First Casino Dealer Convicted in Tran Organization Baccarat Cheating Scam Case

Nearly thirty people were arrested in what is considered the largest international casino cheating scam in history that went on between 2002 and 2007 and raked in more than $30 Million from dozens of mostly US and Canadian casinos, but everyone involved (including all those with the last name Tran and all the other big-casino-cheat honchos and inside casino employees involved) except for forty-six year-old Mike Waseleski pleaded out and received probation or relatively short prison terms. Waseleski, who compromised his casino, the Ameristar Resorts Casino in East Chicago, Indiana, refused to cop out to being in on the huge baccarat cheating fix and was subsequently convicted yesterday of one count of conspiring to commit various offenses against the US government, whatever that means??? I don't know why taking part in cheatng a casino is conspiring against the US government, but that's what the court records say.

Waseleski, who helped the Tran Organization scam $1.5 Million from Ameristar, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The mastermind of the scam, Phuong Quoc Truong, was sentenced to 6 years in prison earlier this year, so it is hard to imagine that Waseleski, despite his refusal to accept a plea bargain, will get more than a couple of years.

To read more about this huge international baccarat scam, search "Tran Organization Baccarat Scam here.

NBC's "Poker After Dark" is Cheating You With Bullshit Just As Much As GSN's "High Stakes Poker!

The Poker Cheats Cheating You!

NBC's answer to high-stakes poker television, mainly to the Game Show Network's flagship poker show "High Stakes Poker," was "Poker After Dark," which premiered back in 2007. Just Like "High Stakes Poker," "Poker After Dark" is full of shit and cheating you out of your televsion time. The basic premise for "Poker After Dark" is that on each weekly episode the players buy in for $20,000 each and then contend for a winner-takes-all $120,000 first prize. This is all a crock, even though there is a lot less money supposedly changing hands between the players than on "High Stakes Poker."

Evidence: Doyle Brunson has played Ace-Queen against three players on the show. But Brunson, who really is the king of poker cheats, says he refuses to play that same AQ starting hand in real money games not televised. And apparently he does not generally play that hand.

There are also just way too many hands where more money is thrown into the pot pre-flop on bad hands, with several top pros involved at the same time. This kind of action is just not kosher and is practically never seen at the WSOP, nor in its side cash games.

Moreover, there is an all-in move every two episodes and they get called a much higher percentage of the time than in real brick and mortar cash games, solid evidence that this is all full of shit. It seems that there is the pressure for all-in-and-call because of the time constraint of the show. After all, since an episode is approximately forty-five minutes of poker time, there are only around forty-five hands dealt in two episodes comprising ninety minutes. In REAL poker games when money is REALLY exchanged between pro players, these players show lots more discipline and don't just call any all-in bet. Many players can sit hours at a time without calling a single all-in bet.

Doyle Brunson has said that he refuses to play AQ because it "bumps into too many problems." Meanwhile, he plays 10-2 because they were the winning cards on a WSOP final table he won.

PLEASE...gimme a break!

Was $1.5 Million Armed Bellagio Casino Heist Really Worth It?

Actaul surveillance pic of robber

If you haven't heard, a guy wearing a motorcycle helmet and brandishing a hand gun walked into the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas yesterday and robbed a craps table at gunpoint before walking back out the door and hopping on his motorcycle and burning rubber out of Dodge. The only problem is that the $1.5 million or so he stole was not in cash...nor was it in checks or any other negotiable instruments. It was in casino chips. That's right, casino chips. And if you're thinking, "Well, how the hell is the guy gonna cash 'em all out?", you're right, he's got a problem...a BIG problem. And that a fair proportion of these chips were the highest denomination chips on the casino floor and very rarely in players' possession (those being $25,000 chips) makes the problem even BIGGER!

So, how the HELL is this guy gonna cash out those chips?

