Well, for those of you who don't recall the "Peeker" hole-card reading software I wrote about in my book "Dirty Poker," read this article that recently appeared in the New York Times. Not many people wanted to believe me when I exposed this type of cheating in online poker, but as John Lennon said in his song "Imagine," "I'm not the only one..."
September 20, 2007, 9:42 am
How Not to Cheat
By Steven D. Levitt
Let’s say you discover an old lamp and rub it, and out comes a genie offering to grant you a wish. You are greedy and devious, so you wish for the ability, whenever you play online poker, to see all the cards that the other players are holding. The genie grants your wish.
What would you do next?
If you were a total idiot, you would do exactly what some cheaters on the Web site Absolute Poker appear to have done recently. Playing at the very highest stakes games, they allegedly played every hand as if they knew every card that the other players had. They folded hands at the end that no normal player would fold, and they raised with hands that were winners but would seem like losers if you didn’t know the opponents’ cards. They won money at a rate that was about 100 times faster than a good player could reasonably expect to win.
Their play was so anomalous that, within a few days, they were discovered.
What did they do next? Apparently, they played some more, now playing worse than anyone has ever played in the history of poker — in other words, trying to lose some of the money back so things didn’t look so suspicious. One hand history shows that the players called a bet at the end when their two hole cards were 2-3 and had not paired the board … there literally was no hand that they could beat!
I don’t know whether these cheating allegations are true, because all the information I am getting is third-hand. The poker players I’ve talked to all believe it to be true. Regardless, I bet these guys wish they had it to do over. If they had just been smart about it, they could have milked this gig forever, winning at reasonable rates. For the stakes they were playing, they could have gotten very rich, and their scheme would have been nearly undetectable.
(Note that I say nearly undetectable, because while that poker site probably never would have detected them, I am working with a different online poker site to develop a set of tools for catching cheaters. Even if these guys were careful, we would catch them.)
Tags: cheating, crime, gambling, poker
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Belichick likened to a slot cheat!
This article appeared September 13th on AOL sports.
Bill Belichick: More Like a Card Counter or a Slot Machine Fixer?
How bad is Patriotgate, the cheating scandal that got Patriots coach Bill Belichick busted by the NFL today? Did Belichick just do what any coach would do to gain an edge? Steve Czaban sums it up nicely:
Don't give me the whole "cheating goes on all the time in sports, don't get so righteous" argument. Cheating does happen all the time, and so does PUNISHMENT for cheating. Mild cheating that doesn't involve technology, is one thing. Using tools and schemes and electronics is another.
That's RIGGING. It's the difference between counting cards in a casino, versus using a magnet to jack-up a slot machine's payout.
There's something respectable about counting cards, and something shameful about rigging a slot machine. By ordering an assistant to tape opposing coaches' signals, Belichick crossed over to "rigging a slot machine" territory.
Well, personally, I think the whole thing is blown out of proportion. This kind of stuff goes on all the time in sports. A good example of it is in baseball where baserunners on second base steal the opposing catcher's signs to the pitcher, or when opportunistic managers and coaches in dugouts steal the opposing third-base coach's signs to the batter. The same thing goes on in tennis where coaches illegally signal their players on the court to change something in their game.
But there is on thing I can relate to in this article: the comparison of card-counting to rigging slot machines. If Belichick did indeed cross the line by ordering an assistant to tape the opposing coach's signals, then, in my day, I jumped over the Grand Canyon if you want to compare card-counting to my moves!
Bill Belichick: More Like a Card Counter or a Slot Machine Fixer?
How bad is Patriotgate, the cheating scandal that got Patriots coach Bill Belichick busted by the NFL today? Did Belichick just do what any coach would do to gain an edge? Steve Czaban sums it up nicely:
Don't give me the whole "cheating goes on all the time in sports, don't get so righteous" argument. Cheating does happen all the time, and so does PUNISHMENT for cheating. Mild cheating that doesn't involve technology, is one thing. Using tools and schemes and electronics is another.
That's RIGGING. It's the difference between counting cards in a casino, versus using a magnet to jack-up a slot machine's payout.
There's something respectable about counting cards, and something shameful about rigging a slot machine. By ordering an assistant to tape opposing coaches' signals, Belichick crossed over to "rigging a slot machine" territory.
Well, personally, I think the whole thing is blown out of proportion. This kind of stuff goes on all the time in sports. A good example of it is in baseball where baserunners on second base steal the opposing catcher's signs to the pitcher, or when opportunistic managers and coaches in dugouts steal the opposing third-base coach's signs to the batter. The same thing goes on in tennis where coaches illegally signal their players on the court to change something in their game.
But there is on thing I can relate to in this article: the comparison of card-counting to rigging slot machines. If Belichick did indeed cross the line by ordering an assistant to tape the opposing coach's signals, then, in my day, I jumped over the Grand Canyon if you want to compare card-counting to my moves!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Top Ten No-Nos if You're gonna Cheat Casinos!
10) Don't stand out in a crowd (like a Caucasian in Macao)
9) Don't approach the table if you're hands are shaking
8) Don't cheat mini-baccarat if you think it's blackjack
7) Don't try a mini-baccarat false shuffle scam--at least for a while!
6) Don't flirt with cocktail waitresses after you've done a move (you too, girls!)
5) Don't brag to cocktail waitresses that you just did a move (they'll rat you out!)
4) Don't switch in a cooler
3) Don't do high-tech poker scams if you've written a book how to prevent them
2) Don't tell your girlfriend you're cheating casinos (if she doesn't get her cut, she'll rat you out too!
1) Don't tell ANYONE you're cheating casinos (Not even your mother! She may not rat you out, but she's definitely gonna want a big Mother's Day gift!
Hope everyone has had a great summer. I'll see what I can come up with for the fall!
9) Don't approach the table if you're hands are shaking
8) Don't cheat mini-baccarat if you think it's blackjack
7) Don't try a mini-baccarat false shuffle scam--at least for a while!
6) Don't flirt with cocktail waitresses after you've done a move (you too, girls!)
5) Don't brag to cocktail waitresses that you just did a move (they'll rat you out!)
4) Don't switch in a cooler
3) Don't do high-tech poker scams if you've written a book how to prevent them
2) Don't tell your girlfriend you're cheating casinos (if she doesn't get her cut, she'll rat you out too!
1) Don't tell ANYONE you're cheating casinos (Not even your mother! She may not rat you out, but she's definitely gonna want a big Mother's Day gift!
