What are the best Casino Cheat Scams from 2010 to 2019?

Best CasinoCheat Scams 2010 to 2019

It has been quite the casino-cheat decade, I may say, and as we advance in both time and technological growth, it will only get worse.

So, with that in mind, what were the best and most dangerous casino-cheat scams of this decade? Not the top 10, just the ones that were really the VERY best.

Well, I'll tell you one thing: the absolute best scam taking place between 2010 and 2019 is, of course, one we don't know about and maybe can't even conceive. Surely out there right now, someone somewhere is practicing a highly sophisitcated scam (not necessarily high-tech) taking millions worldwide out of casinos and it's just not on the radar yet.

That said, let's take a look at the scams we do know about it. For me, there are two that occurred between 2010 and 2019 that stand out from the others, and some of those others, like Phil Ivey's baccarat edge-sorting scam, were pretty darn good if not great. But when choosing the best of the best and the most dangerous of the dangerous, I am speaking of the bacccarat "Cutters" scam, performed primarily by Asian cheat gangs, and the Russian reverse-engineering-random-number-generator slot machine scam.

The Cutters scam was simply ingenius. The person cutting the eight decks of baccarat cards gripped the cut-card in a way that concealed his finger as it spliced through the deck to reveal the cards' indexes to a hidden digital camera system which then transmitted the images to an associate in another location who deciphered and relayed the information of the order of the cards to a player at the baccarat table who, with other cheats involved, bet perfectly each hand with advance knowledge of the exact order of the cards coming out of the shoe. This scam went on for several years before an astute floor staff and surveillance team at PAGCOR caught on to and busted it in Manila in 2011.

The Russian reverse-engineering slot scam performed in the mid and late 2010s was so good that few people to this day are even sure of what they actually did, although the basic understanding is that Russian hacker/spotters video-recorded the activity of certain slot machines all over the world and sent the images back to Russia, where even more advanced hackers developed algorithims used with applications to predict when these slot machines would cough up jackpots. This scam was busted up at the Lumiere casino in St. Louis, Missouri by surveillance people who noted unusual placement and usage of cell phones among other tells of something fishy going on.

A third great scam that deserves mention, even though it actually came to light in the late 2000s but was immortalized into the Hall of Great Casino Cheat Scams by Phil Ivey in 2012, is the baccarat edge-sorting cheat scam. It is certainly the most publicized brick and mortar casino scam of all-time because of Ivey's celebrity status as a poker player, and certain game protection people will swear (and they're wrong in Ivey's case) that it's not cheating at all. The scam was simply taking advantage of being able to identify flaws in the backs of playing cards that were not cut proplerly and then sort the cards by means of duping casino personnel into turning them a certain way so that good and bad cards for the cheat could be read before the deal and, more importantly, before the betting. Ivey and his partner Kelly Sun made tens of millions pulling this off before some wise Brits working at Crockfords Casino in London caught on.

One thing these three great scams had in common besides being great: they all got busted for the same reason that all even lesser great scams get busted...GREED! People who come up with great innovative cheat ideas just prove to be plain old stupid when it comes to knowing when to stop or give it a rest.

As far as great non-high-tech scams we've seen during the last ten years, the best and most widespread in my opinion, despite its relative simpleness, is the roulette color-up scam where one person would buy in at a roulette table for non-redeemable chips and assign the table-minimum value to them, then when coloring out to casino cash chips, he held out several of the non-redeemables, which he later passed to a confederate out of view who returned to the same table and bought in for the same color chips but assigned a higher value to them, finally adding to his stacks the same-color chips he'd received from his cohort. The cheat occurs when he colors them all out together as the higher denomination chips.

So if the first roulette player bought in for $1 roulette chips, then passed ten of those to the second roulette player, who added them to his recently bought-in chips that he assigned a $25-value to, the illicit profit is $240 for those ten chips, each of which were bought at $1 apiece and colored out at $25 apiece. The scam was done literally thousands of times by hundreds of different cheats for significant sums of money but has since been busted several times across the US, and now most casinos, but not all, have adopted internal control procedures to stop it.

Another low-tech scam worth mentioning is the dice-sliding craps scam, where the slider skillfully slides one of the dice, not letting it tumble, therefore partially controlling the outcome, giving those players betting the slide a huge advantage over the casino. This scam should NOT be worthy of mention because it is so easy to stop, but casinos in the US and Canada, either out of ignorance and ineptitude or poor or no game protection training, just don't seem to catch on to the phrase I and others have uttered a thousand times, "Make sure both dice leave the shooter's hand together, tumble across the layout, hit the back wall and tumble back." Thus the scam continues to go on across North America, albeit a bit less as we move into 2020.

Somewhere out there it is possible that a super-duper low-tech cheat scam like the Savannah roulette pinch move of the 90s is in the works but we will have to wait to see it come to light.

It could be a very long wait.

And finally, what has been the most instrumental facet of casino cheating during the 2010s going forward?

You bet! The cell phone.

A piece of Brazen Electronic Roulette Cheating!

"Breaking" Electronic Roulette

When we think of cheating electronic roulette wheels, we think of highly technical stuff such as visual ballistics and roulette prediction apps. But last week four Georgian Nationals were arrested for committing an electronic roulette scam cheat in Venlo, Holland, not only a lot less high-tech but certainly a lot more brazen!

