Here's a New Twist on Baccarat Cheating

With all the huge baccarat cheating scandals we've been hearing about the last decade, everything from the Tran Organization multi-national dealer-corruption $30 million false-shuffle scam to Phil Ivey's multi-million-dollar baccarat edge-sorting scams, it's refreshing, at least to me, to hear of a simple if not stupid one.

A casino cheat in New Zealand hit the baccarat tables there with a past-posting attack. When he was caught he simply said that he wasn't aware of his cheating because the dealers were accepting his past-posted bets. Well, I kinda like that excuse!

Article: 

A man accused of cheating while playing baccarat at SkyCity casino is bewildered by the charges and said he lost $25,000 there in a year.Petronius Linsao Cortez, 52, appeared in Auckland District Court today on nine charges after a night at the casino on Sunday.Court documents said the Glenfield resident "knowingly contravened the rules of the game . . . by placing bets after the outcome had already been determined".
Cortez said he was unaware he had acted illegally and was confused when security marched him upstairs and contacted police.

"The dealer, he's the one that controls the table, and he was accepting those late bets," he said.
When asked how much he had won from the casino, the father of three was candid with his response.
"Actually I'm losing a lot there," Cortez said."I'm very unlucky at the moment."

Filipino-born Cortez, who has worked as a machine operator since coming to New Zealand in 2000, said he had been going to SkyCity about once a week for the last year.He started off playing black jack but recently moved on to baccarat, hoping for a change of luck.That did not come and Cortez said he was down about $25,000 - "all blown away in the casino".

Baccarat is a card game played by a minimum of two punters and a banker, who all aim to have two or three cards totalling nine.

SkyCity would not comment on the case as it was before the courts, nor would they discuss the security systems used to catch the alleged offender. "Undesirable activity potentially attracts a maximum ban of up to two years," a spokeswoman said.Though she would not disclose the penalty against Cortez, he told Fairfax Media he had been slapped with a two-year ban.But he was far from disappointed with the outcome.
"I think this is the wake up call I needed. They excluded me so this is probably the lesson for me to stop," he said.

Cortez will be back in court next month and he said in the interim he would speak to a lawyer and decide whether to defend the charges. Making it up to his wife was also on the cards."I need to buy her flowers," Cortez said.

The charge of contravening the Gambling Act by cheating is a rare one - only 10 people have faced the charge in the last five years.