nearly two decades now, this ridiculous decison sends a bad message that will probably make more victims out of more casinos in that part of the world.

The message is simply: if you cheat by collusion in an Australian casino and get caught, there is a plausible way out of it by claiming no casino employee in particular was victimized, or whatever other excuse there might be.

Ridiculous!

WILLY ALLISON WANTS TO STRIP CASINO TABLE GAMES OF THEIR CHIPS!

2019-02-20T07:02:00.001-08:00

Max Rubin pushing Chipless Blackjack

The last thing I want to do is talk about Willy Allison. And I would not be doing so, but I stumbled upon his recent podcast interview with GBB Magazine, and at the very end of it, Allison spoke of an article he wrote for GGB.

It's about Allison's idea that all casinos should do away with casino chips. That instead of using chips, casinos should convert all their gaming tables into digital playlands for a bunch of reasons that he mentioned on the podcast. I have not even read the article, and I don't need to. I already know it is terribly insulting to the industry, especially to craps and roulette dealers and personnel.
In short, what Allison said on the podcast makes me personally sick!

Where do I begin to debunk this idea? Okay, let's start off with turning casinos into full-scale behemoth electronic and slot joints. We already have online gaming, no chips. We already have electronic table games, no chips. We already have stadium table games, no chips.

Isn't that enough? So now do we take these beautiful megaresorts in Las Vegas and Asia and turn them into a barren desert of more digital images buzzing across table-games layouts? Oh...maybe we should get rid of the felt layouts too!

Are we going to completely remove the art and beauty of casino table games that real gambling aficionados adore? I don't know about you, but to me the most beautiful thing to see AND hear in a casino are the sights and sounds of skilled craps dealers chip-handling while making payouts, especially that dexterity they display when peeling, cutting and jutting chips on the place and bar bets and then laying them on the layout for the players to collect.

I even like the action of players throwing odd chips across the felt to the dealers to pay the commissions. It gives even more rhythm to the game.

Can you even imagine a craps table without chips? That is a church without an altar. It's already bad enough that Craps has lost its boxmen. Would craps dealers also be losing their jobs if this unsightly image became reality?

And almost as pleasant to see as a smooth craps dealer is a smooth roulette dealer...sliding, turning and maneuvering a dozen or more stacks of roulette chips to players with the same swiftness as if their hand was empty...yes "hand." The best of them do it all with one hand, something to be appreciated.

And what about the enduring image of jammed-up roulette games with empire-state stacks of chips straight-up on the numbers all over the layout? Is that not a majestic sight?

So, as you can see, it's bad enough for the casino side. For the players' side it's just as bad.

No table-games chips means poker players sitting at their poker games with no chips to shuffle, swivel, stack, break down and the countless other things they do with their chips that I don't have adequate verbs for.

Back to the craps tables with no chips in the racks. Imagine hot streaks when players are rolling the dice for 40 minutes with everyone at the table's chip rack swelling horizontally in multi-colored rainbow likeness. Do we really want to get rid of that?

To me, a person who has done quite a few things with casino chips over the years (and I don't mean to be facetious), the sounds those chips make when I shake them together in my hands is sweet music. I really mean that. And, believe it or not, the higher-denomination chips, $500 and above, actually make a sweeter sound than the others due to the less wear on them. High rollers would surely miss that, and their attitude would be as negative to no-chips as it is to continuous card shufflers on blackjack tables.

Alright, Willy Allison is no idiot, so obviously he has some reasons for wanting to do away with casino chips on table games. Of course you already know that Allison's prime reason is the bottom line. He says on the podcast that without chips the games will move faster, the casinos can keep faster track of the action with much more accuracy, and mentions that the whole world is going digital, so why not casinos?

Well, I'll tell you what, Willy...some things in the entertainment world beg to be gotten rid of. One thing that comes to mind is doing away with the four-pitch walk in baseball. Of course no baseball fan is going to miss seeing those four pitches deliberately thrown outside the strike zone, not even the most diehard fan.

But throw out casino chips? If I were still active in casinos, I'd start a riot!

So shame on you, Willy! You're not nuts, as you said on the podcast that many table-games people would consider you, but your idea is stark and heartless and comes from not having any rapport with what is both integral to REAL casinos and their customers (I will not say brick and mortar cause that's heartless as well) and even part of their integrity--that is chips!

CHIPS AHOY!

Of course Allison speaks of the game protection factor with chipless casinos.

He says that there will be no chip counterfeiting...True. Hey says that there will be no chip pastposting...True.