They simply forced open the lid over the wheel, removed the glass (or plastic) covering it, then reached inside to stop the ball and place it on the winning numbers they bet on.

Talk about electronic balls! I mean those forming the crotch!!!

They got caught and are believed to have performed the same brash scam in a number of Holland Casinos and in other areas of Europe as well.

Mass Poker Cheat Hysteria Over Mike Postle, Justin Kuraitis, RFID Cards, Streaming, Poker, Stones Gambling Hall and Lots More!

Mike Postle...the new Russ Hamilton?

This alleged poker-cheating case, or I should say "cases", seems to be the second coming of the infamous Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker online poker cheating scandal engineered by former WSOP Main Event Champ Russ Hamilton more than a decade ago. It's all high-tech and involves streaming, RFID cards, cell phones, Stones Gambling Hall near Sacramento, and a lot more.

A huge class-action type lawsuit, that goes as far as to claim violations of the US RICO statutes, accuses poker player Mike Postle of using his cell phone to receive information identifying his opponents' hole cards via the live streaming of those cards given to viewers through RFID implants in them. In short:

Postle’s phone, according to consensus, was used to receive either the RFID (card-identifying) data itself, a hijacked live stream, or text messages from collaborator(s) inside the Stones Live production team. Likewise, the alleged concealed listening device, possibly a bone-conducting headset, could have received direct voice communications from a collaborator monitoring each player’s hole cards in real time. A less likely scenario involves a text-to-voice conversion app running through Postle’s phone.

This case is so intricate and multi-woven (if such a word exists) that the most efficient way to report on it is to link you to the two central articles about it. Then when you're done reading them, perhaps you will have the same reaction I had...mainly THIS STUFF IS SCARY!

Article 1:  

Mike Postle, Stones Gambling Hall, Justin Kuraitis Sued by Players

Article 2:

The Cheating Scandal Rocking the Poker World

Lone Wolf Card-Switcher Cheats Washington State casino 38 times in 40 days for 40K on High Card Flush Table

Card Switch in Action

After you read the article, you have to ask yourself what was going on in this casino? How could it take so long to catch on to a card-switching scam done by one person?

The article appears on the herald.com website.

Article:

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — To win at High Card Flush is easy. You want more cards in the same suit than the dealer. And to break a tie, you want a hand that would be a winner in a regular game of poker.

So if you’re dealt four suited high cards — say, a King, a Queen, a Jack and a Ten of Diamonds — you’ve got a very lucky hand.

If your luck seems a little too consistent to be true, the state gambling authorities may hear about it. That’s what happened when a Renton man kept returning to the Crazy Moose Casino in Mountlake Terrace to play High Card Flush, and kept winning.

The man, 51, was charged Friday with cheating the casino out of $38,335, through sleight of hand. He’s accused of first-degree theft and second-degree cheating at a gambling activity.

An investigation began in January, when the Crazy Moose and two other casinos in King County reported possible card-switching by the same gambler. He was a common sight in the card room at 22003 66th Ave. W. in Mountlake Terrace, making 38 trips in 40 days to the tables, court papers say.

A security manager watched footage of each visit. He’d always play three different hands at the same time at a single table. He’d check the strength of the middle hand, and then, in the opinion of gambling authorities, see if his other cards could improve the odds of winning for his main hand. If so, he’d secretly make a swap, according to the charges.

The Washington State Gambling Commission used a computer tracking program to review his wagers, how much he cashed out for, and his win-loss record. A spreadsheet of his moves suggested he’d rarely try to outwit the same dealer more than twice in a night.

He was first caught cheating to win an extra $1,415 in four bets on Dec. 9, 2018, the charges say.

The next night he returned and took home $2,530 on a single bet of $50. Charging papers say he cheated three times Dec. 11, three times Dec. 20, once Dec. 21, once Dec. 27, once Dec. 28, once Dec. 30, once Jan. 4 — and 11 times on Jan. 8.

At 12:30 a.m. that day, he won $3,315 on a straight flush. He ended the day at 10:50 p.m. with another win of $3,500 on another straight flush. He came back the following evening. Another straight flush. Another $3,250.

There’s a gap in the log for about a week, until he was supposedly caught cheating twice more on Jan. 15. According to investigators, he cheated eight times in front of six different dealers starting late Jan. 17, into the early morning hours.

Reports of cheating at other casinos were forwarded to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The amount of money at stake in those incidents isn’t recounted in the Mountlake Terrace charges.

The man has no felony record.

On Monday, a letter was mailed to his home, telling him he’s required to show up to Snohomish County Superior Court for an arraignment hearing Sept. 30.

Casino Game Protection War with Phil Ivey Continues

Borgata Playing for Keeps, Phil

We have been hearing about each step and maneuver in this notorious cheating/advantage play case for seven years now.

And it still is not yet finalized, the last big factor yet to be determined is whether or not Ivey will escape with the $10 million the New Jersey courts say he owes the Borgata casino in Atlantic City, that being the amount he won there through the advantage play technique called edge sorting, which, in my opinion, turned into pure cheating when Ivey convinced Borgata table games officials to alter the deal of the game by using false pretenses.

In this Game Protection war, the latest battle has been won by the Borgata. A New Jersey judge ruled that the Borgata can garnish or seize all Ivey's future winnings in poker tournaments in the United States, and seize them is exactly what the Borgata has done for the year 2019. They just seized more than a hundred grand that Ivey won at the 2019 World Series of Poker.

