Is There a Connection Between the Video Game Cheating World and the Online Poker Cheating World?

You may have heard about the major cheating scandal that has engulfed Blizzard Entertainment's hugely popular StarCraft video game. you may have also noticed a plethora of online websites offering cheat programs for this video game as well as many others. And then as well, you may have noticed that many of today's hotshot young poker players, both online and in the real brick and mortar poker world, have come to the "cheating game" (poker's original name in the Wild West) via online computer video games like StarCraft. To name a few: Justin Bonomo (multi-accounting cheat), Eric Froehlich, David Williams, Brock Parker (2 WSOP bracelets), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Daniel “rekrul” Schreiber. And there are of course many, many more.

The cheating scandal that has hit Starcraft seems to involve the Korean video games community more than any other, but this does not mean that the Koreans coming into online poker are more apt to be online poker cheats than the rest of the players coming from the video game world. Justin Bonomo is not Korean, neither are most of the known online multi-accounters and colluders who´ve had vast online video game experience. One thing to take note of is that video game popularity has grown at about the same rate as online poker popularity, so we have a general crossover of the young generation excelling in both worlds.

The StarCraft cheat scam began in 2006. Illegal gambling cheat rings have been using top-notch pro StarCraft players to throw matches. Also, camp directors and coaches have been collecting fees, and league and tournament organizers seem to have known about it all and are even tinkering with the possibility of coexisting with the cheat rings responsible for all the corruption.

As many of StarCrafts' big names are currently under investigation, we may see a mass emigration from that world into the online poker world, which in my opinion will absolutely boost the online cheating incidents we are all sick and tiref of! And take this a warning! And heed it in the brick and mortar cardrooms too. If you learn that one of your opponents online or off is an ex-video games pro, BEWARE!

In fact, get out of the game.

Shame on Daniel Negreanu For Calling Baseball "Complete Garbage"!

If you've read Daniel Negreanu's latest article for Card Player, you know that he wrote an unbridled attack against Major League Baseball. He actually had the gall to call it "complete garbage"! I have one comment to make on him (and his article).

Daniel Negreanu is an ASSHOLE!

Why am I so upset with him? Well, let's start with his article because there is more than just that and the fact he takes himself for some kind of sports and sports-betting guru. He states that baseball is garbage because the Yankees and the Red Sox buy up all the talented free agents and therefore take all the competitiveness out of the game. WRONG! Despite the Red Sox and the Yankees winning three of the last six World Series, there is still plenty of competition in baseball, lots of it coming from teams that do not have big bankrolls to buy free agents. All Negreanu has to do to see this reality is take a look at the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Look, I understand that baseball has been affected by free agency more than other professional sports, but baseball--just like poker, Danny Boy, is a business. And, while we're on the subject, I find it terribe that poker is even considered a sport and that a poker pro takes it upon himself to blog about his opinions on sports and betting on sports.

Speaking of which, Negreanu is so quick to criticize baseball and question its credibility, but does he tell you about all the COMPLETE GARBAGE that he's involved in? Take a look at his mug playing High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network. Talk about complete garbage! Negreanu doesn't tell you or write about how full of shit that is. Instead he lets you and me believe that he, Sam Farha, Brunson, Jennifer Harmon and the rest of them are really playing for all those hundreds of thousands, instead of telling us the truth that its all hyped-up bullshit for ratings and big money for them for their TV appearances. He also doesn't mention that any money won or lost at the High Stakes Poker Table is just for show, whether or not the network execs are in on it. In fact, if you want to read the real facts about High Stakes Poker, click here for my article on it that has appeared in several poker magazines.

So in short, Negreanu, why don't you just stick to your poker and keep your mouth shut about stuff you know nothing about...or about scams like High Stakes Poker that you participate in.

Why Good Blackjack Pastposts Continue to Dupe the World's Casinos

Hardly a week goes by that I don't find an online news article about improvements made to casino video surveillance systems that are sure to reduce casino cheats' success rate to zero. In the last three days alone, I have read five such articles about video surveillance improvements in casinos in Singapore and Australia, not to mention that both are areas getting hammered by professional casino cheat teams.