He does not, however, mention that there will also be no soul, no core, virtually no casino.

And I might add that even though what he says about counterfeiting chips and pastposting chips is true, in no way does that mean there will be no cheating. No digital facet of any kind is invulnerable to cheating and manipulation. This has been proved time and again, and, in fact, the scams targeting digital and electronic forms of gambling cost casinos a lot more money than those perpetrated by good ol' fashioned chips.

So what's next, Willy?...Cards?...Dice?...

Or just another bad idea?

Just stick to your constant claim that "casinos are not doing or spending enough on security."

That idea is not so bad.

Has an article on the MGM National Harbor Casino opened it and all other Maryland casinos up to casino-cheating?

2019-02-15T08:57:00.001-08:00

Leading the State Criminalizing Cheating Push

Well, I, for one, did not know that as of right now, and since the state of Maryland legalized casino table games, it is NOT illegal nor a crime to cheat on Maryland's casinos' gaming tables.

Did you read what I just wrote..."CHEATING ON GAMING TABLES IN ALL CASINOS IN MARYLAND IS NOT CONSIDERED ILLEGAL, REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT!

The article I am referring to, released Wednesday, speaks of Maryland's casinos' efforts, especially by the state's biggest casino MGM National Harbor, to get cheating casino table games criminalized. It goes into detail of what should constitute table-games cheating, and the new Maryland House Bill 1036 suggests the following penalties for casino cheating on table games:

1) Cheating for an aggregate amount of less than $100...up to 3 months in jail and pay a small fine.

2) Cheating for more than $1,500 but less than $25,000...a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

So what is the short-term effect of this before, and if, this legislation is signed into law?

Well, probably that there is going to be a full-scale invasion of Maryland's casinos by casino cheats, amateurs and professionals alike, the professionals from all over the world.

After all, if I am reading this right, cheats can just take their shots and the only risks facing them are being banned from casinos and threatened with the trespassing act if they are caught returning to them after being banned.

So I sure hope for the sake of Maryland's casinos that this bill is passed soon...and that the MGM National Harbor's and all Maryland's casinos' table-games departments and surveillance staffs be EXTREMELY vigilant to cheating.

And one more thing, did you notice the second proposed punishment, the felony one? It states "Cheating for more than $1,500 but less than $25,000...a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine."

What does this mean? That cheating for more than $25,000 is not a felony and maybe not even illegal?? LOL

I sure hope either I am misunderstanding this or there is a mistake in the writing of it!

Casino Robberies and Assaults continue to rise...are they a bigger problem for casinos than Cheating and Advantage Play?

2019-02-08T12:06:00.001-08:00

Casino Robberies on the rise

Of course the answer to this question has to be yes, since we are talking about a customer-service oriented business, where those customers must be protected from both the bodily physical and mental harm that these robbery and assault victims can suffer, not to mention the post traumatic stress and related syndromes that follow and can last as long as the victims' lives.

And let's not forget the casino employees who are victims during cage or poker-room robberies as well. They can also suffer the same mental and physical injuries as the casino customers who are robbed and assaulted.

Of course casino cheating is also a huge problem for casinos as is advantage play, but which actually causes casinos more financial harm...

Cheating and advantage play vs assault and robberies?

Impossible for me to say because there are so many variables to consider. Casinos can lose millions of dollars from one attack or robbery, not only money stolen but from subsequent lawsuits surely to follow. Now, of course, the actual money from robberies and legal judgements against casinos will likely be covered by casinos' insurance, but then you have to add in the cost of that insurance.

Cheating incidents such as the Phil Ivey/Kelly Sun baccarat edge-sorting scam and high-tech slot jackpot scams can also cost the casinos millions in one shot. And some casinos do actually have "casino-cheating insurance," so again actual costs and losses associated with cheating and advantage play are quite difficult to assign.

In both cases, losses by violence and losses by table and slot games, the problem for casinos is huge!

Too many articles about Casino-Cheating written by people who have no clue what they're writing about.

2019-01-31T14:56:00.003-08:00

High-Tech protection without good staff won't get it done

Take this one, for example. It's an article written by Chris Smith, who claims he "likes to write about tech and gadgets," but clearly has no idea what he's talking about outside the tech and gadgets when it comes to casino surveillance and security. I'm sure that Mr. Smith knows all the ins and outs of high-tech cameras and digital equipment, even that which is used by casinos to protect themselves against cheaters (some of whom have their own high-tech and gadgets), but he, like many other high-tech writers, should not be writing these articles because they give a false sense of security by omission.