Hope everyone has had a great summer. I'll see what I can come up with for the fall!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tennis great Kafelnikov linked to cheating?
A few weeks back, for the first time, the ATP, tennis's governing body, announced that it is investigating a suspicious betting pattern during a match between Nikolay Davydenko, a ranked player, and Martin Vasallo Arguello, a huge underdog, who nevertheless received most of the $7 million in betting action, EVEN after having already lost the first set. Betfair reported that the amount wagered was 10 times more than usual, incredibly on an underdog already down a set.
Well, this is reminiscent of a situation in a match between Yevgeny Kafelnikov, then a highly ranked player, and Fernando Vicente, who had been unranked and winless for several months, but incredibly took almost all of the action and won in three sets.
How is this related to the poker and gambling world? Well, several months ago I was asked if I'd heard any reports of Kafelnikov's being involved in a Russian professional poker cheating team. The person asking said he'd heard that Kafelnikov had been involved with the ex-Olympic gold-medal-winning Russian gymnast, Vera Shimanskya, who had indeed been arrested in a poker cheating scandal in Spain. So is there a connection there? I have no evidence on Kafelnikov, but the circumstantial evidence against Kafelnikov is adding up. He has also been caught in photographs with known Russian mobsters.
Anyone out there seen him playing lately?
Here's the article on the latest suspicious tennis betting-pattern, which includes paragraphs on Kafelnikov's suspicious match.
LONDON, England (AP) -- Tennis officials are following up reports of suspicious betting patterns in a match involving world number four Nikolay Davydenko, who retired when playing a lowly-ranked opponent in an ATP tournament in Poland.
art.davydenko.jpg
Davydenko pulled out of his second round match in the final set with a foot injury.
In an unprecedented move, British online gambling company Betfair voided all bets placed on Thursday's second-round match at the Prokom Open in Sopot between the defending champion and top seed Davydenko and world number 87 Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina.
Betfair said it received about $7 million in bets on the match -- 10 times the usual amount -- and most of the money was on Arguello to win, even after Davydenko won the first set 6-2.
"You try to leave it to the players to play the game the right way," said Andy Roddick, ranked fifth in the world. "I think we expect that of them. If something's found that's shady, I, for one, will be extremely pissed off.
"Obviously you want to wait and see it play out, but it's too bad that it only takes one idiot to ruin things and create a bad story."
Arguello won the second set 6-3 and was leading 2-1 in the third when the Russian retired. Davydenko said he aggravated a left foot injury in the second set. He received medical attention from a tournament trainer before deciding to quit.
"I don't think that he (Davydenko) has something to do with this," Arguello said later. "I was playing against him, but he was playing also with an injury, and that's all that I know about the match, and that's also what I felt in the match. I felt nothing else."
Betfair, which has had an agreement with the ATP since 2003 to share information on any irregular betting activity, said it was concerned with the volume of wagers coming in on Arguello from the start.
"We think the market quite clearly wasn't fair," Betfair managing director Mark Davies said.
"The prices seemed very odd. As a result, in the interest of fairness and integrity and in consultation with the ATP, we have decided to void the market and return all stakes to (bettors)."
It's the first time the company has taken such a step in any sport. Davies said Betfair would turn over its betting records for the ATP to investigate.
"The ATP takes issues surrounding gambling extremely seriously," the men's tour said in a statement. "We are committed to ensuring our sport remains corruption free and have strict rules in place governing this area.
"In addition we have memorandums of understanding with U.K. and European betting companies that ensures information pertaining to any ATP Tour match that may look suspicious, based upon gambling patterns, is shared with us immediately."
ATP officials said Friday that Davydenko had left Poland.
"Normally I try to fight to the end but it was very painful and I may have done even more damage by trying to finish the match," Davydenko said immediately after the match.
"Since the beginning of Monday I've had a problem with my left toes. Today that became a problem with my foot."
Since losing in the fourth round at Wimbledon to Marcos Baghdatis, Davydenko lost three straight first-round matches -- to Gael Monfils at the Swiss Open, Florent Serra at the Dutch Open and Gilles Simon at the Croatia Open -- before beating Andrei Pavel, 6-3 6-4 in the opening round in Poland.
Arguello lost 2-6 6-4 6-2 on Friday in the quarterfinals to another Argentine player, Jose Acasuso.
"I saw Davydenko playing very well the first set, and I saw also that he had problems with his feet, and that was true, he was not inventing that, so it's difficult to suspect him," Arguello told The Associated Press by telephone from his hotel room in Sopot.
Fellow Russian Marat Safin, playing this week in Washington, declined to speculate about the Davydenko situation.
"I don't really care," Safin said. "Whatever people do, and whatever they want to do, I don't care. I just want to play my matches and enjoy my time. I've enough problems myself."
At Wimbledon in 2006, Betfair reported irregular patterns surrounding a first-round match between British wild card Richard Bloomfield and Carlos Berlocq of Argentina.
Berlocq, who was ranked 170 places higher than Bloomfield, lost 6-1 6-2 6-2. Most of the bets placed were on Berlocq to lose. However, no wrongdoing was detected.
Allegations of match-fixing in tennis have cropped up in the past.
In 2003, bookmakers reportedly suspended betting six hours before Russian player Yevgeny Kafelnikov's match in Lyon, France, against Fernando Vicente after a big wager was place on the Spaniard.
Vicente, who had been winless for several months, won in straight sets. There was no suggestion either player was involved in wrongdoing, and no investigation was made by the ATP.
Several Russian tennis players were photographed a few years ago with Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, a suspected mobster from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, who was accused of fixing the pairs and ice dancing events at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Photographs of Tokhtakhounov with Kafelnikov, Safin and Andrei Medvedev were taken off Medvedev's Web site in 2002 after the man's arrest.
Tokhtakhounov spent nearly a year in a Venice, Italy, prison but escaped extradition to the United States in 2003 on the Olympic rigging charges.
Well, this is reminiscent of a situation in a match between Yevgeny Kafelnikov, then a highly ranked player, and Fernando Vicente, who had been unranked and winless for several months, but incredibly took almost all of the action and won in three sets.