These articles, obviously written by reporters and journalists who know nothing about cheating casinos and only write verbatim what casino officials tell them during interviews, make me laugh! I know from tons of firsthand experience that all these video-systems improvements only serve AFTER the fact. They don't help casino dealers and supervisors against cheating WHILE the cheating is actually going on. Why is this so true? Because good casino cheats know how to offset surveillance systems. What they do is employ strategy setups with built-in psychology that fool the human beings on the casinos' floors so that video surveillance never comes into play. Don't forget, I am talking about skilled casino-cheat teams. The cameras will of course catch the scores of amateur and desperado cheats, but a talented cheat doing moves such as the fabled blackjack ten-oh-five will overcome whatever improvements are made to security and surveillance.

The point I'm making is that casinos, if they truly want to stop or reduce the success of the real professional cheats, need to have their HUMAN BEINGS trained in the art of casino cheating. This way their staff will know WHEN to call surveillance for video verifications.

Poker Cheat Nick Grudzien Now Facing Solid Collusion Evidence Against Him in Full Tilt and PokerStars Online Cheat Scams!

Source: flopturnriver.com

Three weeks ago, StoxPoker.com founder and high stakes poker pro Nick Grudzien admitted to using multiple accounts on Full Tilt and PokerStars but denied charges that he was colluding. Earlier today, NoahSD posted a detailed investigative report on the 2+2 high stakes forum proving the accusations to be true.

The full report, which you can see here, is a detailed analysis of the preflop play between the suspected players. Noah also produced a summary of his report that you can see here.

Noah showed that Nick Grudzien colluded with his friend and business partner Robert Papps by analyzing the number of times they 3-bet against each other compared to against other players. He showed that the variation in their play could not be justified through strategic reasons or through random chance. His post was met with wide acclaim and applause from the 2+2 community, who confirmed his analysis and thanked him for his work. They also heavily criticized Full Tilt and PokerStars, who were alerted that the players were colluding over a year ago, but failed to properly investigate the situation.

While colluding, Grudzien played under his false accounts “40putts” on Full Tilt and “knockstiff” PokerStars. His friend played as “Kinetica” and “LittleZen.” Both of the players employed a short stack strategy. Under this type of play, a player generally plays with a 20BB stack and either shoves or folds against preflop opening raises. Noah’s analysis showed that they only 3-bet 1-2% of hands when playing against each other. This represents a range of KK+, AK, which is far lower than against any other players, and far too low to make sense with their strategies.

Noah found that these two players put in more hands against each other than against anyone else, sat next to each other whenever possible, and had highly correlated session times. He also proved that these stats could not reasonably have occurred by random chance. He undertook this investigation and report because he was outraged by Grudzien’s actions and by Full Tilt and PokerStars failure to detect the cheating.

Some posters pointed out that Noah’s analysis clearly shows softplaying, but not colluding. In response, Noah said that the only difference is a matter of intention, and that “if you have to prove intention in order to prove collusion, then we’d never be able to prove that people colluded unless they were dumb enough to admit it.” He added, “I proved that they played exactly like cheaters would. I showed that they had no rational reason for doing this except to cheat.”

2+2 Sponsored Coach “boywonder” called the report “Very clearly outlined deductive work… I could see that they were colluding without a doubt, and this proves that without that evidence having to be released.” He too criticized the two poker networks, demanding that the accounts be frozen and all money used to refund the players they colluded against. “If refunds are not made, I would expect Stars to make their investigation public and refute the evidence brought forward here by Noah,” he said.

Noah and the 2+2 community is still awaiting a response from Full Tilt and PokerStars. Grudzien has not responded to the report, and there is no word on whether or not the disputed money is still in his online accounts.

Thanks to Noah and his associates for their excellent work revealing this scandal.

Australia's Star City Casino To Beef Up Surveillance Tech In Wake of Cheating Blitz!

Australia has been a great cheat haven for professional casino and poker teams for a long time now, at least since the days when I was beating their pants off in the '90s. Now officials of the Star City Casino in Sydney have announced that they're going to beef up their surveillance systems in an attempt to catch...or at least thwart some of the cheating.

According to its plan, Star City Casino will increase its total number of video cameras by 50 per cent within the next 18 months. They say they are particularly concerned with cheating going on at table games, especially blackjack and baccarat, where dealer-insider false-shuffle scams have hit hard the past 20 years. As of now, Star City has some 1200 cameras that cover its gaming space, which includes a special high rollers salon. Currently, surveillance inspectors have been catching lots of chip and slot-credit snatchers, and they say they have caught twice as many cheats in the past 12 months than in the previous 12 months, but obviously they know they are getting beat twice as much as well.