Ivey, whose appearance at US poker tournaments has dwindled immensely the past few years, has reportedly removed all his liquid assets outside the US. He did have the Borgata send his edge sorting winnings to Mexican banks, so perhaps the trail to where all his cash now is begins there.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Ivey can wait out all the Borgata's efforts to collect the ten million.

One thing for sure is that it is quite unlikely we'll see Ivey playing any more US tournaments in the near future--perhaps never. |

That's because Ivey would have to surrender his next $10 million in winnings to the Borgata!

Is Cheating Baccarat in Macau and Asia Overrated?

Macau Baccarat-Cheating Overrated?

We all know by now the tons of baccarat scams, some with inside help from dealers and floor staffs, that have plagued Macau and other parts of Asia for more than 15 years now.

We all know as well the huge dominance that baccarat has over all table games in Asia.

We also know that there are "other" table games in Asian casinos. Are these games sometimes "under" game-protected because so much cheating attention is paid to high rolling VIP baccarat tables?

Although I am not a statistics guy, let's take a look at some statistics. I do not know what percent baccarat tables are of total table games in Macau. I have read as much as 88%, but since I have never been there I do not know if this is accurate. What I do know is that it seems cheating news coming out of Macau is at least 88% baccarat.

But don't be fooled by the numbers!

I happen to know one thing for sure, and you can take it to the bank no matter who tells you I am wrong. That is that roulette is by far the most cheated game in the world, EVEN in Macau!

Sounds ridiculous, right?

Wrong!

If you turn the tables on the numbers, like that twice mentioned 88%, you will find that even in Macau roulette is cheated more than baccarat as far as percentage is concerned. That is when you take total roulette cheating incidents per roulette table vs total baccarat cheating incidents per bacarat table. In fact, roulette wins by a large margin, even in Asia. Then add to that the fact that the percentage of roulette cheat moves that go undetected is by far greater than baccarat cheat moves that go undetected, ESPECIALLY in Macau.

How do I know this without ever having been inside a Macua casino? Because I cheated both games for 25 years and there are just too many ways to cheat at roulette.

If you have trouble believing this, ask the fine surveillance team at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. They have busted many big roulette cheating scams and they will tell you firsthand how prolific roulette cheating is there.

Of course the baccarat scams, especially the inside ones, take the huge chunks of money and publicity. But professional roulette-cheat teams read about this as well and take advantage to attack Asian roulette wheels.

From a personal point of view, I have trained several dozen casinos in a dozen different countries in all areas of game protection and have never seen a single casino properly protecting their wheels. When I say this I mean from a professional cheat's point of view. I imagine this is also the case in Macau.

As far as blackjack goes, I would guess that the overall Asian cheating rate would not be much different than it is in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and other US casinos. In Europe it is slightly less due to the difference of the European deal.

Finally, I am not at all saying that surveillance departments in Macau are paying less attention to the other games than they should be. I have no way of knowing that. I do not have any casino clients there nor do I have any real contacts there. I only know what I know from a thorough knowledge base of casino cheating and game protection that applies everywhere.

The real message here to surveillance and table games staffs here is simple: Don't forget or lessen Game Protection for the "other" games.

What's the Jurisdiction Got to Do with It?

Electronic Roulette Cheat Yujin Wu in Action

Ask convicted electronic roulette cheat Yujin Wu.

Back in 2016, this high-tech 21 year-old electronics and software whiz-kid began a casino cheating/advantage play spree that could have resulted, in my opinion, in a $100 million dollar illicit profit which would have made Wu the biggest and most financially successful casino cheat of all time. He might have made Phil Ivey's edge-sorting $30 million baccarat scam look like chump change.

All he needed was just a few more years of plying his trade.

But like Ivey blew it by greed, looking to take too much too fast at Crockfords Casino in London, Yujin Wu blew it just the same returning to the same relatively small Charlevoix, Quebec casino a third time after cheating it out of more than fifty grand on electronic roulette during two previous occasions.

Despite Wu's incredible skills and knowledge, he lacked (as lots of geniuses do) basic common or street sense, and didn't know how to protect his cheating enterprise. Simply put, he did not know when enough was enough and should never have gone into that Charlevoix casino the third time after beating them for that fifty grand. The third time he showed up, Charlevoix surveillance, who were already suspicious and waiting for him, were able to watch his movements on the electronic roulette console and realize what he was doing.

What he was doing was combining a metronome and a roulette prediction app that he simply found online, and with the use of two cell phones was able to program a system for predicting with stunning accuracy in which quadrants the ball would land. It was Wu's tapping the cell phones with his finger that led to the discovery.

Wu started out in Australia, then moved on to the UK, then to several other areas including Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, all that while getting ready for his biggest act of all...the US and Las Vegas.

He said verbatim on a video I have of him speaking of his rampage, "It was like printing money!"

Wu had not the slightest problem as he jaunted from place to place, from casino to casino, from electronic roulette table to electronic roulette table.

But then he finally had a scare in Cyprus after a few months of cheating. He won a large amount of money and the casino managers were suspicious. Having no idea what Wu was doing, they asked Wu if they could search him. Wu, naive to the fact he could have simply refused and walked out of the casino, complied. They searched him, found the two cell phones with the apps, but incredibly took it no further and let him go without barring him or anythiing else. Apparently they had no idea what they had been up against.

