More imfo on that Grand Casino Monaco Scam...and more unbelievable!

Drove away with millions!

Seems I've been writing on lots of ridiculous casino scams lately that make millions of dollars in spite of their ridiculousness. Well, one of them, the recent $4.2 roulette scam at the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo, just got more ridiculous.

In my original post on this roulette cheat scam, which I thought might be some type of chip-counterfeiting scam, I admitted I was confused and didn't understand exactly how this multi-million-dollar cheat move went down over the course of an entire year.

I reached out to my blog-readers for whatever information someone might have on it.

Yesterday I got a response from a casino executive in Montreal who is well versed in what goes on in casinos in France and Monaco. He steered me to French newspaper articles which all described the scam as what we call here in the US "The Ohio Roulette Scam," which got its name because it was very successfully pulled off in several casinos in that baby-casino state.

By "baby" I mean newness and lack of operating experience, no offense indended.

The scam is very simple, almost to the point of being amateurish.

It happens when one member of a cheat team buys-in for a roulette color of minimum-denomination chips, plays for a while and then cashes out--but holds out several of these chips.

Then another member of the roulette cheat team buys the same color chips at another roulette table and assigns a much higer denomination to them. Then he sneaks in the same-colored chips with the ones he just bought and cashes them all out together.

In Ohio, this scam took place with roulette cheats buying the chips for $1 apiece and coloring them out on the other table for $25 apiece.

In the Grand Casino of Monaco, the cheats apparently did the same move--but they bought $10 chips and cashed them out as $1,000 chips!

Did you get that!

$10 chips for $1,000 chips!

Now, I know that the illustrious casino in Monaco attracts tremendous action from nobles, princes and sheiks who come from all over the world, but come on!...how in the world can this type of low-level scam take it for millions?

And don't forget that in virtually every casino in the world, roulette chips have a letter embedded in them that represents which table they're from, which should more or less prevent this scam from happening one day--let alone an entire year.

I still really don't believe it...unless half the casino staff was in on it.

I would suggest that Prince Albert get down to the royal casino and kick some butt!!!

Unless he's in on it too!!!

Talking about hard-to-believe casino sucker cheating scams!

Casino Cheats Hall of  Fame conman?

You've all heard the line, "There's one born every minute."

Referring to suckers, of course, especially in the gambling world...especially in the casino gambling world.

Well, one guy really appreciates this truism. His name is Mark Thomas Georgantas--and he's also known as "Mr. Smooth"...

Which he must have been!

Mr. Georgantas's con was to show himself off as a high roller in Las Vegas casinos and attract a crowd around him while he gambled, especially on hopping craps games. When he got on a lucky roll he would chum up to people and tell them he was an ultra-successful gambler, so good that a documentary film was being made about his casino exploits, and then a reality TV show after that! He even said that actors Matt Damon and George Clooney were so interested in his winning ways that they invested chunks of money in his winning system and became "clients" of his winning casino enterprise, which he called Monster Gaming, Inc.

He boasted that his company could make millions, even hundreds of millions in the long haul. Mr. Clooney and Mr.Damon, he bragged, called him "Pure Cash."

The guy's gift of gab was obviously pretty good!

So good in fact, that after convincing a pair of victims that he was an ex-CIA agent working in the danger zones of Iraq, each invested more than three hundred grand in his craps system!

Then when it came time to hit the craps tables, Mr. Smooth was gone, vanished like a pair of flying dice.

Mark Thomas Georgantas was arrested and charged last month while attemting to fleece some wealthy gamblers at the Hard Rock Casino.

My take: Like I said, there is a sucker born every minute. In Vegas maybe it's two. What is really unbelievable about this is that Georgantas actually had his victims sign a contract to make their gambling deal seem more credible and professional.

In fact, this giant sucker scam reminds me of a small one where the conman says, "Give me four bucks and I'll show you how to make a million." The victim gives him the four bucks, and then the conman says, "You see?"