According to Star City's numbers, 446 cases of thefts and casino cheating have been reported since Jan. 1, 2009, about 30 per month. Previous figures released by the New South Wales Casino Control Authority reported 177 incidents of theft, fraud and cheating during a twelve-month span from June 2008 to June 2009.

"We don't believe there's been a rise in crime. There has been an increase in the number of criminals apprehended," a Star City Casino spokesman told the press. Those cheats have included using stolen and counterfeit casino chips as well as marked cards.

My take: Well, I think that Star City spokesman left a lot out of his statement. I personally know that the casino, as well as others Down Under, have been hit repeatedly by roulette pastposting teams, blackjack card counters and have also been victimized by Asian baccarat cheats bribing dealers as the Tran Organization did in the US and Canada. Its increased surveillance cameras will only help a little. As I have always said, well-trained personnel in the area of anti-cheating does a lot more for casino security than whatever high-tech equipment they can bring in.

Tran Organization Blackjack Dealer Gets Light Sentence For Ripping Off Mohegan Sun

Source: theday.com

A U.S. District judge sentenced former Mohegan Sun table games dealer Jesus Rodriguez Wednesday to two months in federal prison and three years' supervised release for participating in a card cheating scam operated in Connecticut and throughout the country by the San Diego-based Tran Organization.

Judge Mark R. Kravitz also ordered Rodriguez and others involved to re-pay the casino $126,000. The 40-year-old Groton man had admitted to being recruited by the organization, getting coached on performing "false shuffles" and helping the organization to steal more than $100,000 from the Uncasville casino in blackjack and baccarat games. He performed the false shuffle two or three times and was paid $2,500 to $4,000 each time, according to a court document.

Through the scheme, a co-conspirator tracked the order of cards as they were legitimately played, and then Rodriguez performed a false shuffle, creating a "slug" of un-shuffled cards. A co-conspirator tracked the cards until the slug reappeared as they were being dealt, then signaled to others as to how to bet on the subsequent hands in order to cheat the casino.

More than 30 people nationwide have been charged in an investigation led by Department of Justice Criminal Division's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. The cheating schemes occurred at more than two dozen casinos in the United States and Canada. Rodriguez had faced a lengthier sentence under federal guidelines. His attorney, Jeremiah Donovan, argued for a reduction, citing Rodriguez's prior lack of a criminal record and his history as a hard-working, law-abiding citizen. Each false shuffle lasted about 10 seconds, Donovan noted, "So the length of Mr. Rodriguez's overt activity in furtherance of the conspiracy was thus about 30 seconds."

Rodriguez, who had worked at the casino since 2001, resigned in 2009 after hearing he would be indicted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael S. McGarry argued Rodriguez's actions hurt the casino owners and employees as well as the state of Connecticut, which receives a portion of the casino's revenues.

Indiana Card-Counting Case Goes to Court

Source: businessweek.com

An Indianapolis man banned from a riverboat casino's blackjack table because he counts cards just wants the casino to follow the rules, same as he does, his attorney told the Indiana Supreme Court on Wednesday.

"Grand Victoria has admitted that my client did nothing wrong," said Marc Sedwick, Tom Donovan's attorney.

The casino on the Ohio River at Rising Sun maintains that it, like any private business, has the common-law right to choose not to do business with anyone "for any reason or no reason," casino attorney Peter Rusthoven said.

But Justice Frank Sullivan Jr. had an idea what the reason might be.

"What you object to about him is that he's too good," he told Rusthoven.

Donovan, a retired computer programmer, said he's won about $65,000 playing blackjack since 1999. He learned to count cards by taking an online class in it after hearing a radio station interview an expert card counter.

Donovan sued the Grand Victoria Casino and Resort after it banned him from the blackjack table in 2006. The casino won the suit in a Marion County court, but the state appeals court reversed that decision and the casino asked the high court to weigh in.

"I'm not cheating at all. It's just using my brain," Donovan said.

Neither the state nor the casino has rules forbidding card counting, Sedwick said. In fact, he argued, state guidelines encourage players to keep track of their own scores.

Rusthoven countered that that applied only to the cards laid out on the table, not those left in the deck.