In Mr. Smith's article, titled "Technologies casinos use to catch cheaters," he talks about "5 of the most used technologies that casinos use to catch unwanted cheaters." He goes on to give a short description of how each technology operates, and he is accurate to a tee.

But the article falls flat on its paper because the writer exudes the greatness of the technologies and makes references to things like the movie "Ocean's Eleven" to state his certainty that it is almost impossible to cheat casinos today, let alone rob one like they do in "Ocean's Eleven" and other movies.

Well, first of all, I guess Mr. Smith does not read many articles about casino robberies these days. Despite all the technologies, casinos are being robbed at an all-time high. Not nearly a day goes by without some kind of major casino robbery occurring in the United States, and lots of them are violent.

But I will let that ignorance on the part of Mr. Smith go because it is excusable. But what is not excusable is that he fails to mention the one thing that nullifies a great deal of that technology when it's used by casinos...THE PEOPLE, CHRIS...THE PEOPLE WHO NEED TO OPERATE AND INTERPRET THAT TECHNOLOGY AND ACT ON IT!!!

The digital surveillance equipment is only going to show the cheating. It's not going to explain it.

Maybe Chris never read about me. I, for one, beat all that technology in casinos because I knew that if I were able to beat the people responsible for interpreting the data, all that technology would only help me cheat the casinos...Chris, if you're reading, I'm talking about my infamous Savannah roulette cheat-move. And that move didn't even need the set-ups and psychology that I and other skilled cheats use (used in my case) to nullify that technology in many cases.

Look, I don't want to sound haughty here, but what pisses me off is that people reading these articles are led to falsely believe that casino-cheating is declining because of high-tech casino defense systems. Of course the technology helps, but don't let any of these one-track writers let you believe that casinos are getting cheated and robbed less than they used to. The amount of cheats may be less but the amount they cheat for is a heckuva lot more!

And this is especially important for those of you who work hard in surveillance and know that the people play a much bigger part than the technology...if your casino is running the way it should be and has good people doing their jobs.

Are Casino and Poker Cheating Devices Currently on Display in Casinos and Museums still in use?

2019-01-25T07:53:00.000-08:00

Good ol' poker holdout device

Some of you may have visited or read about some museums in Las Vegas and Casinos in the US that have displays of various ingenious casino cheating devices that have been used in both remote and recent times. Some of the devices normally on display are the holdout device, primarily used in poker games where a player holds out a card from the deck and sneaks it into play when he needs it, and a multitude of slot machine manipulation devices.

Some of you may wonder whether some of these devices still see the light of modern casinos. The short answer is no. Modern digital technology and random number generators have virtually made all non-digital slot machine gadgets extinct and it's been a long time since a poker holdout device has appeared in a legitimate public gambling casino or cardroom.

However, that "short" answer may just be short. Although the latest modern cheating devices such as computers, laser scanners and cell phones are not generally on display, such older devices that are still see the light of gambling games. This would be mainly in private home games and in casinos operating outside the law or even temporary charity casinos. In these casinos, those cheats who would not dare to risk using cheating devices in regular state and federally sponsored casinos for fear of prison if caught, surely would have no reason to fear using them in the aforementioned gaming venues.

All in all, whatever the status of any of these museum cheating devices currently is, it is certainly worth your time to see this stuff on display.

Serious Casino-Cheating-Related Incidents Cast Spell and Doubt over Chilean Casino...

2019-01-22T09:26:00.002-08:00

Funny lookin' pair of Kings!

and reignites the forever unending debate whether casinos ever intentionally cheat their players.

Here is what happened at the Casino Marina del Sol, the biggest casino in Chile:

Complaints for fraud and mis-management of a casino were filed against the Marina del Sol Casino in Talcahuano, accusing it of using defaulted cards that made it impossible to win.

In fact, four people who regularly attend the casino to play poker demanded to investigate the facts after it was discovered early in the morning last Wednesday that duplicate cards and even decks of 51 cards and not the full 52 made it impossible to win.

According to casino patron Cristian González, when casino authorities began reviewing the decks they discovered several irregularities, most of which concerned duplicate cards of the same value and suit.

The legal action, sponsored by lawyer Abelardo Landeros, was admitted to the Court of Guarantee of Talcahuano, requesting the investigation for fraud by the Public Ministry.

According to the complaint, the casino offered reparations in order to replace the money lost by those players on the games with irregular decks of cards. One of the players, Francisco Troncoso, said that sums of between 200 and 500 thousand Chilean pesos were raised, an offer that was reiterated last Thursday.

