I have been involved in many of these, and even once was the victim. You have probably seen some good reverse scams depicted in movies, but this one, which I helped devise with my partner in casino cheating Pat Mallery, may be the best.
It takes place on the casino's big baccarat table, not the mini-baccarat tables.
Basically the victim (expecting to receive 50% of the scam profits) is led to believe that we are going to scam the casino for tens or hundreds of thousands by obtaining credit from the casino by signing gambling markers at the table. The victim, who believes he knows the scammer's true ID, is shown false ID that that the scammer says he has used to obtain credit. The scammer tells the victim that he needs serious money to finance the scam at the table. The scammer tells the victim that before he (the scammer) signs the markers, he must first show large cash action to make the casino comfortable and believe that he is trully a high-roller worthy of obtaining credit, which is being worked on by the casino's credit department as the scam is actually taking place at the baccarat table.
The scammer may also take these following steps to enhance the scam:
1) Place $20,000 in the casino cage, against which he can sign markers. Most people do not know that you can sign markers at casino tables against your cash deposit in the cage the same way players sign markers against their credit lines. Anyone observing markers being signed at the table would not be able to tell whether the person signing them has a credit line or cash in the casino cage.
2) Actually sign markers against his cage-cash at the baccarat table to further enhance the credibility of the scam to the victim, which enables the victim to be reverse-scammed.
Since baccarat offers two wagers (banker and player) that cancel each other out (one wins while the other looses), the scammer tells the victim to bet approximately the same large amount as he on the opposite side, for example: the scammer bets $2,000 on player while the victim bets $1,850 or so on banker, not betting the exact amount to avoid casino suspicion that an offset is going on. The victim has financed this whole cash operation, usually for a minimum of $50,000 cash. During the play, the scammer is constantly speaking with the pit bosses to reaffirm that his credit is being approved, convincing the victim that he will soon be signing markers in $10.000 denominations. Then the scammer simply waits until the majority of the chips, usually $1,000 and $5,000 denominatons, shifts to him, which always happens because if the victim wins too many of the offset hands, the scammer and victim meet away from the table where the victim then hands chips back to the scammer.
At the opportune moment when the scammer has bt $30,000 and $50,000 in chips, which is all part of the victim's stake investment, two of the scammers cohorts dressed in suits looking like casino detectives come to the table, whisper "Would you please come with us" in the scammer's ear, all this in front of the victim, who is now scared shitless that he will be linked to the scam to bilk the casino out of money via obtaining credit under false pretenses. The scammer is then led away by the two plainclothes "detectives" (casino personnel notice nothing because it just looks like the two men are friends of the scammer). The victim is then left at the table by himself and soon gets scared and returns to the rented apartment where he is staying (leased by the scammers) and while there hears a knock on the door accompanied by a loud voice shouting "Open Up, FBI." Sometimes the victim does not open up, but when he does is then showed two fake badges by the same two cohorts who had taken the scammer from the baccarat table. He is then grilled with questions about the scammer, whom the FBI is now "aggressively looking for." The victim at this point is only worried about himself going to jail on a major crime, not even so much about his lost money, which he as of yet doesn't realized is lost.
Finally, he receives a call from the scammer, who tells him that he managed to escape from FBI custody and has split Vegas to avoid recapture, and doesn't know when he can resurface. Of course he tells the victim that his cash was confiscated by the FBI.
In most cases, the victim will not even know that he had been scammed but rather think he had the bad luck to get caught in an FBI sting.
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