Does Every Poker Cheating Dog Have Its Day?

What do I mean by this? well, if your native language is English you have surely heard this expression. Generally it means that every bastard or bitch in the world who takes advantage of, robs, or CHEATS other people eventually has his day of reckoning where he or she in turn becomes the victim. In this case I am talking about poker cheats who constantly cheat the poker games both in brick and mortar poker room casinos and online. The cheating dogs who work the live poker rooms and home games are quite more likely to "have their day" (get caught, busted or beat-up) than their fellow or unfellow online poker cheats. This is simply because they are in physical reality when plying their cheating trade. They can be accosted, detained, arrested, and in some cases, especially home games, have the royal shit kicked out of them and even be killed!

But the online cheating dogs work behind the cloak of non-identity and cyberspace, and when they are caught they have the luxury of using their cyberknowledge to come right back at you under different user names, IP addresses, etc. And even when they are identified, as was the case with Russ Hamilton, the crooked mastermind behind the biggest online poker scandal ever, the UltimateBet.com insider hole card-scam (biggest ANY poker scam ever), it is extremely unlikely that that dog will have its day. I mean, after all, does anyone think Russ Hamilton, the real ALPHA DOG of poker cheating, will ever have his day?

I highly doubt it!

Latest Blackjack Cheat Caught in Pennsylvania Casinos is Philadelphia Police Officer!

Surprised? Well, in spite of the cheating free-for-all taking place on Pennsylvania casinos' new table games, it's a bit surprising, to say the least, that a Philadelphia cop took a shot at joining the blackjack cheating epidemic.

This latest and somewhat embarrassing incident took place at the Parx Casino near Bensalem. But at least the accused cop/blackjack cheater showed a littly more mettle than the herd of blackjack bet-capping cheats plaguing PA's baby casinos. Apparently he was caught with a card-counting device, which violates the Pennsylvania casino law prohibiting play with any digital or electronic equipment abetting you. The blackjack cheating officer has been identified as John Gallagher, and although the Philadelphia Police Department has offered no comments on the blackjack cheating case, Gallagher has immediately retired from the law-enforcement job he has held for more than thirty years. He has not yet been charged with a crime, and I would not be surprised if he never is...I mean, come on, they gotta give one of Philadelphia's "finest" a break...and by "finest" I am not talking about blackjack cheats!

My take: Well, using a card-counting device to me is not a great feat or even a real intention of cheating, but practically all American gaming jurisdictions treat doing so as a felony...Hate to see a cop go down for this.

UK Chip-Counterfeiter Gets 18 Months in Prison!...Before Passing off the First Fake Chip!

A twenty-year-old UK resident identified as Augustin Dago was sentenced to 18 months in the British brig after being convicted of defrauding casinos by counterfeiting their chips.

Dago contacted various casino-chip manufacturers in the UK saying that he wanted £25-denomination chips for his own personal card games. He sent photos of the specific London Gala casinos' chips that he wanted. Back in 2009 he had used a phony driver's license to become a member of two Gala casinos in London and also opened bank accounts with the false identification, apparently thinking there would be lots of ill-gotten booty to deposit.

Dago's plan went awry when one of the chip-manufacturing companies recognized the Gala Casino chip design he had requested on his order and notified the police. The London Clubs and Vice Squad arrested Dago and searched his apartment, finding photos of the chips, lists of the chip-manufacturing companies he'd contacted and copies of his orders. Confronted with the evidence, Dago quickly admitted his plan to cash in the phony chips at the Gala casinos and deposit his funds into the bank account opened under the phony names, in effort to launder the money back to a legitimate account in his real name.

London Detective Inspector Ann Marie Waller said, "This was a calculated attempt to commit fraud against one of the major gaming groups in the UK. Due to the quick thinking of both the chip-manufacturer and Gala Coral Group Limited, Augustin Dago was stopped from circulating counterfeit casino cash chips."

My take: What I don't get is why Dago confessed. As far as I can tell, he was accosted by the cops before trying to pass off the counterfeit chips in the casinos, so no crime had as yet been committed. As well, I don't understand why the London coppers didn't wait and let Dago make his cash-out moves inside the casino. Well, I guess the coppers got lucky this time.

Stupidity of Cambodian Casino Allows it to Fall Victim to $1.4 Million Baccarat Scam...Using Automatic Shuffle Machine to Boot!

I have heard of stupid casinos before, and taken advantage of many in my day, but the NagaWorld casino in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, takes the cake!