How is this related to the poker and gambling world? Well, several months ago I was asked if I'd heard any reports of Kafelnikov's being involved in a Russian professional poker cheating team. The person asking said he'd heard that Kafelnikov had been involved with the ex-Olympic gold-medal-winning Russian gymnast, Vera Shimanskya, who had indeed been arrested in a poker cheating scandal in Spain. So is there a connection there? I have no evidence on Kafelnikov, but the circumstantial evidence against Kafelnikov is adding up. He has also been caught in photographs with known Russian mobsters.
Anyone out there seen him playing lately?
Here's the article on the latest suspicious tennis betting-pattern, which includes paragraphs on Kafelnikov's suspicious match.
LONDON, England (AP) -- Tennis officials are following up reports of suspicious betting patterns in a match involving world number four Nikolay Davydenko, who retired when playing a lowly-ranked opponent in an ATP tournament in Poland.
art.davydenko.jpg
Davydenko pulled out of his second round match in the final set with a foot injury.
In an unprecedented move, British online gambling company Betfair voided all bets placed on Thursday's second-round match at the Prokom Open in Sopot between the defending champion and top seed Davydenko and world number 87 Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina.
Betfair said it received about $7 million in bets on the match -- 10 times the usual amount -- and most of the money was on Arguello to win, even after Davydenko won the first set 6-2.
"You try to leave it to the players to play the game the right way," said Andy Roddick, ranked fifth in the world. "I think we expect that of them. If something's found that's shady, I, for one, will be extremely pissed off.
"Obviously you want to wait and see it play out, but it's too bad that it only takes one idiot to ruin things and create a bad story."
Arguello won the second set 6-3 and was leading 2-1 in the third when the Russian retired. Davydenko said he aggravated a left foot injury in the second set. He received medical attention from a tournament trainer before deciding to quit.
"I don't think that he (Davydenko) has something to do with this," Arguello said later. "I was playing against him, but he was playing also with an injury, and that's all that I know about the match, and that's also what I felt in the match. I felt nothing else."
Betfair, which has had an agreement with the ATP since 2003 to share information on any irregular betting activity, said it was concerned with the volume of wagers coming in on Arguello from the start.
"We think the market quite clearly wasn't fair," Betfair managing director Mark Davies said.
"The prices seemed very odd. As a result, in the interest of fairness and integrity and in consultation with the ATP, we have decided to void the market and return all stakes to (bettors)."
It's the first time the company has taken such a step in any sport. Davies said Betfair would turn over its betting records for the ATP to investigate.
"The ATP takes issues surrounding gambling extremely seriously," the men's tour said in a statement. "We are committed to ensuring our sport remains corruption free and have strict rules in place governing this area.
"In addition we have memorandums of understanding with U.K. and European betting companies that ensures information pertaining to any ATP Tour match that may look suspicious, based upon gambling patterns, is shared with us immediately."
ATP officials said Friday that Davydenko had left Poland.
"Normally I try to fight to the end but it was very painful and I may have done even more damage by trying to finish the match," Davydenko said immediately after the match.
"Since the beginning of Monday I've had a problem with my left toes. Today that became a problem with my foot."
Since losing in the fourth round at Wimbledon to Marcos Baghdatis, Davydenko lost three straight first-round matches -- to Gael Monfils at the Swiss Open, Florent Serra at the Dutch Open and Gilles Simon at the Croatia Open -- before beating Andrei Pavel, 6-3 6-4 in the opening round in Poland.
Arguello lost 2-6 6-4 6-2 on Friday in the quarterfinals to another Argentine player, Jose Acasuso.
"I saw Davydenko playing very well the first set, and I saw also that he had problems with his feet, and that was true, he was not inventing that, so it's difficult to suspect him," Arguello told The Associated Press by telephone from his hotel room in Sopot.
Fellow Russian Marat Safin, playing this week in Washington, declined to speculate about the Davydenko situation.
"I don't really care," Safin said. "Whatever people do, and whatever they want to do, I don't care. I just want to play my matches and enjoy my time. I've enough problems myself."
At Wimbledon in 2006, Betfair reported irregular patterns surrounding a first-round match between British wild card Richard Bloomfield and Carlos Berlocq of Argentina.
Berlocq, who was ranked 170 places higher than Bloomfield, lost 6-1 6-2 6-2. Most of the bets placed were on Berlocq to lose. However, no wrongdoing was detected.
Allegations of match-fixing in tennis have cropped up in the past.
In 2003, bookmakers reportedly suspended betting six hours before Russian player Yevgeny Kafelnikov's match in Lyon, France, against Fernando Vicente after a big wager was place on the Spaniard.
Vicente, who had been winless for several months, won in straight sets. There was no suggestion either player was involved in wrongdoing, and no investigation was made by the ATP.
Several Russian tennis players were photographed a few years ago with Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, a suspected mobster from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, who was accused of fixing the pairs and ice dancing events at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Photographs of Tokhtakhounov with Kafelnikov, Safin and Andrei Medvedev were taken off Medvedev's Web site in 2002 after the man's arrest.
Tokhtakhounov spent nearly a year in a Venice, Italy, prison but escaped extradition to the United States in 2003 on the Olympic rigging charges.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Atlantic City Poker Scam is clarified and deepens for Forte
The big high-tech poker scam busted in June and made public last week now seems to be confined to private games taking place in pricey hotel rooms inside the Borgata Hotel Casino. At least this is what the media is now reporting. Apparently the high-tech equipment was used to cheat high stakes players. Their trick was using tiny cameras to catch their opponents' hole cards and radio that info to cohorts in the game. Whatever the case, Steve Forte's claims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time now look much more like the wrong claims!
Here's the article:
Police crack high-stakes poker scheme
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, (609) 272-7258
Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
ATLANTIC CITY — The police weren’t bluffing when they busted in on a high-stakes poker scam at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
What they found was a room filled with high-tech surveillance equipment that allowed a cheating ring to rip off poker players who participated in private games, authorities said.
One of four men arrested at Borgata on June 7 by New Jersey State Police was Steve Forte, a Las Vegas gaming consultant who is an internationally recognized expert on ways to thwart casino cheaters.
Forte, 51, is the author of Casino Game Protection, described on his Web site as a comprehensive guide covering the intricacies of casino scams and strategies. Perhaps the members of the State Police Organized Crime Bureau and Casino Unit read Forte’s book before making the Borgata raid.
Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, said Forte and his alleged co-conspirators set up private, big-money poker games at Borgata to cheat unsuspecting players. The private games were not connected to Borgata’s normal casino operations.
