Game Protection Post: Casino Game Protection--How I Do It

Many of you casino executives may have attended the recent World Game Protection Conference in Las Vegas and listened to various game-protection consultants present their methods and credentials. However, if you want the best to come to your casino and train your staff, this is how I do it.

My main goal in training casino floor staffs is to make them as efficient and knowledgeable as possible without depending on the video and surveillance systems. Simply put: to learn and recognize all facets of casino cheating and advantage play before it gets to the surveillance-department stage. As an ex-casino dealer who has performed many highly-effective inside casino scams, followed by 25 years as a professional casino-cheat, I can offer pretty good insight on how these things work from both sides of the tables. 

My main goal in training sureillance staffs is to remove them as much as possible from their video equipment and technology. In other words, teach them to be highly efficient even in the hypothethical circumstance that cameras did not exist. This is because floor supervisors and surveillance departments have become so dependent on the technology that many of its employees have very little knowledge of what cheating and advantage play is really about. I always like to say, "A camera cannot tap you on the shoulder and tell you there´s a cheat-move going down on BJ 4." You´ve got to be able to identify what you see on the video or what you´re watching on the live game. If a floorperson does not recognize a cheat or advantage-play team at the tables, the cameras above are not going to alert them to it. Game protecftion must work from the floor up.  

If you have read anything about my cheating days, I was able to use cameras and surveillance departments to actually help me cheat casinos (see the Savannah move on my website). Capable cheats can actually separate the casino floor from surveillance departments by using psychology that overcomes game-protection procedure. For example, I was able to place $5,000 bets without dealers notifying supervisors, and as well was able to prevent the floor from notifying surveillance when I was actually caught cheating, all by use of psychology. 

Normally when I conduct seminars, the audience is a mix of floor and surveillance people. I find that this works well because communication between the two and working as one is integral for good game and casino protection. In more casinos than not, surveillance and the floor are not on the same page.

One thing I like to do is have a member of the casino floor staff, unbeknownst to the rest of the seminar attendees, participate in my cheating demonstrations while their peers are also seated around the gaming table. I have already met with this individual before the seminar and taught him how to do cheating moves. Then when he actually does a cheating move during the seminar, the audience is shocked to see how easy it was for him to do it. This type of active-attendee participation works really well in generating more interestest and closer attention from the audience.

I do not do any tired-old powerpoint presentations.I do not waste much time going over videos of moves you have probably seen a thousand times. Everything is hands-on work on tables and throughout a casino. I not only teach how casino cheat-moves and advantage-play teams operate at the tables, I stress how they prepare inside the casino before their moves, how they communicate on and away from the tables, how they cash out their checks, and all the other necessary facets that must be known in order to have a chance of spotting the professional teams before they leave the casino with your money. I have found over the years that casinos have very little idea how cheats communicate, nor do they invest much time in learning how cheats, especially those working with high-denomination checks, obtain them and cash them out without drawing suspicion.

For example, in my later cheating-days I worked exclusively with $5,000 checks and on some nights had more than $50,000 of checks to cash out, However, I never once in my life cashed out a single $5,000 check. So how did I turn them into cash without raising eyebrows?

As far as direct training to surveillance depts alone goes, I like to put them in the shoes of a cheat or advantage player, show them how they think, plan and act. As I do with the floor staff, I take one member of the surveillance dept. and work with him alone before I meet the rest of the attendees. Then I teach him some cheating moves, and later we do a demonstration on the table while the rest are watching. As everyone is thinking I am going to do the cheat move, the surveillance guy does it and of course no one sees it go down. The point of this is twofold: firstly to  show how everything at a suspect table has to be watched; the second, how the best cheat moves are so easily done. My Savannah move, which arguably was the best low-tech move of all time, could be taught to you in under five minutes and can still be done at any casino if the staff cannot properly defend against it..

We would also discuss the high-tech scams, the baccarat edge-sorting and other hi-tech scams, but remember, the vast majority of casino scams are not high-tech. We would also spend time talking about inside-dealer and floorpeople scams, on which I have much experience. As a dealer back in 1977, I was probably the first to do the infamous false-shuffle baccarat scam later done on a huge scale by the Tran organization 25 years later. 

Another thing I like to do out the outset of the seminar is give a 20-question quiz to everyone entitled "How good a casino cheat and advantage player would you be?"

Then we go over it without giving the correct answers, and then at the end of the seminar the same quiz is repeated, and we compare the scores to see how much the attendees have learned and retained.

This is a general overview of how I work. Of course each training/seminar is tailored to the property epending on your exact needs and who will be attending.