So Wu continued on, getting real close to the US with a running profit of nearly a million bucks, when he got busted in Quebec.

So, you might be wondering: how do I know Yujin Wu?

Well, the day after he got busted, I read about it online. I was immediately interested in it because I knew how dangerous this was to casinos, more dangerous than anything yet. So I blogged about it. The very next day I get an email out of the blue from guess who...

From Yujin Wu.

He asked if I would take down the blog post as, according to him, it could negatively influence his criminal court case. I refused, telling him that news of his arrest and alleged cheating activities at Casino Charlevoix was already all over the Internet and that my blog, maybe read by a few thousand people at best, was not going to have any effect on his case.

I then heard from Mr. Wu three months later. He was interested in having me testify on his behalf that his method of cheating, known as Visual Ballistics, was not cheating after all.

It turnes out that Mr. Wu was right! In most jurisdictions, including the UK and many other important gambling venues, there are no laws prohibiting people from using devices to gain advantage at casino games while in the US it is a serious felony meriting, in some cases, years of hard prison time.

But the key point was that in Canada the use of any equipment to turn the odds in a player's favor is indeed illegal, thus I could not testify that it wasn't cheating even if I'd wanted to because Canadian law says it's cheating, therefore Mr. Wu was clearly cheating and whatever he got away with in the UK and Cyprus was completely immaterial to Quebec statutes on cheating at gambling.

Mr Wu then told me how this criminal case was going to ruin his entire professional career. Not as a casino cheat but rather the high-level jobs he already had lined up with Google and Microsoft. He said he would never be hired by any of these companies just for having a criminal arrest.

I gave him the best advice I could: Why don't you do what I do? With the knowledge you have you could certainly serve the casino industry well by showing them how to protect themselves and reduce the vulnerability of electronic games and slot machines.

As I was preparing for my open game protection training seminar in Las Vegas in March, 2019, I told Wu to make me a demo of his Visual Ballistics method with all the programs and apps that he could explain while showing us. I told him it would be a great way to introduce him to casinos which might be interested in hiring him down the road for electronic game protection.

Heck, it's exactly what I did! I was a serious casino cheat too, and today I am consulting to casinos in the area of game protection all over the world.

Wu accepted an made a video. I presented it at my Las Vegas seminar on March 7, 2019. Attendees were clearly impressed, and some of the things Wu mentioned were alarming as hell, such as how he could modify the same programs for all electonic casino games and even for live roulette.

However, at the end,Yujin Wu decided he didn't want to get involved in casino game protection consulting. Well, I can honestly say, too bad for casinos. This whiz-kid is the most dangerous person to casinos I have ever encountered or read about it. Let's just hope he puts this behind him and stays out of casinos...and maybe one day decides to get into consulting for casinos.

And now you can see that jurisdiction has everything to do with it!

At least as far as cheating casinos goes.

GAME PROTECTION CONSULTANT JAMES HARTLEY EXPOSES HIMSELF AS B.C. AND B.C. IS JUST AS FULL OF CRAP AS HE IS!