The scam artists used strategically placed surveillance cameras to peek at the players’ hands. The information was secretly relayed to an accomplice who wore an undetectable radio receiver in his ear. Computer programs and marked playing cards also were used by the cheaters to enhance their chances of winning, according to Aseltine.
“They were involved in a high-tech cheating scam that utilized sophisticated video and audio equipment, along with laptop computers,” Aseltine said.
Authorities divulged details of the scheme for the first time Tuesday, although they declined to say how they cracked the case. The investigation continues and could lead to other casino jurisdictions, including Las Vegas.
Forte, who lives in Las Vegas, was charged with using a computer and cheating devices to commit theft, attempted theft by deception and conspiracy. Joseph T. Ingargiola, 50, of Playa del Rey, Calif., Stephen Phillips, 52, of Las Vegas, and James Calvin Harrison, 41, of Duluth, Minn., are facing the same charges.
All four have been released on bail pending court hearings.
Forte did not return messages Tuesday to a Las Vegas telephone number listed on his Web site. He is the president of a consulting firm called International Gaming Specialists.
The Web site says Forte has been hired by gaming companies and law enforcement agencies worldwide to help them catch casino cheaters. He has acted as a gambling adviser for “Dateline NBC,” the Discovery Channel and a number of motion pictures, including “Rounders,” a 1998 movie starring Matt Damon about a reformed gambler who returns to playing high-stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.
In addition, Forte produced a four-part video series distributed worldwide to “help protect all those that play in private games from card and dice cheaters,” his Web site says.
Forte and the other suspects used hotel rooms at Borgata to conduct their alleged scheme, according to Aseltine. The games were private and not connected to the casino’s regular poker play.
At the same time that the scam was unfolding in June, Borgata had held a $1.7 million poker tournament that attracted 337 players and was billed as the largest event of its type in Atlantic City. Dave Coskey, Borgata’s vice president of marketing, said the tournament was untouched by the alleged cheating ring.
“To the best of my knowledge, they weren’t targeting our tournament,” Coskey said. “It was off the gaming floor. It wasn’t affecting our gaming at all.”
Unconfirmed reports had circulated that the suspects had tapped into a live video feed from a camera showing the “hole cards” of players in the poker tournament. However, Coskey said there were no hole-card cameras and no television coverage of the event, so the tourney could not have been compromised.
“There was no concern of a hole camera being tapped,” he said. “There couldn’t be, because we didn’t have a camera. There was no television.”
Here's the article:
Police crack high-stakes poker scheme
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, (609) 272-7258
Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
ATLANTIC CITY — The police weren’t bluffing when they busted in on a high-stakes poker scam at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
What they found was a room filled with high-tech surveillance equipment that allowed a cheating ring to rip off poker players who participated in private games, authorities said.
One of four men arrested at Borgata on June 7 by New Jersey State Police was Steve Forte, a Las Vegas gaming consultant who is an internationally recognized expert on ways to thwart casino cheaters.
Forte, 51, is the author of Casino Game Protection, described on his Web site as a comprehensive guide covering the intricacies of casino scams and strategies. Perhaps the members of the State Police Organized Crime Bureau and Casino Unit read Forte’s book before making the Borgata raid.
Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, said Forte and his alleged co-conspirators set up private, big-money poker games at Borgata to cheat unsuspecting players. The private games were not connected to Borgata’s normal casino operations.
The scam artists used strategically placed surveillance cameras to peek at the players’ hands. The information was secretly relayed to an accomplice who wore an undetectable radio receiver in his ear. Computer programs and marked playing cards also were used by the cheaters to enhance their chances of winning, according to Aseltine.
“They were involved in a high-tech cheating scam that utilized sophisticated video and audio equipment, along with laptop computers,” Aseltine said.
Authorities divulged details of the scheme for the first time Tuesday, although they declined to say how they cracked the case. The investigation continues and could lead to other casino jurisdictions, including Las Vegas.
Forte, who lives in Las Vegas, was charged with using a computer and cheating devices to commit theft, attempted theft by deception and conspiracy. Joseph T. Ingargiola, 50, of Playa del Rey, Calif., Stephen Phillips, 52, of Las Vegas, and James Calvin Harrison, 41, of Duluth, Minn., are facing the same charges.
All four have been released on bail pending court hearings.
Forte did not return messages Tuesday to a Las Vegas telephone number listed on his Web site. He is the president of a consulting firm called International Gaming Specialists.
The Web site says Forte has been hired by gaming companies and law enforcement agencies worldwide to help them catch casino cheaters. He has acted as a gambling adviser for “Dateline NBC,” the Discovery Channel and a number of motion pictures, including “Rounders,” a 1998 movie starring Matt Damon about a reformed gambler who returns to playing high-stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.
In addition, Forte produced a four-part video series distributed worldwide to “help protect all those that play in private games from card and dice cheaters,” his Web site says.
Forte and the other suspects used hotel rooms at Borgata to conduct their alleged scheme, according to Aseltine. The games were private and not connected to the casino’s regular poker play.
At the same time that the scam was unfolding in June, Borgata had held a $1.7 million poker tournament that attracted 337 players and was billed as the largest event of its type in Atlantic City. Dave Coskey, Borgata’s vice president of marketing, said the tournament was untouched by the alleged cheating ring.
“To the best of my knowledge, they weren’t targeting our tournament,” Coskey said. “It was off the gaming floor. It wasn’t affecting our gaming at all.”
Unconfirmed reports had circulated that the suspects had tapped into a live video feed from a camera showing the “hole cards” of players in the poker tournament. However, Coskey said there were no hole-card cameras and no television coverage of the event, so the tourney could not have been compromised.
“There was no concern of a hole camera being tapped,” he said. “There couldn’t be, because we didn’t have a camera. There was no television.”
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Breaking Vegas Ultimate Cheat Episode
For those of you who never had the chance to see the History Channel's "Breaking Vegas" episode about my 25 years of escapades in the world's casinos, it is being aired on Tuesday, July 24th, at 10 p.m EST, 9 p.m CST and 7 p.m. PST. Please note that the episode will air on the BIOGRAPHY CHANNEL, not the History Channel, and it is called "The Ultimate Cheat." Enjoy it, and let me know what you thought!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Some Serious Dirty Poker!!!
