When Should a Poker or Casino Cheat Say "No?"

Okay, you're the chief of a professional poker cheating or casino cheating team and you heard that a particular casino or poker room is really ripe for the pickings. So, is there anything that should stop you dead in your tracks from hitting this potential poker room or casino gold mine?

You bet your ass there is!

Here's a good example: Back in 1979 I was lying on the beach in the south of France enjoying a day off after hitting the casinos along the French Cote d'Azur. My partner Joe Classon was lying next to me reading the Herald Tribune. He came across an article about a new casino opening up inside the Istanbul Hilton (yes, that's Turkey!). Full of enthusiasm, he immediately jumped up as if he wanted to pack his bag right there on the spot and catch a boat across the Mediterranean to Turkey. But just two weeks before I had seen the movie "Midnight Express." If you don't remember, that's the real-life film where Billy Hayes, a young American, got caught at the Istanbul airport boarding his plane to New York with a few pounds of hashish taped around his torso. The film depicted his four years in a horrible Turkish prison.

Get the message?

If not, there was also the possibility in Turkey of thieves getting their hands cut off instead of doing jail time...or both!

Get the message now?

Back in 1993, we were lying on another beach, this time in Greece, and Joe was reading (he loved to read) an article about ex-PLO chairman Yassir Arafat's new casino opening on the West Bank. That's right! If you didn't know it, Arafat and the PLO once operated a casino right on the West Bank.
When Joe jumped up again, full of even greater enthusiasm, and said, "Richard, let's go bomb Arafat's casino!" I looked at him as if he were crazy and said, "What are you, nuts!...Did you forget you're Jewish?

My point: Casino and poker cheat teams had better investigate the laws and penalites for those caught cheating in each venue they dare to venture!