The man is a liar and B.S. artist

While looking through game protection posts, I came across one by James Hartley, a longtime casino security and surveillance person who has appeared on many of the Travel Channel-type casino-cheating shows and even got himself on a “60 Minutes” segment profiling Phil Ivey and Ivey’s baccarat edge-sorting scam. Hartley’s post read, “Yeah, this was me. Just wait, I will be telling these stories and more on TBTH Vegas.”
And was followed by a second post that read, “Michael Kaplan at my request had changed some info to make it less obviously me, the name of the bet switch probably got smudged in the process, good catch on the ID though. Coming soon a video breakdown of Richard's book "American Roulette" and his crew and their tactics.”
Hartley is referring to an article written by Michael Kaplan, a well known casino-subjects writer who often delves into the world of cheating and advantage play. The article profiles a “Cheater Catcher” using the pseudonym B.C. which stands for "Beating Cheaters" but in Hartley's case should stand for "Bullcrap." His reference to “the name of the bet switch probably got smudged…” is probably a coverup for his getting caught fabricating his false story of my blackjack and roulette cheating moves.
I don’t know why, but just yesterday Hartley admitted he was indeed B.C. and the subject of Kaplan’s article. Was he challenged or is this a new attempt at self-publicity for his latest casino game protection venture?
In the article, Hartley goes on a self-aggrandizing diatribe how he caught just about every cheat and every cheat move from here to eternity. He claims he busted highly professional card-marking teams. He claims he busted top organized professional roulette-cheat teams. Add to his busts-list the MIT Blackjack team and then to that Richard Marcus. Reading the article, if you believe it, would surely make you think Hartley is a walking state-of the-art surveillance system enhanced by a private army of gorilla take-down artists.
He makes such brash statements as “Death from above, baby!” referring to his catching everyone from the eye-in-the-sky and “It was a rush to take the MIT guys down” and “I spotted all kinds of shit that other people missed” and “Richard Marcus’ move was beautiful but I caught him too” and finally, the article says that Hartley “brags about the scalps he’s taken.”
Brag is the understatement of the year! And much of...if not all the bragging is pure bullshit.
Take Richard Marcus for example. Hartley say’s he caught me. 
Really? Got any records of that, Jim? 
Of course he doesn’t. He never caught me. He lied that he did to pass himself off as some master casino-cheat catcher. The most likely scenario is that he learned about my blackjack move on which he claims to have caught me from Bill Zender, who at the time had Hartley listed as an associate on his website. 
I remember Hartley at the 2007 WGPC bragging how he had a video of me doing the move. He didn’t mention anything about catching me or anyone else doing the move, and the video didn’t show anyone in handcuffs or being removed from the blackjack table. In fact, I am not even sure if it was me in the video. The only thing you saw were the guy’s hands switching the chips. 
Lemme tell you something: I am long done in the casino-cheating business but If I took Jim Hartley by the hand and said, “Come with me, Jim, I wanna show you a blackjack pastpost move,” and did it right under his nose, he wouldn’t even see it let alone catch me. 
James Hartley is a zero with a capital Z and an asshole as well.
So as he was completely full of crap with that story, how can you believe anything of his other claims to cheat-catcher fame. His statement that his first captives were the MIT blackjack team…I would bet the odds of that being true are greater than a blackjack six-card-Charlie. Hartley duped the writer Kaplan with all this crap, and the writer should have done some fact-checking before submitting his article to “Cigar Aficionado” magazine.
In his posts, Hartley links to both the magazine article and my 2016 blog post about it, in which I guessed correctly that B.C was none other than James Hartley. How did I know it was Hartley? Simply because he’s the only person in the Game Protection field who speaks the way he speaks. The abrasive false bravado badass act is his trademark. He should not have bothered to hide behind the pseudonym. It was terribly obvious it was him. 
And now he is outted! If any of you doubt me, ask Hartley if he really ever caught Richard  Marcus. If he still says he did, then I don’t know what to tell you besides maybe he lives on another planet stroking his galactic ego. 
And now he says he says he’s gonna do a video breakdown of my book “American Roulette” and of my crew and my tactics. 
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH!
And he’s promising to tell this and more stories on his new TBTH Vegas venture…Ok, Jim, but let’s see some stories that are true, please. 
Does his TBTH stand for Try Being Totally Honest? I sure hope not. 
This guy is a pure liar...gross exaggerator on his best day. 
Okay, I didn’t want to get back into this garbage again, but I’m pulled back into it the way Michael Corleone was in “Godfather 3” Most of you have read my scathing article about the World Game Protection Conspiracy to blacklist me from US game protection. Lots of you thought I was full of shit. But remember, I don’t write unless I can prove it. And I can prove that Hartley not only never busted me but never was anywhere within a mile of any of my blackjack moves, the grand majority of which were done when he was still working in Atlantic City. 
So now that you know Hartley was full of it, maybe you might believe what I said in my WGPC article just a little bit more. 
And finally a word to the wise: I have said for a longtime now that many game protection consultants and trainers are nothing more than frauds. So if you’re looking to hire one, make a good choice. Avoid guys who make credibility claims that are self-aggrandizing nonsense. I make some self-promoting claims as well, but I am who I say I am and have done what I say I’ve done.
Okay…I can imagine that James Hartley is gonna be pissed as hell about this article. 
But, James, this is what you get for shooting off the mouth like a blowfish. 
It’s called “Death from below, baby!”

Did you see the Pacman Jones casino-cheating video? It's ridiculous!

Wait till you see this move!

Pacman Jones was arrested and charged with a casino-cheating offense for his blatant pastpost that can be seen on the second video on this page.

Take a look at the video and your first question might be, "Why wasn't the dealer arrested for not noticing it!" LOL That's how blatant the Pacman's cheat move was. The first thing that should have bugged the dealer immediately was how close Pacman's chips to be pastposted already were to the betting circle and the chips he originally bet.

GAME PROTECTION--I DO IT MY WAY...

And I think it works.

All Attendees Participate

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 surveillance 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 hypothetical circumstance that cameras did not exist. This is because floor supervisors and surveillance departments have become so dependent on the technology that many of their employees have very little knowledge of what cheating and advantage play are 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 protection 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.

Seminar structure is suited to your individual casino's needs. Apart from the basic course structure that applies to all casinos, upon arrival I spend as much time as I can conducting an "undercover" surveillance of your gaming pits and cage operations. Here I can determine its strengths and weaknesses and work specific training into the presentation. Dealer and supervisor performances are noted as well as how players are behaving and taking advantage of weaknesses.

Often I come across advantage players and cheats operating in the casino, and worse, dealers who are cheating in partnerships with players or stealing for themselves. This is definitely an important factor in all casinos.

Sometimes when I conduct seminars, the attendees are 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. I stress the urgent need for thorough communication between floor and surveillance staffs.

When I train table games departments separate from surveillance departments, I stress through examples and hypothetical situations how each department needs to thoroughly communicate with the other to achieve optimum game protection results.

In my seminars and training, all the attendees participate actively. I organize cheat and advantage-play teams and they work with me to demonstrate the various cheat-moves and scams. Nobody sleeps when I am there. Everyone is by my side at the tables. I get people involved, talking and asking questions, and at times they feel like they’re learning by themselves and I’m just there helping along.