The big poker scam finally happened! First it was the big baccarat scam in May, now the Borgata poker room in the midst of Atlantic City's biggest tournament ever has been stung with a high-tech poker scam aimed at its biggest players. Did you ever imagine cheaters intercepting the live feed from the cameras that show you players' hole cards on TV? Well, you bet, that's exactly what happened. One of the people arrested in the scam, Steve Forte, is considered the number-one casino anti-cheating consultant in the world. I know Forte pretty well and was shocked to hear he had allegedly reentered the world of "Dirty Poker."
And now all the people who badmouthed my book "Dirty Poker" as a gross exagerration of the cheating in major tournament poker can open up their eyes and see the truth!
Here's the news article:
I-Team Exclusive: Poker Cheating Scheme
July 18, 2007 02:05 AM
It sounds like the plot of one of those flashy casino heist movies -- a team of thieves, armed with high tech equipment concocts a scheme to steal vast sums of money from big shot gamblers.
It really did happen, although law enforcement officials are still unwilling to talk about it. Gaming agents in New Jersey arrested four suspects, including a Las Vegas man known internationally as an expert in how to thwart casino thieves.
In late June, the elegant Borgata in Atlantic City launched the largest poker event in the town's history, a $5,000 per-person buy in tournament with 337 players vied for $1.7 million. But someone else was after the money as well; a team of high tech cheats with a scheme worthy of Oceans 11.
Well-placed sources told the I-Team that New Jersey gaming agents staged a quiet raid on the Borgata and arrested four people. By one account, they stormed a hotel room and found it packed with electronic equipment. According to one source, gaming control initially believed the suspects had tapped into a live video feed generated by the hole card cameras that allow TV audiences to see a player's down cards in games of Texas Hold 'em, information that presumably could be relayed to a confederate playing in the tournament.
However, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming, which is a partner in Borgata with MGM, told the I-Team "the scheme did target high-end poker players, but off the floor," adding that "the security systems of the Borgata were never compromised, nor was the tournament. Customers were targeted but not the games."
The biggest surprise for gaming agents might have been who was involved. Among those arrested as part of the scheme was Las Vegas gaming consultant Steve Forte, regarded as a world class expert in countering cheaters. Forte's web site says he's been a consultant to MGM, Caesars, Station Casinos, as well as to the U.S. Attorney, FBI, Metro Police and the Clark County district attorney. His books and videos on how to counter gambling cheats are best sellers.
New Jersey authorities would not acknowledge that arrests were been made. However, Nevada Gaming Control told the I-Team they had been informed by New Jersey about the arrests, that four persons had been taken into custody including Steve Forte, and that a sensitive investigation was ongoing.
Back in Las Vegas, Forte has told friends that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, intimating that he was in the room with the alleged cheaters because he wanted to observe their methods and was not part of the scheme. Forte declined the I-Team's interview request but confirmed in an e-mail that he had been arrested. He says he maintains his innocence and will fight the charges at all costs.
The obvious question is could it happen at the much more lucrative World Series of Poker? Tournament commissioner Jeffrey Pollack says he's heard nothing about the New Jersey scandal but that he is confident that cheaters wouldn't stand a chance there.
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said, "I can't reveal our specific security measures, otherwise they wouldn't be very secure. But needless to say, Harrah's has the ultimate commitment to both responsible gaming and security, and we have a state of the art surveillance system in place at all times here."
Casino sources say they believe the FBI is now involved in the investigation, possibly to find out if the same high tech scheme has been used before.
The I-Team contacted several of the poker players involved in the tournament. None of them saw anything unusual, nor did they see any arrests. That fits with other information the I-Team has about how the scheme was intended to steal from the poker players when they were away from the tables. No one is saying how the plot was supposed to work. Even the arrest information is being kept confidential.
The Channel 8 I-Team will have more information as it becomes available.
And now all the people who badmouthed my book "Dirty Poker" as a gross exagerration of the cheating in major tournament poker can open up their eyes and see the truth!
Here's the news article:
I-Team Exclusive: Poker Cheating Scheme
July 18, 2007 02:05 AM
It sounds like the plot of one of those flashy casino heist movies -- a team of thieves, armed with high tech equipment concocts a scheme to steal vast sums of money from big shot gamblers.
It really did happen, although law enforcement officials are still unwilling to talk about it. Gaming agents in New Jersey arrested four suspects, including a Las Vegas man known internationally as an expert in how to thwart casino thieves.
In late June, the elegant Borgata in Atlantic City launched the largest poker event in the town's history, a $5,000 per-person buy in tournament with 337 players vied for $1.7 million. But someone else was after the money as well; a team of high tech cheats with a scheme worthy of Oceans 11.
Well-placed sources told the I-Team that New Jersey gaming agents staged a quiet raid on the Borgata and arrested four people. By one account, they stormed a hotel room and found it packed with electronic equipment. According to one source, gaming control initially believed the suspects had tapped into a live video feed generated by the hole card cameras that allow TV audiences to see a player's down cards in games of Texas Hold 'em, information that presumably could be relayed to a confederate playing in the tournament.
However, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming, which is a partner in Borgata with MGM, told the I-Team "the scheme did target high-end poker players, but off the floor," adding that "the security systems of the Borgata were never compromised, nor was the tournament. Customers were targeted but not the games."
The biggest surprise for gaming agents might have been who was involved. Among those arrested as part of the scheme was Las Vegas gaming consultant Steve Forte, regarded as a world class expert in countering cheaters. Forte's web site says he's been a consultant to MGM, Caesars, Station Casinos, as well as to the U.S. Attorney, FBI, Metro Police and the Clark County district attorney. His books and videos on how to counter gambling cheats are best sellers.
New Jersey authorities would not acknowledge that arrests were been made. However, Nevada Gaming Control told the I-Team they had been informed by New Jersey about the arrests, that four persons had been taken into custody including Steve Forte, and that a sensitive investigation was ongoing.
Back in Las Vegas, Forte has told friends that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, intimating that he was in the room with the alleged cheaters because he wanted to observe their methods and was not part of the scheme. Forte declined the I-Team's interview request but confirmed in an e-mail that he had been arrested. He says he maintains his innocence and will fight the charges at all costs.
The obvious question is could it happen at the much more lucrative World Series of Poker? Tournament commissioner Jeffrey Pollack says he's heard nothing about the New Jersey scandal but that he is confident that cheaters wouldn't stand a chance there.
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said, "I can't reveal our specific security measures, otherwise they wouldn't be very secure. But needless to say, Harrah's has the ultimate commitment to both responsible gaming and security, and we have a state of the art surveillance system in place at all times here."