The evidence gathered during the incident confirmed the suspicions the players had about the irregularities of the cards and how those irregularities made it very difficult to win.

Carlos Concha, general manager of Marina del Sol, admitted that there was an error in the case of the complainants with the control systems of the decks, by which internal measures were taken and the Superintendency of Casinos was also informed.

"No one noticed, not even the dealers, that there were two or more duplicate cards in the decks used in the games," he said.

Through a statement, the Superintendency of Casinos said it took cognizance of facts that could account for irregularities in the game room of Marina del Sol.

In addition, the agency announced that it will officiate the casino to obtain more information, without prejudice to carry out an inspection in the field if deemed necessary.

Once the complete situation with all the antecedents is analyzed, the casino will adopt the corresponding courses of action, without ruling out the beginning of an administrative sanctioning procedure.

My take: Wow! This is pretty serious stuff...and the scary thing about it?...it appears to be a case of honest mistakes and dereliction. In fact, this reminds me of some American casinos that were dealing new decks of supposedly pre-shuffled cards that in fact had never been shuffled, so they came out of card shoes in their original order, allowing players catching on to this to make huge profits by betting accordingly.

Were Phil Ivey and Kelly Sun Alone?

2019-01-18T08:55:00.001-08:00

Were they alone?

We've all heard countless times of the baccarat edge-sorting exploits of Phil Ivey and Kelly Sun, how they edge-sorted their way to tens of millions of dollars in multi-casinos, most notably Crockfords in London and the Borgata in Atlantic City, only to have to give most of their winnings back because courts in both the UK and US ruled they won the money unfairly without saying it was downright cheating.

But yesterday I received an email that puts a new light on the whole thing. I CANNOT verify the authenticity of this but the info comes from someone involved in casino surveillance for many years whom I find very credible based on info he has given me in the past.

According to him, a casino that was victimized by edge-sorting has video footage of an Asian team edge-sorting in exactly the same manner as Ivey and Sun did, that is to say they instructed the dealers to turn the cards after they were dealt and lying face down on the table so they could read the sorts and then make their bets. And those bets were for very large stakes.

And neither Ivey nor Sun is seen in the video!

Also, it is not clear to me if this particular casino that was victimized by edge-sorting was ever victimized by Sun and Ivey. I was told that the video of the unidentified Asians edge-sorting is from the same time period (2012) during which Ivey and Sun hit Crockfords.

So what does this mean and is it important?

Well, I do think it's important to know how widespread this scam really was, but what about the fact, if it is one, that there is evidence of people edge-sorting for large sums of money who are not named Phil Ivey or Kelly Sun?

Now it is perfectly clear that Sun had edge-sorted both by herself and with partners before she met up with Ivey and included him in the scam, and these people could have gone off on their own. But whatever the case, even though edge-sorting was known by several people in game protection and surveillance long before even Sun showed up, no one has spoken of having video evidence of any major edge-sorting wins not involving the dynamic duo who made edge-sorting a household word in casino households all over the world.

All in all, and again I stress IF this is true, several more casinos besides the Borgata and Crockfords, may have been beaten for tens of millions around the world and kept quiet for one reason or another.

Which begs another question or two: If a casino has this video evidence of non-Ivey/Sun big baccarat edge-sorting wins, how come it has not been made public by that casino and with whom have they shared this evidence?

Or maybe some of you out there already know about this and it is not as big a deal as I think it is??

So if anyone out there has any info on this that they would like to share, please do!

Good Article on Online Cheating and Advantage Play

2019-01-11T08:03:00.003-08:00

Online Cheating and AP?

Article:

Can you cheat online gaming sites? Yes and no. It’s more accurate to say that you can play them by giving yourself an unfair advantage.

A genuinely foolproof way of cheating online gaming sites could make you some serious money. Plenty of people say they can do it, and many software copanies say they have the tools to help you cheat online casinos. But is it possible? Read on to find out.

Online gaming generates billions of dollars every year, and most of that comes from the players. But for gamers to spend their money, they need to know they aren’t being cheated by the site they choose to use. Algorithms help online gaming sites keep their games honest.

There are some major software providers of online casino games, including Playtech and Microgaming. Each of these companies uses a random number generator algorithm to keep the odds fair. This also works for the online gaming sites too, as it prevents players from being able to guess their hands or spins.

Gambling companies are often accused of feeding addiction, offering free incentives to sign up and glamorizing betting. But the online gaming industry is putting considerable effort into tackling addiction, and AI is helping them to do this.