One thing I like to do in blackjack and baccarat is have a few members of the casino floor and surveillance staffs, 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 these individuals before the seminar and taught them how to do cheating moves. Then when they actually do a cheating move during the seminar, the audience is shocked to see how easy it was for them to do it. This type of active-attendee participation works really well in generating more interest and closer attention from the audience.

It also adds some fun. My belief is that when the attendees enjoy themselves, they learn and retain a lot more from the seminar. Time permitting, I will tell a story or two about my experiences back in the day. Attendees seem to love that!

I do not do any tired-old PowerPoint presentations. I do not waste time going over videos of moves you have probably seen a thousand times. Nor do I try to dazzle attendees with memory and card tricks that have nothing to do with cheating casinos or advantage play. The only time I use video is for demonstrations of high-tech electronic games cheating using visual ballistics and slot machine cheating via cell phones and other equipment.

Everything is hands-on work on tables and throughout a casino setting. 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 use psychology to control floorpeople and avoid surveillance, how they cash out their chips, 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 chips, obtain them and cash them out without drawing suspicion.  For example, in my later cheating-days I worked exclusively with $5,000 chips and on some nights had more than $50,000 of chips to cash out. However, I never once in my life cashed out a single $5,000 chip. So how did I turn them into cash without raising eyebrows?

As far as direct training to surveillance departments 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 department and work with him/her alone before I meet the rest of the attendees. Then I teach him/her 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 person does it and of course no one sees it happen.

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 in history, 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, which is still the case in most casinos.

We would also discuss the high-tech scams, the baccarat edge-sorting and other current 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 may have been the first to do the infamous false-shuffle baccarat scam later done on a huge scale by the Tran organization 25 years later.

The seminar structure is determined by the different games in your casino and their relative importance to the casino drop. Each game is covered through all cheating and advantage play aspects. Sometimes during seminars we discuss my previous undercover observations in the casino and the weaknesses and vulnerabilities I documented, although some casinos prefer that such a discussion take place only with upper management.

Finally, at the end of the training, I give a 20-question quiz to everyone entitled "How good a casino-cheat-and-advantage-play-catcher are you now?" Then we go over it. The purpose is to see how much of my presentation the attendees retained.

I like to leave a property thinking that if a professional cheat or advantage-play team came to the casino three months later, the staff would catch on to a greater percentage of it than it would have before I'd been there. In fact, in some areas where gaming control is less rigid and permits, I actually arrange with casino surveillance and upper management to go back inside and actually do the cheat moves I'd taught the staff months earlier, and I am happy to say that they always catch a fair share of it right on the floor. Of course this cannot be done in all jurisdictions.
  
This is a general overview of how I work. Of course each training/seminar is tailored to the property depending on your exact needs and who will be attending.

Finally a note on choosing your game protection consultant/trainer, which although is self-promoting it is also true:

Many of them out there are ex-magicians who really have no firsthand knowledge of casino cheating, which has very little to do with sleight of hand. They talk the talk and sell themselves off as casino-cheating experts. Others evolve from casino surveillance experience, which of course imparts lots of knowledge to them, but alone it is still not enough to teach casino staffs how professional casino-cheat teams operate.

Good cheating-protection training is more than showing you video of sophisticated cheat-moves or even showing them on actual gaming tables in front of you. It is explaining to you HOW organized professional cheat-teams operate from start to finish; how they set you up for their moves, how they use psychology to control your floor staff and avoid surveillance interference, how in some cases they even get surveillance to unwittingly help them, and how they obtain and cash out their high-denomination chips without you picking up on them.

Most of today’s game protection trainers cannot teach you this…simply because they don’t know it. They do not have this type of experience, which is REALLY necessary to properly and completely train your table-games and surveillance staffs. 

I can teach you this...because I lived it for 25 years!

Same Nefarious Dominican Republic Casino Scam Keeps ensnaring American and Canadian Tourists

Do Not Follow Her!

I've written about this two or three times before. The scenario is always the same, and the targets are usually men lured by a sexy woman greeter at the casino entrance who gives a big flirtatious smile and hands over $25 or more in free gaming chips. She then says with a very alluring smile, "Come with me and I will lead you to the lucky table."

Lots of men oblige willingly and are led to that table, which usually has a game and a name of that game that no one's ever heard of. It is some kind of mixed version of keno and roulette and usually has the word "Super" to go with it.

Then they are told that they need to get to a hundred "points" that are needed to win a jackpot of $100,000. These points are won by the outcome of spins of a ball, and always within a few minutes the victims to this scam have...how many points?

You guessed it! Ninety-nine of course.

Then they are told by the dealer and "supervisor" that they are guaranteed to win the hundred grand if they keep playing. They are assured of securing that one-more-needed-point within a few more spins. But that next roll requires a bet of $1,000 or more, and when that doesn't win the needed single point, they are quickly reassured by the dealer that it was a real longshot that this happened.

Just one more bet will surely do it, they are told.

That one more bet is several thousand dollars. But what's six or eight thousand when you know $100,000 is coming your way?

Of course that spin miraculously loses again and the victims then find themselves out of cash, and then their credit cards are maxed-out, and they are given credit by the casino, and they know they should not accept it, but that hundred grand is still just one little, itzy-bitzy point away.

But it might as well be a hundred thousand miles away. Because it's never coming, and now the victims find themselves out of thousands in cash and credit, and still owe thousands more to the casino. Next they find themselves being hassled heavily by burly security guards to get the owed money from ATMs, and make emergency calls to their banks to get a credit extension for the money to pay up.