Casino sources say they believe the FBI is now involved in the investigation, possibly to find out if the same high tech scheme has been used before.
The I-Team contacted several of the poker players involved in the tournament. None of them saw anything unusual, nor did they see any arrests. That fits with other information the I-Team has about how the scheme was intended to steal from the poker players when they were away from the tables. No one is saying how the plot was supposed to work. Even the arrest information is being kept confidential.
The Channel 8 I-Team will have more information as it becomes available.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Another Mini-Baccarat Bust!
You would think by now that these Vietnamese casino-cheating gangs would learn to give it a rest, especially after the Tran Organization got busted in that major baccarat scandal involving some two-dozen casinos in the US and Canada last May. Well, you can't teach old dogs new tricks, so yet another Vietnamese group got corralled yesterday in an Iowa casino, this time looking ever so amateurish in their scam. It appears that the dealer (a non-Asian) was actually switching the played cards on the table, making winners out of losing hands for his Asian cohorts. And if that's not rank enough, he was actually paying off their losing hands when not switching the cards, all in plain view of the casino's surveillance cameras! All right, we can assume that casinos in Iowa do not have the most sophisticated surveillance staffs in the world, but come on, gimme a break! This scam is really embarrassing and netted a mere $12,000 before the state's Division of Criminal Investigations broke it up.
My only advice to this latest baccarat clan: Spend some of the time in prison thinking of a better casino scam to do when you get out.
Here's the news article on it:
Dealer, patrons arrested for theft and cheating at Osceola casino
By TOM BARTON
Register Staff Writer
July 13, 2007
Add comment
Five people have been arrested following a week-long investigation by the Division of Criminal Investigation into theft and cheating at an Osceola casino.
The arrests came after D.C.I. gaming agents suspected a casino dealer at Terrible's Lakeside Casino in Osceola was working with patrons to cheat the game of Mini Baccarat.
Agents determined 22-year-old Larry Shephard had misplayed hands by switching cards, exposing cards and paying losing hands, paying out more than $12,000 in casino money after reviewing surveillance video.
Shepherd admitted his actions to agents upon questioning. He and four others were subsequently arrested.
Those arrested include:
LARRY SHEPHERD, 22 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 1 st Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
AN NGOC VO, 40 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
PHUOC THANH HO, 33 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
NAM L. DAM, 30 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
OANH OANH NGOC NGUYEN, 36 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 3 rd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
My only advice to this latest baccarat clan: Spend some of the time in prison thinking of a better casino scam to do when you get out.
Here's the news article on it:
Dealer, patrons arrested for theft and cheating at Osceola casino
By TOM BARTON
Register Staff Writer
July 13, 2007
Add comment
Five people have been arrested following a week-long investigation by the Division of Criminal Investigation into theft and cheating at an Osceola casino.
The arrests came after D.C.I. gaming agents suspected a casino dealer at Terrible's Lakeside Casino in Osceola was working with patrons to cheat the game of Mini Baccarat.
Agents determined 22-year-old Larry Shephard had misplayed hands by switching cards, exposing cards and paying losing hands, paying out more than $12,000 in casino money after reviewing surveillance video.
Shepherd admitted his actions to agents upon questioning. He and four others were subsequently arrested.
Those arrested include:
LARRY SHEPHERD, 22 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 1 st Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
AN NGOC VO, 40 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
PHUOC THANH HO, 33 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
NAM L. DAM, 30 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 2 nd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
OANH OANH NGOC NGUYEN, 36 yrs. old
Charged with: Theft 3 rd Degree & 1 Count Cheating at a Gambling Game
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Interview with Casino Enterprise Management
In the July issue of Casino Enterprise Magazine, one of the leading journals for casino executives, is the following interview I did with Steve Karoul, a longtime casino consultant who writes for numerous gaming magazines.
For those of you who enjoy reading gaming and poker magazines, look for upcoming articles that I have written. In the US, articles of mine should soon be appearing in Pro Player and Bluff, two popular poker magazines. In Europe, look for my articles in Gambling.com and GX Exclusiv magazines, two all-around gambling magazines.
As far as this year's World Series of Poker goes, I haven't heard of any major cheating incidents, though I am sure that the collusion syndicates are working the tournaments and especially the big-action ring games. The current trick that collusion teams use--playing top hand where only one of their members stays in the pot to minimize losses when that hand is beat--has become more the strategy than the usual whipsawing to either get opponents out of pots or sucked in for more money. If anyone hears of specific incidents of soft play, counterfeit chips, or any other hanky-panky at the WSOP, please let me know.
INTERVIEW:
The World’s Greatest Casino Cheat
By Steve Karoul
Richard Marcus is a professional casino cheat. Richard Marcus is the world’s best casino cheat. Richard Marcus can hurt your casino. Richard Marcus can also help your casino.
I recently had the chance to speak with Richard Marcus, the man considered to be the best cheater in the history of legalized gaming, who has since retired and is making a new career on the other side of the fence by consulting to casinos in the area of game protection. I spoke with him about how he was able to cheat casinos and beat their surveillance systems for more than twenty-five years without having ever been caught and how he currently goes about teaching and educating casino staffs to better protect their tables from the very likes of himself. Here are some of the key points of my interview with him.
Q: Simply put, Mr. Marcus, what did it take to become the world’s greatest casino cheater?
A: Well, it was a combination of three things: courage, brains and lack of greed. First and foremost, you have to overcome whatever fear you have of getting caught. Then you have to be intelligent enough to design and carry out creative casino cheating moves that work. Third, and certainly as important as the first two requisites, you have to know when to stop; in other words, don’t be greedy! The old saying about going to the well too many times applies to casino cheating as much as anything else.
Q: I guess it’s hard to find people with all three of those prerequisites.
A: Very. Some guys out there have tremendous courage, some have rocket scientist’s brains, but few have both. And some guys have courage for many things but not for casino cheating when they know that so many different people and the surveillance cameras will be watching every move they make or might make. A funny story occurred back in Atlantic City one night after a big heavyweight fight. I was standing next to a New York wiseguy watching my partner do a blackjack pastpost move, which is switching in higher denomination chips after the bet wins. It so happened that this wiseguy was an acquaintance of my partner. He had nothing to do with our casino cheating operation. However, after witnessing the move and my partner’s coolness under pressure, the wiseguy whispered, “You got guts kid. I’d sooner fight Mike Tyson than try that!” And, believe me; he’d give Mike Tyson a good fight. Guts and courage are only part of what’s required to be a good cheat. Skill is an even more important requisite. Not everyone has both.
