A Little history Lesson on Roulette Cheating--The Dolly

Never stopped pastposting

You all know that every time the dealer spins the roulette ball, he marks the winning number on the layout by placing the dolly (or number marker) atop the chips straight-up on the winning number or on the naked surface if there are no chips there.

But do you know the history of the this roulette dolly?

Prior to 1955, there were no such dollies in existence. Roulette dealers would simply point to the winning number on the layout, announce it, and then begin sweeping the losing chips off the layout and the process of paying the winners, first the outside winners then the inside winners.

The early and mid-fifties were the heyday of roulette pastposting (placing late bets), especially straight-up on the numbers. In fact, it was like a roulette cheating epidemic. The biggest roulette pastposting cheats at the time were Henry Classon, a cheating ancestor of mine, and a mute gentlemen named Mumbles, both inducted in the Casino Cheats Hall of Fame.

This pair terrorized casinos in Las Vegas, Reno and Puerto Rico to the point that a fed-up pit boss at the Americana casino in Puerto Rico decided to do something about it: he invented the roulette dolly.

His idea was that if the dealer placed the dolly atop the chips on the winning number or on the naked winning number, roulette pastposting cheats would no longer be able to manipulate those chips or place ones on the number that weren't there before the ball dropped.

BOY WAS HE WRONG!

But in spite of that, casinos across the world have been using the roulette dolly ever since.

Huge Baccarat Cheat Scam Trial in Singapore Results in 13 Jail Sentences

Bac Cheat Group Reconnaissance

It lasted almost four months and the defendants were charged with cheating the Singapore Marina Bay Sands casino out of $1.4 million in what the judge called the biggest and most sophisticated casino cheat scam in the history of Singapore gambling.

Of course there is no surprise that it was a baccarat scam and that it occurred at the Singapore Marina Bay Sands, which is by far the most cheated casino in the world.

The details are a bit unclear, at least to me, but the description of the massive cheat scam is that 14 Thai nationals, 10 men and four woman, somehow obtained a key to a cabinet containing a "playing card carrier," removed the cards, photographed them, replaced them into the carrier without disturbing the sequence, put the carrier back into the cabinet, and finally hit the baccarat table knowing how the cards would fall and won the $1.4 million over a single three-hour baccarat session.

According to reports, they purposely lost a few hands to conceal their scam.

They were supposedly caught when their "suspicious" behavior was caught on surveillance tape.

And they had made at least one reconnaissance trip to the casino to test the key and even conducted dry runs at a casino in Manila.

And if that's not enough intrigue to this casino-cheat case, the alleged mastermind, 53-year-old Soum Sengmanivong, is supposedly dead in Laos...care to take a bet on that!!

Well, first of all, is a "playing card carrier" the same thing as a card shoe? Or is it a contraption that holds cards when they're delivered to the casino from the manufacturer?

It also appears from numerous articles on the scam that the group stole the card carrier from the baccarat room where actual games where in progress. They crowded the area so no one would notice.

If I am reading this correctly, I am having lots of trouble believing it...and as far as their suspicious activity caught on surveillance tape goes, when did that come into play and where is the evidence of their abducting the card carrier and then putting it back in the cabinet?

Well, whatever happened there, the results of the trial were generally minor prison terms ranging from one year to a year and and a half.

And one more thing: where did they get the key to the cabinet? There was no mention of an inside employee in on the scam, so did they have the key made? If so, was a locksmith involved in the scam to do the fitting work that would have been needed to make the key??

There's only one thing I can say for sure about all this: The Marina Bay Sands, if they actually store live cards right in the baccarat room and not somewhere else inside the building, is even more of a casino game protection nightmare than I previously thought!

If anyone can give me some clarifying details about this case, I would surely appreciate it!