UK online casino Mr. Green recently developed an AI tool together with Sustainable Interaction to help gamers catch addictive behavior. Players get their dashboard and are given a risk score from 1-100. If their risk level is unhealthy, they get advice on how to lower it and stop their behavior from leading to addiction.

I said earlier that free incentives are one of the draws of online casinos. If you’re smart, you can cheat the system and get more than one free deposit bonus. How? By setting up multiple accounts.

This is as easy to do as it sounds. All you need to do is use different details when setting up your account. This is made possible because many online casinos don’t insist on you providing ID when you sign up.

Does it work? Yes and no. Though many online gaming sites let you slip through the door without ID, you’ll often need it to cash out. So while it is possible to cheat the system by setting up multiple accounts, it’s far from being a safe bet.

Collusion has been a feature of gaming since it began. People come together and secretly pass on information to give themselves and their partners an advantage. If you play your cards right, this can be a winning way of cheating online gaming sites.

A simple way of doing this is for you and your friends to sit alongside each other while you play. You can pass on any information you have and the one best positioned to win is allowed a free hit. You then share out the winnings between yourselves.

Can you cheat gaming sites this way? Yes, to a degree. The caveat to this is that it’s only profitable in card games, particularly poker. Even then it still only gives you an advantage, as you won’t know what hand your opponent has.

AI and algorithms aren’t only a force for good in online gaming. There are many tools and pieces of software you can download which help you cheat online games. How? By monitoring the behavior, dynamics, and performance of the game to point out weak points.

Does this cheat the game successfully? Of the methods I’ve mentioned, this is the best way to cheat online gaming sites. It does so by giving you a competitive advantage, one that allows you to make informed decisions. So you’re not cheating the gaming sites, but playing them. The best example of this working in practice is poker tracker.

Be warned, though. There are lots of hacking software out there which claims to beat casino games. I recommend steering clear of any slot games that claim to cheat online gaming sites. I also advise that you research any software company before downloading their tool(s).

Can you cheat online gaming sites? Yes and no. It’s more accurate to say that you can play them by giving yourself an unfair advantage. There aren’t the hard and fast cheats to win, because online gaming sites have technology that’s sophisticated enough to catch them.

My advice is to head over to an online gaming website and get clued up on the rules. Once you’ve done this using industry approved software, like PokerTracker. If you and a few friends do this together, you may just cheat the system!

My take: Pretty good article here.

The Great Hole-Carding-Cheating-or-Not-Cheating-Debate.

2019-01-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

Flashing a hole-card

This argument is even older than the Phil Ivey Edge-Sorting debate which asks whether or not the practice of edge-sorting is cheating or not cheating. I have written loads of articles on Ivey's case and am clearly convinced Ivey was cheating, but edge-sorting is cheating ONLY when the edge-sorter(s) influences or alters the dealing of the game to achieve the possibility to edge-sort.

The debate around the hole-carding-cheating-or-not-cheating-issue is similar to the edge-sorting case but not at all the same. Most experts and game protection people say it is not cheating, and I certainly agree with them.

There are, however, two instances that make for good argument that hole-carding is indeed cheating.

The first is when the individual hole-carder or hole-carding team does something to influence the dealer's dealing of the cards that causes the dealer to flash his hole card in blackjack or any card or cards in carnival games. To me, that would be cheating. Just like Ivey convinced the dealers to deal the baccarat games the way he wanted and against normal dealing procedure in order to make the edge-sorting possible, anyone coercing dealers, either mentally or physically, to flash hole-cards is the same type of cheating in my opinion.

But if a dealer is giving up hole-cards only through fault of his own, there is no way that hole-carders reading the hole-cards can be construed as cheating. NO WAY!

The second scenario is the signalling between hole-carders that gives them a bigger advantage against the casino because they can get more money on the layout when they have knowledge of the dealer's or other players' hole-cards.

Is that cheating?

Well, even if it is, it isn't.

Am I trying to sound like a pompous idiot? No. What I am saying is this: Hole-carding may be morally cheating but it can never be construed as real or legal cheating.

Why? Well, I will tell you this: No one would EVER be convicted for passing signals to other players at the table concerning the value of the dealer's hole card.

Why do I say that? Well, the reasoning, if you agree that basic hole-carding without the hole-carders influencing the dealers, is not cheating or illegal, how can passing signals related to a legal act be considered illegal?

After all, any lawyer could easily argue that since the act of hole-carding by itself is completely legal, how can passing signals about something legal be illegal? The "conspiracy" in question would be nothing more than conspiring to commit a legal act!