Q: How hard is it to know when to stop?
A: That depends on the person. For someone levelheaded enough, as I’ve always considered myself to be, it was just a matter of surveying a casino after I did a cheating move. If the move was absolutely clean with none of the casino personnel having been bothered, then I would go right back and do it again, and again, as long as no one was picking up on what I was doing. But once a little heat started coming down, I would just cash out and go to another casino, even another gambling town if it got hot enough. Some cheaters take the attitude to keep working under adverse conditions, until they’re taking tons of heat. This is imprudent and often leads to getting caught. I always had the attitude that the casinos were always there for the taking, so if conditions were not right, I’d just let them hold on to “my” money until the next time. Schedules vary and staffing varies especially in large casinos, so with a little patience I would wait until I found the weak links and then make my moves. But if I sensed any pressure or heat at shift change I would simply cash out and leave.
Q: What was your specialty in cheating the casinos?
A: I was a chip (check) manipulator. Either I pastposted bets after they won, or did the opposite; greatly decreased the size of my bets when they lost, which is called dragging or pinching.
Q: The first part about pastposting, I understand. But what about decreasing the size of your bets after they lose? How is that possible? Once they lose, doesn’t the dealer take the chips?
A: (Marcus chuckles here) Yes they do. But it’s actually a dragging move that I’m most famous for, or should I say “infamous?” I came up with a roulette move where I bet a $5,000 chip underneath a red $5 chip on outside roulette bets. When the bet won, I collected either five or ten grand, depending whether it was an even-money or 2 to 1 bet. When it lost, I lost only ten bucks. I named the move “Savannah” after a stripper I knew at the time. This move is widely considered by the upper echelon surveillance people as the best casino cheating move ever. I surely agree with them. I demonstrated it at the recent World Game Protection Conference (WGPC) in Las Vegas, and the audience, which consisted of key casino personnel from all over the world, was quite impressed.
Q: But how did you do such a move without getting caught?
A: (Marcus chuckles again, louder) Well, the key was I placed the $5,000 chip underneath the $5 chip in a way that it was hidden from the dealer. In other words, the dealer knew there were two chips there but couldn’t make out the denomination of the bottom chip and therefore assumed it was another $5 chip. So when the bet lost, I raked it off the layout before the dealer could sweep it. If I was caught, I’d just go into a drunken routine and claim in slurred words that I didn’t realize that the ball had dropped. Then I would put back the two $5 chips I’d had palmed in my hand. Since the dealer believed my original bet was just that, two $5 chips, there was never much of a problem.
Q: What happened when the bet won, especially if the dealer didn’t know the $5,000 chip was there?
A: I immediately started ranting and raving with joy, pointing to the bet, screaming, “There’s my $5,000 winning chip!” The beauty of it was that when they went to surveillance to verify that it was a legitimate bet and not pastposted, the cameras backed me up every time! The move sounds ridiculous, right? Well, maybe so, but it made millions and the casinos never figured it out until I wrote about it in my memoirs, “American Roulette.”
Q: So now you’re no longer a casino cheater. Are you actually helping the casinos now?
A: Well, I retired from cheating seven years ago and have since written four books, the first of which, “American Roulette,” is being made into a feature film. I’m not yet ready to completely retire, so what better way for me to stay busy than by consulting to casinos? Gaming is the only thing I know in life, so that’s what I’m doing to keep occupied.
Q: What services do you offer casinos?
A: Complete game protection training for educating their floor staffs and surveillance departments including everyone from dealers to cage employees. I teach dealers how to be less vulnerable to cheaters and what methods they can employ to sharpen up their defenses. I actually give them a mental checklist to perform before each deal of cards, roll of the dice, or spin of the roulette ball. I teach floor people how to spot the scams and how to spot the ones that their very own dealers may be involved in. I teach surveillance observers to recognize things their cameras are showing them that are not always evident.
Q: What do you find to be the casinos’ major weaknesses against cheaters?
A: On the floor, it’s mainly that dealers, floormen and pit bosses are all far too dependent on the “eye in the sky” or the cameras. They figure that since every square inch of casino space is taped 24/7 they don’t have to be on their toes. Not so. I like to say, “Remember, a camera is not going to tap a pit boss on the shoulder and say, ‘The guy on blackjack table number four just made a move.’” It has to work the other way. The people on the floor have to know what they are looking for, as well as looking at. The cameras are just like computers. If you don’t give them proper input, you don’t get proper output. So I teach not only the scams but the subtleties that indicate a scam might be in the works. It is a different type of educational approach that the casino staffs really enjoy.
Q: Are high-level surveillance people comfortable with learning from the world’s greatest casino cheater? I mean, is there ever reluctance on their part?
A: If so, it dissipates quickly once they listen to me. After all, who is better able to teach this stuff than someone who’s spent most of his adult life doing it? Practically all of the so called experts who teach game protection to casinos have never been out in the actual field like I have. They’ve never been cheaters so there is a limit on their knowledge. In fact, at the WGPC (World Gaming Protection Conference) in Las Vegas, two surveillance directors from major Las Vegas casinos told me that they came to the conference only to see my presentation. Both admitted they were enlightened by what I had to say like never before. I certainly appreciated those comments. I really do enjoy teaching casino people the tricks of the trade. And I do guarantee prospective casino clients that my services will save them thousands and thousands of dollars each year.
Q: Do you ever miss it? The thrills of cheating, getting over on the casinos and all their multimillion-dollar surveillance equipment.
A: I guess that’s like asking a retired athlete if he misses the spotlight. You know, sometimes I think about those days and say, “Boy, I had fun, I made good money and I never got caught or arrested,” but as long as I stay busy now, I don’t really miss it. I do, however, love telling war stories about some of my greatest cheating experiences.
Q Would you tell me one?
A: No, Steve, for that you have to read my book!
For those of you who enjoy reading gaming and poker magazines, look for upcoming articles that I have written. In the US, articles of mine should soon be appearing in Pro Player and Bluff, two popular poker magazines. In Europe, look for my articles in Gambling.com and GX Exclusiv magazines, two all-around gambling magazines.