Finally the crooked debt is paid, and the casino lets them go with a free cup of coffee and maybe a breakfast. Their Caribbean vacation is ruined and their homecoming is not much better.

And when the revelation of being scammed hits them, they go to the cops and a bogus investigation ensues, the result always being that the crooked game is a concession leased out to an off-shore company (off-shore from the Dominican Republic...gimme a break!), and the casino's management knows nothing about it.

This is a devastating experience to for those  who are victimized by this scam.

If you want to see HOW devastating, listen to this interview with two recent victims.

My take: Since it is apparent that the Domincan government is not going to protect you against these casino scams and may even be benefiting from them, best is to stay out of Dominican Casinos, or at least avoid any games with big promises, especially those being hyped by sexy women.

Read the latest printed and audio version of this scam that happened at the Riu Bambu casino near Punta Cana here.

Dice Sliding...Let's get to the bottom of it...or top of it.

Did one of those aces slide?

I have often posted about ongoing and repetitive cheating scams that have no business being either. By that I mean they should neither be ongoing nor repetitive--but they are both. Lately, my articles on the subject have mostly been about cheating scams initiated by dealers and floor personnel, especially on baccarat tables.

But actually, the ongoing and repetitive scam that boggles my mind the most is on craps tables and it's called "dice-sliding."

We've all heard about it over and over again.
We've all read about it over and over again.
And many of us have seen it, perhaps not over and over again, but seen it.

So why then does this scam continue to be successful against so many casinos in so many jurisdictions?

To be honest, I don't know. And then again, you cannot apply logic to casino cheating, as I do know quite well since the majority of my casino cheating moves during a 25-year career absolutely defied logic and were successful mostly for that reason.

So, that said, because you have read and heard it over and over again, I am going to write one more time what dice-sliding is and how it can effectively be stopped.

Dice-sliding is when the shooter rolls the dice and one or both of them do not tumble end-over-end through the entire length of the roll. Therefore, it is an illegitimate roll.

What is a legitimate roll? Three things: 1) Both dice have to leave the shooter's hand at precisely the same time; 2) Both dice must tumble the entire length from the shooter's release until the end of the roll; 3) Both dice must hit the back wall and tumble back toward the shooter until they land.

It is THAT simple. If craps crews strictly enforce those three requirements on their games, dice-sliding can be almost but not 100% totally eliminated, in spite of the sliders' strategic positioning and diversionary bets at the table. Those dice-sliders who can overcome these enforced requirements...well, I guess we'll just have to let them.

Three important things to note. The first is that speed bumps and wires running across the craps table to prevent dice-sliding are as ridiculous as they are ugly, at least in my opinion. Good sliders can get by those obstacles simply by avoiding the dice contacting them. And too boot, if the dice hit the back wall and tumble back, the bumps and wires wouldn't matter even if they were effective.

The second thing, extremely important, is that once a "No Roll" is called by either the stickman or boxman (if boxmen exist in your casino), the stickman should immediately go out and knock his stick into one of the dice before it stops on a number. This action prevents the players at the table from seeing what number would have come out, and therefore prevents all kinds of problems and arguments between customers and casino personnel.

Just imagine one of your trusted high-rolling craps players with thousands of dollars on the layout when he has a big winner on a dice-slide that looked really good and legitimate. You might soon find yourself minus one big craps player!

And finally, note the difference between a legitimate tumble and a very good but illegitimate spin. Good sliders can tumble one of the dice while spinning the other in a fashion that makes it look like a legitimate tumble. In this action, the die spinning is rotating and gives the impression that is tumbling when it isn't.

Like Forest Gump says in the movie, "That's all I have to say about that."

And I will not write this article over and over again!

Watch Out for the Asian Dealer-Made-a-Mistake Baccarat Scam!

WATCH OUT!

Over the weekend I read an article about the Star Casino in Sydney, Australia suing a baccarat player from Singapore over A$43.2 million it says he owes in baccarat losses. The Singaporean gambler, Wong yew Choy, is not paying up, however.

Choy does not dispute he lost the money, but he does say that he lost the money only because the baccarat dealer on the game where he lost it made mistakes.

This story immediately reminded me of a current big-time baccarat scam out there. I do not know if Mr. Choy is using the same scam to try to defraud the Star Casino, but I do know a scam that several groups of high-limit baccarat players use to defraud casinos all over the world.

The "Asian" baccarat scam is not limited to Asian baccarat players, but I've been told it may have originated in Asia, and I know it is carried out all over the world, from major gambling capitals to US Tribal casinos.

Here's how it works:

These players always play in groups, and they are not hardcore cheats, but they will take huge shots at you if you give them the chance.

They play normally without cheating. They wait patiently for a dealer to make a mistake on the third-card rule, which does not happen often, but it does happen. For those of you Table Games people who have dealt or supervised baccarat, you know that the most common dealer error on the third-card rule is when the Bank hand is 3 and the Player hand hits a third-card 8. The Player hitting an 8 against the Bank 3 is the only time the Bank will stand after the Player takes a third card.

I myself, a former baccarat dealer, remember that I made more mistakes in that hand-situation than any other.

So...back to the baccarat group waiting for that mistake...It indeed comes but guess what?...they don't say a word, even if that third-card-draw error cost them money.