OK! I am tired of writng and hypenating the word or words "Hole-Carding"!!!

HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

2018-12-28T10:38:00.002-08:00

To All of You!

I want to wish all my blog readers a very happy and healthy New Year, and I look forward to writing more interesting blog articles in 2019!

Thank you all very much!

WSOP Cheating Allegations Fly!

2018-12-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

Justin Lapka accused of Poker Cheating

I personally believe that cheating at the World Series of Poker Tournament has gone down substantially over the past decade but we still certainly hear of cheating incidents. The big one coming from the 2018 $600 No Limit Hold'em Double Stack event is Justin Lapka being accused of starting the tournament with $5,000 more in chips than the rest of the players, and trying to get away with it. All the players were given $40,000 in chips but Lapka was given $45,000.

According to reports, a player named Shawn Daniels was sitting near Justin Lapka and noticed that Lapka had $5,000 more in chips than everyone else at the table. Daniels said he tried to get Lapka to acknowledge the error, made by tournament employees who just accidentally distributed the extra $5,000 in chips, but Lapka got mad and supposedly said, "I will do what I have to...it's business." Daniels posted this account on Twitter and warned players to be aware whenever they interact with Lapka.

Lapka responded to the Daniels' tweet by saying he had been aware of the error in his favor but since it wasn't his fault he wasn't going to return the extra $5,000 in chips. This type of excuse is not accepted in the poker-tournament community. The error was ultimately noticed by the dealer, who took the extra chips away.

Another player named Steven Snyder said this about Justin Lapka: "He has to be the biggest douche I've ever met at the tables...Constantly talking shit when he loses a pot and just always unhappy making smart ass comments to everyone. He thinks he's some hotshot player."

Another player named DJ MacKinnon said of Lapka: "If he admitted to the table he knew and didn't do anything about it, I would definitely give him a one or two-round penalty."

It seemed all the backlash finally got to Lapka. He issued this apology: "I just wanna acknowledge that I made a decision tonight without a full understanding of how my decisions may affect other people or the poker community at-large.

My take: This is more or less a minor cheating incident that, I would say, a fair percentage of poker players would let slide if the same over-distribution of chips went their way. However, that does not mean it isn't cheating.

An old retired casino-cheat seriously ups the ante!

2018-12-13T06:49:00.001-08:00

Louie and his fake casino chips

I am talking about Louie "The Coin" Colavecchio, the now seventy-six-year-old man who in the 1990s flooded Atlantic City casinos with high-grade $100 counterfeit chips. His casino exploits have been profiled on TV shows such as the History Channel's "Breaking Vegas" series. He ended up serving more than two years in federal prison for his counterfeiting-$100-chips crimes.

Well, apparently Louie has been up to his old tricks. He is still counterfeiting $100 items, but now it's US $100 bills, not casino chips, which is a far more serious crime than counterfeiting chips. He was arrested last Friday at his Rhode Island home and charged with possessing equipment for manufacturing phony $100 bills and actually manufacturing them. According to reports, Louie had been under surveillance for several months and his telephone conversations were recorded.

During one of those conversations, Louie purportedly said that if he were arrested he would claim he was working as a counterfeit-bill detection specialist LOL. He also purportedly said that he had developed technology that could replicate US currency security features including how genuine bills react to UV light.

Louie, who was already serving 7 years of a suspended sentence for possessing more than 5 kilos of marijuana, could be looking at some serious time if convicted on these new charges.

In fact, the next thing he may be counterfeiting is "Get out of jail free" cards.

Robert Asiel's Casino Cheat Memoir "The Unexpected Gambler"...Any Credibility?

2018-12-08T09:03:00.002-08:00

Credible Cheat Tales?

Back in April of this year, Robert Asiel released his self-published book "The Unexpected Gambler," in which he claims casinos rampantly cheated customers and explains how they did it. He then goes on to detail his own cheating moves that he used against these very same casinos, claiming that his moves are still being used today on casino blackjack tables.

Is there any credibility to this book and Asiel's claims?

Frankly, I don't know. I have been in and around casino cheating for 40 years, 25 as a top professional casino cheat and the better part of the last 15 as a game protection training consultant helping casinos protect themselves against all levels of casino cheats. Yet I never heard of Robert Asiel before I stumbled upon his book on Amazon.

I will say this for starters: Asiel supposedly began his casino career as a casino dealer in a legitimate Nevada casino and then became a "crossroader," which is the casino vernacular for cheat. Inasmuch as that goes, his career is very similar to mine up to a point. That's to say that I began my casino career as a dealer in a legitimate casino before becoming a casino cheat.

