New Maryland MGM Casino Worried about Onslaught of Casino Cheats

New Casino Cheat Zone?

A big new MGM casino has just opened in National Harbor Maryland, and it's the closest casino to the nation's capital,Washington D.C. As with all new casino openings where the bulk of the employees, especially dealers, are novices, there is usually concern about professional casino-cheating teams coming in to take advantage of the rookie dealers and floorpeople.

I have seen and read several news accounts how Maryland's authorities are taking special care to avoid or at least minimize the problem. In fact, they have done virtually everything outside of calling me to come help them! They have set up special classes for dealers, studied loads of data on casino cheating, which they must get from other jurisdictions since Maryland does not release this type of data when it pertains to its own casinos.

They seem to be particularly worried about employee-involved cheating in cahoots with professional cheat-gangs such as the infamous Tran Organization, a Vietnamese clan of baccarat cheats who bribed and corrupted dealers throughout the US and Canada in the early and mid 2000s. They bilked casinos in both countries for some $20 million. Their operation was eventually busted in 2007 and lots of ex-casino dealers went to jail and tarnished their reputations forever.

My take: I think the approach that Maryland's gaming authorities are taking is the right one. New casinos are always extremely vulnereable to both pro casino cheats and those not so pro, and if the problem is not tackled early in a casino's existence, the result could be a disastrous casino-cheating paradise like the pair of casinos in Singapore.