The core of the dispute comes down to which set of rules should apply: the common law that predates legalized gambling or the state regulations governing gaming. Sedwick pointed to a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that cited that state's regulations in siding with a card counter who had been banned from a casino there.

"Gaming is a statutory creature" that didn't exist in common-law times, Sedwick argued, so state regulations should apply. Those regulations don't bar card counting, and the casino never asked the state gaming commission to enact a rule forbidding it, he said.

"The issue this court faces," Rusthoven said, "is whether the common-law right to exclude anybody for any reason or no reason has been abrogated by the commission's silence."

He argued it hadn't, and the commission couldn't be expected to anticipate every possible circumstance in its rules.

"Everybody who watches movies knows if somebody tries to count cards, casinos don't like it sometimes," Rusthoven said.

State Gaming Commission Director Ernie Yelton said that before the Court of Appeals ruling, it was generally understood that common law allowed casinos to ban card counters, as they are allowed to do in most states. He said two or three casinos approached the commission since the Court of Appeals decision, seeking a rule granting them the specific authority to bar card counters.

But the commission is waiting to see what the court decides, Yelton said.

"We're not taking a position on this," he said. "I respect the authority of the court in these decisions."

Rat Gets Major French/Spanish Roulette Pastposting Team Busted in Singapore Resorts World Sentosa Casino!

As I have been reporting, the casino cheating assault, both professional and amateur, has been ongoing at a ferocious pace inside Singapore's recently opened giant Resorts World Sentosa Casino. In prior posts I have stated that the cheats getting busted were strictly of the rank amateur level, but yesterday, Resorts World bagged its first major cheat team. But I must mention that it was by no means due to clever work by Sentosa's rookie surveillance department. The bust happened because a "rat" (a legitimate gambler at a table who alerts the casino that he or she saw a cheat move go down) playing on the same roulette table squealed on the cheats when he saw the move go down. Rats are generally not a problem for cheats in casinos, as most people prefer to mind their own business and not get involved, but during my 25-year cheating career they were occasionally a problem.

In this case, the 3-man cheat team, two middle-aged Frenchman, Fabrice Thierry Laurent Michel and Reynald Georges Victor Lasnel, and an older Spaniard, Jose Lopez Pintado, who have been around for decades and who I know and have seen from time to time working the same casinos as my cheat teams, apparently had an internal security breakdown as they did not act right nor follow good internal control and security procedures upon knowing they had heat. In fact, it seems that they have a lot more names than brains!

A week before getting caught, one of Frenchman pastposted (bet after the outcome was known) a large bet at a roulette wheel in the same casino and was in the process of getting paid before the rat started squealing. Instead of trying to smooth out the situation and control the heat, which is what I was taught is the only course of action in a rat situation by the legendary Classon cheats, the Frenchman panicked and left the table without picking up his bet and payoff. (You always gotta take the money!)

After that kind of mishap, an experienced casino cheat team has got to know that leaving town fast is a must! You have to assume that surveillance ran back the tapes, saw the move cleanly, and are waiting for you the next time you come back to the casino, if that is any time soon, which it should NOT be. But the European pastpost team behaved as if nothing had happened and returned to the casino just days later. They repeated their same move on two occasions, which is an efficient roulette slide move also done by professional Italian roulette cheat teams, and, as communication between surveillance and table games supervisors is often weak, the roulette dealers and pit supervisors had not been alerted to the prior events and paid the pastpost team a total of $13,400. However, surveillance was watching out for the team and got lucky to see them in the act on the second move. Security grabbed up the team as they were heading to the cashier to cash out their chips (another surprising mistake as delayed cash-out operations should have been employed), and turned them over to the Singapore cops. As I understand it, Singapore's laws regarding cheating in casinos have been set up to be strict, and the cheats face up to 10 years in prison!

My Take: Well...grudgingly...kudos to the Resorts World Sentosa surveillance team for at least not blowing the bust (this often happens when they have cheats dead to rights), and SHAME on you, Frenchman and Spaniard, for really acting amateurish when you're supposed to be one of the top casino roulette cheat teams in the world.

Cheating Roulette Dealers Working Indian Tribal Reservation Casinos With Their Agents!