So, not having heard of Mr. Asiel, I went online and did some research. I came upon accounts of his involvement with Louisiana mob figures in a long-ago card-marking scam that beat the President Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi for $500,000. It is not clear exactly what Asiel's role was in this card-marking scam, but it appears it might have been limited to being a connecting contact to some of those who carried out the scam by sneaking the marked cards into play. I do not know if Asiel was a player taking down profits once those cards were in play.

I do not have any other accounts of his cheating. No pastposting, capping or pinching scams.

I have not read the book, and I am not sure I will, but I have spoken to several people who have. In spite of the raves for Asiel's book on Amazon, the general consensus among seasoned casino people who have read the book is that they believe Asiel participated in the marking-card scam, which took place in the 1990s, but find his tales of legitimate US casinos rampantly cheating customers far-fetched.

Interesting Baccarat Dealer Cheating-Case in Australia...Another Big Inside Baccarat Cheating Scam at Australia's Crown Casino Melbourne

2018-11-29T06:54:00.002-08:00

Accused Baccarat Dealer Cheat

Supposedly it came to light during the Crown Casino's routine review of its big baccarat winners. The group of winners in question won some $430,000 during several baccarat sessions last April and May. Then the suspected dealer was taken to the casino's back room and interrogated. As is normal procedure, or at least what should be normal procedure, the interrogation of the dealer was recorded.

The dealer's attorney then requested access to the audio tapes but was told by the head of Crown Casino's investigation unit that the tapes no longer exist.

Finally, the shit hit the fan!

The scam itself, although not detailed, supposedly has the dealer informing a group of players what the cards were before the deal so that they could bet accordingly. Surveillance operators claimed they noticed the dealer lifting and shifting the cards before he dealt.

In any case, this is one of the most complicated cases of baccarat cheating I've yet heard of.

Here is the related news article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The head of investigations at James Packer’s Crown Resorts says audio recordings from a “holding room” used to interrogate an employee who allegedly scammed the casino giant out of more than $400,000 no longer exist.

In the high-roller Mahogany Room at Crown’s flagship Melbourne casino last year, baccarat dealer Michael Huo is alleged to have looked at cards and informed his associates – card players Fiona Shum, Yixuan Cui and Ke Wang – which cards were about to be dealt, helping them win $431,000 across 58 hours of playing at his table in March and May.

Mr Hou came to the company's attention during a “routine” review of the previous day's 10 biggest winners, including examining CCTV footage of their betting and pulling up data on their betting patterns.

Crown’s internal investigators arrested Mr Huo and his co-accused on the night of May 1, when the three women were playing at his table. Mr Huo was detained for more than three hours in a “holding room” before police arrived, the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told.

Defence lawyers have sought access to a logbook of the personal audio devices worn by the casino’s security and investigations staff on the night of the arrest, as well as audio and visual recordings of the interrogation of Mr Huo, and copies of text messages sent and received by investigators during the interrogation.

Peter Haag, representing Mr Hou, said Crown was refusing to comply with court orders to produce evidence and on Monday subpoenaed Crown’s investigations manager, Jason McHutchison.

“The orders of the court last time were not complied with,” Mr Haag said, “and the subpoena endeavours to obtain the materials that were the subject to the court orders last time by a different route.”

Mr McHutchison said his text messages were cleared when he replaced his smartphone late last year because he “didn't think they contained any evidentiary value”, while an audio recording from the holding room that day had since been deleted, because a request was not made for it to be preserved within 14 days.

“It wasn’t requested in the time frame,” he said. “It’s no longer in existence.”

Defence lawyers also sought a logbook of personal recording devices worn by Crown staff on the night, and copies of those recordings.

But Mr McHutchison said the logbook did not contain relevant information and did not produce it. He also said the “only recording I was able to obtain was my own”. “The rest cannot be found,” he said, adding that one had malfunctioned on the night.

Daniel Harris, the former senior surveillance analyst at the casino, said it was Crown’s routine practice to conduct a review of CCTV and internal betting data for the top-10 winners each day, to “see if they are legitimate”.

Mr Harris said surveillance footage showed Mr Huo spending an unnecessary amount of time straightening and handling cards.

“The front few cards could be seen to shift slightly and were leaning over the deck,” he said.

The hearing before Magistrate John Bentley continues.