The casino uses automatic card shufflers on its baccarat tables but then permits the dealers to manually shuffle after the cards have already been automatically shuffled. What's the point to the automatic shuffler? you, as well as I, are asking yourselves. Well, the NagaWorld (what the hell does NagaWorld mean anyway?) casino says that the manual shuffle is done as a courtesy to high-rolling baccarat players who want to be sure the automatic card-shuffle machine is not cheating them...LOL!

Come on, gimme a break! Like these high rollers are gonna walk outta the casino if the manual shuffle were refused them.

Here's how the gang of baccarat cheats did it:

Using three women dealers and a tiny digital camera, a pair of Malaysian men recorded the manual shuffle then relayed the order-of-card info back to themselves at the table via a high-tech communication center outside the casino, most likely in a vehicle parked in the vicinity.

The casino finally wised up after the continual abnormal win-rates for the group of players and arrested one of the dealers. But the other two and the players at the table got away with the cash and presumably split the country. The captured dealer spilt her guts on her accomplices.

NagaWorld says it will review its policy of permitting their dealers to do the manual shuffle...gee, how smart they are!!! An official at the casino enlightened the casino world with these remarks: "Players will always be looking to find ways to cheat casinos and electronic ways of cheating are harder to detect than most. Casinos increasingly have to rely on monitoring how much players are winning and seeing if it really is plausible. Everyone thinks it’s easy being the house and you always win but this demonstrates that it really isn’t as simple as you’d think."

My take: I think this post says it all!

Attention RFID and Digital Technology Video Surveillance Vendors: I Will Promote Your New Products at G2E and Other International Gaming Trade Shows!

That's right. I have been recently getting involved in promoting new products aimed at better protecting the integrity of live casino games and slot machines throughout the world. What I do is personally represent your product, whether it be RFID technology built into casino chips or the latest improvement to digital surveillance systems, on the floor of gaming shows, conferences and related events around the globe.

When prospective casino customers see Richard Marcus, the world's greatest casino cheat, endorsing a product promising to enhance game and slot protection as well as the integrity of the entire gaming floor operation, they will be more likely to buy your products than your competitors'.

If you are interested in having me represent your products, get in touch with me and we'll go from there.

Hall of Fame Casino Cheat Busted at Caesars Palace!

Well, I have always said that when my inglorious road comes to an end, I want to be buried on the grounds of my favorite casino, Caesars Palace, from which my cheat-teams I took millions. For fellow Hall of Fame Casino Cheat Brent Eli Morris, he may be getting buried there right now...alive!

Morris, who probably holds the record for amount of times arrested and convicted for cheating casinos and who is also an inductee in Nevada's infamous Black Book of casino-excluded persons, was arrested on Wednesday by Nevada state Gaming Control Board agents while he was at a craps table at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Morris, whose cheating specialty over the years has been pastposting on craps tables, was not charged with an actual casino-cheat crime but rather with unlawfully entering a Nevada casino. Once you are listed in the state's Black Book you cannot legally enter a casino in Nevada, and if you do you are automatically charged with criminal trespassing.

Caesars Palace surveillance personnel first notified the Gaming Control Board Enforcement Division that a man who resembled Morris was playing craps at the rear of the casino. It was later determined that Morris had been doing the same on September 16 at the Excalibur casino. When taken into custody, Morris was in possession of numerous $500 casino chips from the Orleans casino, and it was determined that he'd been at their craps tables as well.

Morris is also on the New Jersey list of casino-excluded people. He has a long record of casino criminal convictions and has also been convicted of assault and battery, grand theft and fraud. He has spent 10 years in both Nevada and New Jersey prisons for cheating casinos.

My take: This guy has cheating in his blood and cannot help himself to stay out of casinos. If there ever was an addicted casino-cheat, Brent Eli Morris is it. I have no doubt that Morris had successfully cheated both the Orleans and Excalibur out of several thousand before he got nabbed at Caesars, where he was probably preparing more cheat-moves. The guy needs to get some good disguise work!

To read more about his Hall of Fame casino-cheating career, click here.

Cheating Online-Poker Money-Launderer Gets Six Months in Prison! What a Joke!

Source: USA Players News

The man found responsible for having illegally processed nearly $350 million in transactions on online poker sites PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker for two years from 2007 to 2009 was sentenced to the minimum six months probation by a New York Federal Court.