Instead, on the next hand, and with a sudden fury like a tidal wave, the entire group bets the maximum on either Player or Banker, all of them betting on the same side. They will hurriedly sign markers to get more chips if they don't have enough in front of them to make the maximum bet.

That next hand is dealt. If they win, great!

If they lose?

What do you think happens? Do you know?

Of course you know!

They claim the mistake the dealer had made on the previous hand. The Table Games supervisor asks them why they didn't claim the mistake when it happened. The group replies that they just realized it!

Sure! (sarcastic). If there's one thing I can tell you it's that these baccarat players know the third-card rule as well as any Table Games person who's been dealing and watching the game for 30 years!

So surveillance is called and the previous hand is reviewed, and sure enough the dealer mistakenly hit that banker hand of 3 after the player drew an eight. The floor supervisor immediately stops the game and instructs the dealer to rectify the amounts paid and taken on the previous hand in accordance with the surveillance review.

But wait one second! Do you think for another second that this high-rolling baccarat group is going to be satisfied with that?

Of course not!

So the lead player (these groups almost always have a lead player whose bets the others follow) declares that the mistake on the previous hand led to their losing this current hand, and therefore they want their lost money back.

Even if going back through the played cards shows that they still would have lost the big hand anyway, the group leader will claim that the whole karma of the shoe went bad because of the mistake, and that in their culture this is the same as the order of the cards being changed for the worse.

Of course the supervisor, and by now the shift manager who surely had arrived at the table, won't have any of this nonsense, but then the group throws them the malicious curveball.

The leader says, "If you don't give us the money back for that bad-karma hand, we will take our action elsewhere and never come back here again!

Voila!

Any Table Games executive's first thought might be to say to the group, "Go ahead and take your action somewhere else."

But on second thought, that executive may think, "Wait a minute! This group of big-time baccarat players is good for $ 2 million a year in losses." Then he or she looks at the table and sees 9 maximum bets of $10,000 each. So it's $90,000 the group wants returned to them.

Only $90,000.

So what does the casino do? The group's threat may be real, depending upon where this actually happens. If it happens in Macau or Las Vegas, where they can play high-stakes baccarat in dozens of different casinos, sure as hell they can get up all pissed-off and you never see them again.

But if you happen to be the only high-stakes baccarat casino within a few light years, you can call their bluff.

I have witnessed this ugly scam firsthand one time. I will not name the casino, but they sure as shit refunded the money.

So, how do you protect yourself from this? The first thing is reduce your dealers' third-card-rule mistakes as much as humanly possible.

How do you do that? You make sure that your best baccarat dealers are on the games and that the ones learning break into these games slowly, by dealing significant periods of time on slower, lower action games.

Beware of this scam!

Rash of Cheating and Stealing incidents at Vancouver, B.C. Casinos

Evidently, casinos in the beautiful Canadian province of British Columbia are having some compliance problems with cheating and other unlawful incidents. This is the second wave of such incidents that I can remember.

Parq Casino Vancouver

The first incident, of course, was another clumsy yet effective insider-dealer cheating scam that saw three dealers on card games at the Parq Casino passing off chips to their player agents, netting some $120,000. The dealers were fired and formally charged with crimes.

The second incident, again no surprise, was a case of money laundering at the River Rock Casino. No details were given except that the crimes date back to 2017.

A third incident was, however, a bit surprising. Apparently some former River Rock dealers have gone into business for themselves, but not the usual way by cheating in collusion against the house. These enterprising dealers decided to open up their own casino! Which, of course, is illegal. Their casino was duly raided.

Back at the Parq casino, a worker from Coquitlam's Hard Rock Casino was caught using phony chips to obtain cash. I don't know if he was arrested, but the Hard Rock Casino did fire him.

And, finally...and thankfully, the last two incidents reported, believe it or not, were the theft of a cigarette lighter and cigarettes by one Chances Casino employee from another, and the theft of two chocolate bars from a concession stand by a Penticton gaming employee.

My take: Well, if Vancouver Casinos can cut this rash of dishonest incidents to just stealing cigarettes and chocolate bars, that might be an acceptable result!

2nd Major Advantage-Play Win Recorded at Online Casino..Major Stuff!.

Golden but Beatable!

I bet nearly everyone out there has believed and still believes that, apart from hacking, there is no way to beat online non-poker casino games.

Is everyone right?

Absolutely not!

Since Super Bowl weekend 2019, two online casino games offered by New Jersey online casinos have been beat hard, brick-and-mortar-casino style.

They are the Golden Egypt game and the Ocean Magic game. And the take between the two online casino beatings, ,engineered by the same group of advantage players who play both in B&M and online casinos, totalled some $1.5 million.

So how did this happen?

The same reasons that make some table games in B&M casinos beatable: mainly the games' designers, sometimes advantage players themselves, overlooking the true odds of a game and not doing the mathematics.

This does not happen often but it does happen. The biggest B&M casino example of this is when professional gambler Don Johnson saw a huge advantage-play opportunity on Atlantic City blackjack games. He simply calculated that casino rebates to induce big-action play made the game of blackjack vulnerable to advantage play, shifting the odds in his favor.

Johnson ended up beating Atlantic City casinos for a cool $15 million before they wised up.

My suggestion to games designers and casino operations...DO THE MATH!

Read the article about this here.