5 Best Gambling Books

2018-11-27T03:45:00.002-08:00

Bestselling Gambling Book

If you’re a reader and a casino fan, there 5 books are good reads. But, if you’re a gambler and you want to improve your gambling skills, then these books are a must. Some of these books are actual autobiographies, some are biographies and some are fictional but with a lot of research done on the subject. Nevertheless, you will learn a lot about gambling, the life of gamblers and most importantly, the tips of real pro gamblers.

Bringing Down the House – Ben Mezrich

If reading is not your strongest suit but you’re still interested to know what this number one gambling book is about, you can watch the equally popular movie. It is actually quite an interesting book that narrates the true story of a group of MIT students that decided to bring down the house by counting cards in blackjack. Thanks to their brilliant, genius minds and exceptional MIT math skills and knowledge, they started training as a card-counting team, with the sole aim of winning over the house and make millions, which they eventually did.

Gambling 102: The Best Strategies of All Casino Games – Michael Shackleford

This book is more of a beginner’s guide to the casino games strategies. However, the author supposes that you have a previous knowledge of at least the basic rules of the games and gradually teaches you how to improve your odds of winning. The author is a statistics and mathematics expert analyst, so the book is based on real statistics made over years of study and experience. Essentially, you will learn about the house edges and the best strategies that can be used for winning at online casinos.

Beat the Dealer – Edward O. Thorp

Although quite an old book, Beat the Dealer is definitely not a book to be underestimated as it is actually the first book that proved the ancient myth – that you can use card-counting to win over the house. As a mathematician, Edward O. Thorp proved that mathematically speaking card-counting is real. In fact, the entire book is scientific, with equations, charts and all, and it served as the beginning of the card-counting movement, inspiring many authors to keep digging into it.

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time – Michael Craig

Michael Craig did a fascinating job in capturing the world of the high-rollers, the huge bets and the lavish lifestyle of big-time gamblers. It actually tells the story of a billionaire banker Andy Beal, determined to beat the most skilled poker players at their own game of choice. With detailed descriptions about the secrets of the poker strategies, Craig skilfully combined a good story with a useful gambling material.

Blood Aces – Doug J. Swanson

You must have heard about the World Series of Poker, but do you know the true story about its creator, the mob boss and casino owner Benny Binion? Well, if you're interested in having a peek into the world of mobsters and their notorious lifestyle, you must read this book, with a gangster movie dynamics.

Game Protection Robots Cruising Casino Floors...Are They Coming Soon?

2018-11-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

Can "Buddy" catch casino cheats?

For those of you who missed it, the Pechanga Casino near San Diego, California has debuted roving security robots that patrol the casino, or at least areas near the casino such as the hotel lobby and hallways, in order to give casino guests more security and, even more important, a sense of more security and being as safe as possible.s

This brings an interesting question. These robots (for now) are more of a security apparatus than a game protection one...but will we ever see robots patrolling the actual casino floor looking to spot cheats, advantage players and even scams in progress?

Honestly, I don't know. The first thing that comes to my mind is: even if these robots were equipped with enough cameras and artificial intelligence to perform such a vital game-protection task, would they be able to walk themselves around a casino floor without getting in everyone's way?

I mean, picture a crowded Vegas casino on New Year's Eve, which happens to be the annual preferred working-night of professional casino-cheating teams. Forget about the angst those professional casino cheats would feel at the sight of robotical armies honing in on their scams and then one of them rolling right up to their roulette table and in a metallic-pitched robotical voice saying, "You guys are caught cheating"!...what about the regular players only wanting to grab a seat at a slot machine or blackjack table who might be bumping into these strolling robots? Sure, it might be fun greeting and taking selfies with a robot or two in the middle of the casino as long as it doesn't interfere with the gambling.

So just the mechanical driveability of the robots might pose a difficult problem to solve.

But beyond that, would digitally-equipped-video robots on the casino floor actually help casino surveillance departments identify cheats and spot their scams going down?

I must say it would be possible. Although I have never been a big believer in the usefulness of facial recognition technology in casinos, if it were directly put to use right on the casino floor, I might be convinced otherwise, especially if the robots zeroed into a face of a suspected casino cheat and zoomed in, then compared the contours of the face with an existing casino-cheat data base. In that scenario the robots could help.

But what about detecting a scam going down without any facial-recognition leads to the cheats being there, or more specifically, being at a table in set-up or operation of their cheat moves?

That remains to be seen. Of course these robots could be programmed to recognize tells of professional and sophisticated casino-cheat teams, but wouldn't a skilled human being with knowledge in those tells have to do the programming?

Of course he or she would.

And that's where these robots, named "Buddy" at the Pechanga, might fall short...though by no fault of their own!