 |
| Do I see it? |
An integral part of the
surveillance and security apparatus protecting live brick and mortar casinos is
strong communication between surveillance operators upstairs and casino
personnel on the floor working table games. This will not only better protect
the casino where a cheating sequence occurred, but it will also serve other
casinos down the block quite well.
Without it, protecting casinos will
not get optimum results from all that state of the art video and audio
technology.
A prime example of the failure of
these systems occurred when I was active cheating casinos.
I was pastposting $5,000 chips (called “chocolates” in some high-end Vegas casinos) underneath $100 chips, known almost everywhere as “blacks.” This was a major move taking five grand a pop out of casinos, sometimes ten when my teammates and I used two chocolates at a time.
After an incredible run of consecutive successful chocolate-chip pastposts in July and August 1995, we finally had a “miss” on a Caesars Palace blackjack table when a pit boss refused to pay the pastposted bet. In the aftermath, the heat that came down inside the Vegas casinos was a helluva lot hotter than the scorching desert air outside.
Griffin Investigations and the totality of Las Vegas casino surveillance shot into action to try and put my team and I out of business. They immediately flooded Vegas with circulars (no widespread Internet at the time) advising casinos that a pastposting team was running amok slipping chocolate $5,000 chips underneath $100 blacks.
It was enough to make us stop using that move—but not enough to put us out of business.
We discussed our “big heat” problem and soon came up with a very clever idea that enabled us to go right back into the hot casinos:
Pastpost yellow $1,000 chips under $25 greens.
True, the change was a reduction in our profit-per-move, but taking a grand off the table each time was better than having to pack up and leave town.
So we went on another casino-cheat rampage doing the reduced pastpost move, the same exact move with different value chips. Right back inside Caesars, we encountered another steamy situation. The floorman was suspicious but still ordered the dealer to pay the bet.
Why?
Because the intercasino advisory warned of chocolate $5,000 chips being pastposted underneath $100 black chips—not $1,000 yellow chips being pastposted underneath $25 green chips.
For this reason, we were able to continue doing the same move as if we had never been doing it with the chocolate chips. After bunches more of the yellow-green combo, we took heat again, and then, believe it or not, went right back into the casinos slipping $500 purple chips underneath $5 red chips. With no problems getting paid.
Even I couldn’t believe it!
Where’s the surveillance communication failure?
Simply its lack of communicating the totality of the move. The advisory should have given a description of the move AND advised that it could be done with other high-denomination chips besides the $5,000 chocolates.
This failure of proper and complete communication between casino surveillance departments and the casino personnel in the gaming pits still exists today, in spite of all the technology. I realize that what happened back in the mid-90s could not happen today, but this was only an example to show the damage that miscommunication between the floor, surveillance and associate casinos can do to any casino and all casinos.
Posts