I have just returned from a tour of Tribal (or Native American) casinos across the United States and found a little surprise in four different tribal casinos. Besides the usual rinky-dink casino scams that abound not only in these but in all American casinos, I stumbled upon four separate cases of cheating roulette dealers, and each one of them was pretty good. Since they were all working similar inside scams, I got to wondering whether this was a highly organized multi-tribal casino scam in the works, perhaps the first evidence of a Tran Organization-type scam transferring from baccarat tables to roulette wheels.

In each scenario I witnessed, the dealer was laying down the cheat moves for his agent, to whom he paid the winning chips. After the ball dropped into the slot for the winning number, the dealer would sweep the losing chips off the layout as usual. Then he paid the winning bets on the outside, such as the dozen-bets, column-bets, odd-even bets and red-black bets. The cheat moves were then performed as the dealer shifted his (and hers--I spotted one female dealer in the act) attention on the winning chips on the inside of the layout surrounding the winning number. When the dealer picked up the dolly atop the winning number to verify and re-stack the chips underneath, he very deftly dropped two or three chips that he'd already had palmed in his hand onto the stack. This was done only when there were already at least two winning chips on the number, as the dealers wisely knew that the cameras above could see whether or not there were winning chips on the number but could not tell how many there were. Only in cases when the cameras are zoomed in on the winning number from different angles would they be able to see how many chips are lying there. This would occur only when casino surveillance was looking for this type of move, which in reality is never. It didn't matter to the cheating dealers whether the chips legitimately bet on the winning number were their cohorts' or not. As long as chips were already there, the dealers continued putting the "icing on the cake."

I cannot name these casinos at this time for a variety of reasons, but it doesn't really matter because the dealers are cheating only the house and not the players, so if you happen to be on one of these reservation roulette wheels while this goes down, it will not affect your win or loss at all.

My take: Pretty good scam that will go on quite awhile as long as the dealers and their agents don't get to greedy. While I watched them in action, they took about $150 to $250 per hour off the tables.

Woman Looking to Sue Colorado Casino Over $43 Million Slot Jackpot Cheat Case!

Source: dailyfinance.com

If Louise Chavez's experience at a Central City, Colo. casino was memorialized on a tee shirt, it might read something like this: "I won $42.9-million at Fortune Valley Casino and all I got was a lousy breakfast."

While celebrating her birthday at the casino, Chavez hit pay dirt on a penny slot machine. The machine's payout window confirmed that she had won an eight-figure sum and, naturally, she was ecstatic. But then casino officials told her that the winnings were in error. Five hours later, they insisted that the machine would need to be inspected before a correct payout could be determined. In return for her patience and disappointment, the casino offered to comp her a night at a hotel, refund the $23 that she put into the machine and provide a free breakfast. She took the breakfast.

Will Chavez End Up a Multi-Millionaire?

Considering the Colorado Gaming Department's assertion that this particular type of slot machine is designed to pay off no more than $250,000, does Chavez have a shot at collecting anything close to $42.9-million – an amount which, she had been told, is more than the entire casino is worth?

"Her likelihood is slim," says Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff, a go-to guy for clients who range from the town's biggest poker pros to celebrities like Britney Spears and Sug Knight. "If it's a factual mistake, the gaming authority will back the casino. If Colorado is anything like Nevada, whatever gaming says is what it will be unless she can show any kind of fraud."

Asked if he would handle this case, Chesnoff offers up an unequivocal "No!"

Maybe Chavez would have better luck with lawyer Bob Nersesian. Also based in Vegas, he's known as an aggressive player's advocate and once succeeded in getting a faulty slot machine payout resolved in the gambler's favor. "I got a $100,000 jackpot for a guy who played a machine that was programmed never to pay out more than nine grand," he says. "It was a similar kind of mistake; a mechanism inside the machine had been misprogrammed." But, says Nersesian, that case happened during a different time. "Today, I don't think I would win that case," he says.

In all likelihood, whether it's right or wrong, Chavez will receive whatever the proper payout should be based on what came up on the wheels, not the sum of money that flashed on the screen, says Nersesian. She and her attorney may have a bone to pick with the slot-machine manufacturer, with which the casino probably has an indemnity agreement, he says.

Even Nersesian, who wrested a large settlement from a casino and the Las Vegas police department after a blackjack player was wrongfully imprisoned for cheating, can see the excesses of this situation given that the $42.9 million is more than the casino is worth. "Bottom line, they are not going to shut down the casino for this. And, in all reality, that is what they'll be doing if they give her the $42.9 million," he says.