Douglas Rennick, is the infamous Canadian processor, who could have received 55 years behind federal bars had he been given the maximum sentence, but got off with just probation. Rennick admitted his guilt earlier in the process. “I had a business that transferred money from offshore gaming sites to American players within the Southern District of New York,” he said.

While the sentence may come across as soft, as part of a potential plea bargain, Rennick agreed to surrender $17.1 million of his assets to the Federal Government, which likely helped the sentence get reduced.
Additionally, it is believed that Rennick has helped investigators learn more about cheating and processing illegal funds online through Internet poker in the United States.

This is one of two cases in the news of processing illegal funds, as Daniel Tzvetkoff is alleged to have laundered $550 million and has reportedly begun to cooperate with law enforcement as well. FBI Agent Harold Copus said that Tzvetkoff has “turned the corner, seen the light and is co-operating.”

My Take: Again, crime ALWAYS Pays with online poker! If this guy forfeited $17 million, you can only imagine how much illegal online-poker booty he's got stuffed in his booties.

Rookie Casinos Overzealous in Busting Casino Cheats Getting in Trouble With the Law!

I have been blogging about new casinos in Pennsylvania, Delaware and other areas overzealously arresting casino cheats (in some case over $5), and now this practice appears to have jumped up and bitten one of these new casinos on the nose.

Derek Maple, a 27 year-old former blackjack dealer at the Mardi Gras Racing and Casino near Charleston, West Virginia, has sued the casino and two state agencies for false arrest, alleging they falsely accused him of cheating while dealing his blackjack game. He is also suing the casino, the West Virginia State Police and the Virginia Lottery Commission for civil rights violations, false imprisonment, mental anguish and damage to his reputation, self-esteem, among other things.

Back in September, 2009, the Mardi Gras casino and state police accused Maple of voluntarily revealing his hole card to players at his blackjack table. He was later arrested and booked, and at a preliminary hearing the charges were passed over to a grand jury for indictment. But the grand jury never indicted, and since a year had passed, the case was automatically dismissed under West Virginia law, opening up the door for Maple to sue, whether or not he was actually guilty of the casino-cheating charges. Maple is seeking unspecified damages, but to me it sounds like a lot! Probably millions.

And this is not the first false-arrest/civil rights-violation suit against the Mardi Gras casino and West Virgina state police over a casino case. A woman named Thuhuong Nguyen also filed suit last January, alleging she was wrongly arrested for cheating at gaming. Cheating charges against her were dropped after a review of video surveillance. The casino had accused her of being an accomplice of Maple in the hole-card cheat scam.

My take: You've all heard the poker saying "...gotta know when to hold 'em...know when to fold 'em," right? Well, these casinos gotta "know when to hold 'em...know when to let 'em go," right?

You bet

Just How Much Will Poker Bots Cheating Evolve in Online Poker?

The answer to that question is "LOTS!" You may have heard about the recent Korean and Chinese online poker-bot scandals, all of which have been significantly profitable, but this is just the tip of the "botberg!" Poker bots with artificial intelligence and anti-detection programming built-in are already good enough to be profitable in fifty to sixty percent of middle-limit and high-limit games, as well as tournaments. In the lower-limit games they are already cleaning up.

This situation will only get better for the botters. I predict that within 5 years sophisticated and VERY intelligent poker bots will dominate the online poker scene and consistently beat online poker's best "botless" players. I also think that within 7 years the majority of ALL online poker players will be using poker bots, for if they don't they will be at a real disadvantage.

My take on my take: Wise up now and get your bot!

Ex-PokerStars Employee Says That Giant Online Site Gave Up Battle Against Poker Cheats Online!

all the online poker sites are fighting an almost hopeless war against the cheats these days, and many of them, including PokerStars, the biggest of 'em all, are attributing it to the huge growth the entire industry is experiencing.

A former member of PokerStars' staff has said that the giant site even gave up on trying to stop the cheats. Speaking anonymously to the BBC "5 Live Investigates" program, he said, "We had a hard job keeping up, just because of the volume of complaints from players about suspected cheating incidents. Not that all of the complaints were legitimate...ninety-five percent were from bitter customers because they lost, and there was no collusion. But Pokerstars still pledged to investigate them all."

My take: At least the guy is honest!

However, the former employee went on to state that during his time working for the site, the staff turned off the automatic alerts that red-flagged possible cases of collusion and other forms of online poker cheating because they were simply overwhelmed by the huge number of alerts hitting the system.