He's not...that's the answer, especially for any chips above the $1,000 denomination, which, given the fact that all the chips he robbed fit into the sack he carried along with gun, had to be most of them. Whatever $100 and $500 chips he bagged, he will be able to cash out fairly easy in the Bellagio because the casino sees tons of big action and lots of circulation of those denomination chips. For the $1,000 chips he'd best use cohorts to break them down into $500 and $100 chips at craps and other tables (why not the same table he robbed? LOL) and then cash them out at the casino cages.

But $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000 chips? Forget, buddy, they are going to be nothing more than collectors' items, and not the kind that priceless stolen artworks are. No mysterious and secretive collector is gonna pay squat for those big Bellagio humdinger chips. And what's more: after a period of time, probably a few years at the most, the Bellagio, like all casinos cyclically do, will discontinue its current series of casino chips and replace them with a new one with a new design. At that time, exactly 120 days after the chip-changeover, ALL Belagio's chips will be unredeemable.

And forget about cashing them out at other casinos in Vegas. All casinos will be on the lookout for people trying to cash out or exchange Bellagio chips.

So back to the question "Was it worth it?"

Absolutely not! The most this guy and whatever partners he may have had are gonna get out of this heist is probably ten or twenty grand--not much for risking a ten-year prison sentence--at least.

Regular non-violent casino cheating is much more lucrative--believe me!

Anyone Out There Have Any Info on Sam Simon's Huge Online Poker Cheat Scams?

Sam Simon

I came across an article on onlinepokernews.org claiming that Sam Simon, an avid poker player and successful television producer who happens to be one of the original developers of "The Simpsons," has told the site that a certain well-known high-stakes poker player got cheated out of more than $4 million playing online by one or more big-time poker cheats who managed to sneak into the unidentified player's house and install a high-tech digital camera in the ceiling of his study above the computer screen on his desk. Thus they secretly filmed all his hole cards as they appeared on the alleged victim's computer screen and used that huge advantage to fleece him. Simon allegedly said this particular mystery online poker-cheat victim is also a huge brick and mortar poker player in cash games. No details were offered on how the victim found the camera besides his repeatedly losing and losing and maybe becoming suspicious that a camera was actually there.
However, I have heard of no incidents or reports backing up any of these claims, and was wondering if maybe you have. Simon has allegedly also been speaking publicly about other huge online poker scams he's heard of firsthand from cheat victims, mostly collusion scams, which is nothing new to any of us.

My take: Well, if Simon's claims are true and not just a figment of the same fertile imagination that created "The Simpsons," I sure hope that the victim is one of the poker-cheat assholes that cheat us with their acting-jobs  on the Game Show Network's "High Stakes Poker."

Why Was (or is) Poker Called "The Cheating Game"?

Believe it or not, I actually got three emails during the past 10 days asking me this question. If ever there was a self-explanatory response in a question, right?

Well, for those of you who still don't get it, the reason Poker was originally called "The Cheating Game" is because nearly everyone who partook in it cheated. The massive all-around cheating at poker started in the Mississippi riverboat days (1840-1880), but it really took hold in the legendary American era we call "The Old West" (1870-1895). There, anyone who was worth his weigh in anything turned to cheating at poker.

The two preferred forms of cheating were marking cards and hold-out gadgets that allowed poker cheats to switch cards out of the game and stick them in a device rolled up their arm inside their sleave, and then sneak them back in play when they were needed to make a hand. Poker cheating collusion hardly existed back then as each cheat was in it for his own.

My favorite form of Old West American poker cheating was a method poker cheats used to mark cards. Called the "sun-dry marking card" method, it was done exactly as it was called. Poker Cheats would take the aces out of the deck and lay them backs-up flat on a table underneath the hot sun. After several hours of exposure, the backs of the cards would dry out and turn a slightly lighter shade of red or blue. The key was to take them out of the sun at the right time, before the color change would be noticeable to someone sitting in the poker game not in on the cheat.

As for poker being called the cheating game today, I think it still should be. After all, there is widespread cheating going on in poker today and there are certainly much more forms of it, and these are improved forms.

As for online poker, is it called "The Online Cheating Game"?

Well, it certainly should be!