As far as this year's World Series of Poker goes, I haven't heard of any major cheating incidents, though I am sure that the collusion syndicates are working the tournaments and especially the big-action ring games. The current trick that collusion teams use--playing top hand where only one of their members stays in the pot to minimize losses when that hand is beat--has become more the strategy than the usual whipsawing to either get opponents out of pots or sucked in for more money. If anyone hears of specific incidents of soft play, counterfeit chips, or any other hanky-panky at the WSOP, please let me know.
INTERVIEW:
The World’s Greatest Casino Cheat
By Steve Karoul
Richard Marcus is a professional casino cheat. Richard Marcus is the world’s best casino cheat. Richard Marcus can hurt your casino. Richard Marcus can also help your casino.
I recently had the chance to speak with Richard Marcus, the man considered to be the best cheater in the history of legalized gaming, who has since retired and is making a new career on the other side of the fence by consulting to casinos in the area of game protection. I spoke with him about how he was able to cheat casinos and beat their surveillance systems for more than twenty-five years without having ever been caught and how he currently goes about teaching and educating casino staffs to better protect their tables from the very likes of himself. Here are some of the key points of my interview with him.
Q: Simply put, Mr. Marcus, what did it take to become the world’s greatest casino cheater?
A: Well, it was a combination of three things: courage, brains and lack of greed. First and foremost, you have to overcome whatever fear you have of getting caught. Then you have to be intelligent enough to design and carry out creative casino cheating moves that work. Third, and certainly as important as the first two requisites, you have to know when to stop; in other words, don’t be greedy! The old saying about going to the well too many times applies to casino cheating as much as anything else.
Q: I guess it’s hard to find people with all three of those prerequisites.
A: Very. Some guys out there have tremendous courage, some have rocket scientist’s brains, but few have both. And some guys have courage for many things but not for casino cheating when they know that so many different people and the surveillance cameras will be watching every move they make or might make. A funny story occurred back in Atlantic City one night after a big heavyweight fight. I was standing next to a New York wiseguy watching my partner do a blackjack pastpost move, which is switching in higher denomination chips after the bet wins. It so happened that this wiseguy was an acquaintance of my partner. He had nothing to do with our casino cheating operation. However, after witnessing the move and my partner’s coolness under pressure, the wiseguy whispered, “You got guts kid. I’d sooner fight Mike Tyson than try that!” And, believe me; he’d give Mike Tyson a good fight. Guts and courage are only part of what’s required to be a good cheat. Skill is an even more important requisite. Not everyone has both.
Q: How hard is it to know when to stop?
A: That depends on the person. For someone levelheaded enough, as I’ve always considered myself to be, it was just a matter of surveying a casino after I did a cheating move. If the move was absolutely clean with none of the casino personnel having been bothered, then I would go right back and do it again, and again, as long as no one was picking up on what I was doing. But once a little heat started coming down, I would just cash out and go to another casino, even another gambling town if it got hot enough. Some cheaters take the attitude to keep working under adverse conditions, until they’re taking tons of heat. This is imprudent and often leads to getting caught. I always had the attitude that the casinos were always there for the taking, so if conditions were not right, I’d just let them hold on to “my” money until the next time. Schedules vary and staffing varies especially in large casinos, so with a little patience I would wait until I found the weak links and then make my moves. But if I sensed any pressure or heat at shift change I would simply cash out and leave.
Q: What was your specialty in cheating the casinos?
A: I was a chip (check) manipulator. Either I pastposted bets after they won, or did the opposite; greatly decreased the size of my bets when they lost, which is called dragging or pinching.
Q: The first part about pastposting, I understand. But what about decreasing the size of your bets after they lose? How is that possible? Once they lose, doesn’t the dealer take the chips?
A: (Marcus chuckles here) Yes they do. But it’s actually a dragging move that I’m most famous for, or should I say “infamous?” I came up with a roulette move where I bet a $5,000 chip underneath a red $5 chip on outside roulette bets. When the bet won, I collected either five or ten grand, depending whether it was an even-money or 2 to 1 bet. When it lost, I lost only ten bucks. I named the move “Savannah” after a stripper I knew at the time. This move is widely considered by the upper echelon surveillance people as the best casino cheating move ever. I surely agree with them. I demonstrated it at the recent World Game Protection Conference (WGPC) in Las Vegas, and the audience, which consisted of key casino personnel from all over the world, was quite impressed.
Q: But how did you do such a move without getting caught?
A: (Marcus chuckles again, louder) Well, the key was I placed the $5,000 chip underneath the $5 chip in a way that it was hidden from the dealer. In other words, the dealer knew there were two chips there but couldn’t make out the denomination of the bottom chip and therefore assumed it was another $5 chip. So when the bet lost, I raked it off the layout before the dealer could sweep it. If I was caught, I’d just go into a drunken routine and claim in slurred words that I didn’t realize that the ball had dropped. Then I would put back the two $5 chips I’d had palmed in my hand. Since the dealer believed my original bet was just that, two $5 chips, there was never much of a problem.
Q: What happened when the bet won, especially if the dealer didn’t know the $5,000 chip was there?
A: I immediately started ranting and raving with joy, pointing to the bet, screaming, “There’s my $5,000 winning chip!” The beauty of it was that when they went to surveillance to verify that it was a legitimate bet and not pastposted, the cameras backed me up every time! The move sounds ridiculous, right? Well, maybe so, but it made millions and the casinos never figured it out until I wrote about it in my memoirs, “American Roulette.”
Q: So now you’re no longer a casino cheater. Are you actually helping the casinos now?
A: Well, I retired from cheating seven years ago and have since written four books, the first of which, “American Roulette,” is being made into a feature film. I’m not yet ready to completely retire, so what better way for me to stay busy than by consulting to casinos? Gaming is the only thing I know in life, so that’s what I’m doing to keep occupied.
Q: What services do you offer casinos?
A: Complete game protection training for educating their floor staffs and surveillance departments including everyone from dealers to cage employees. I teach dealers how to be less vulnerable to cheaters and what methods they can employ to sharpen up their defenses. I actually give them a mental checklist to perform before each deal of cards, roll of the dice, or spin of the roulette ball. I teach floor people how to spot the scams and how to spot the ones that their very own dealers may be involved in. I teach surveillance observers to recognize things their cameras are showing them that are not always evident.
Q: What do you find to be the casinos’ major weaknesses against cheaters?
A: On the floor, it’s mainly that dealers, floormen and pit bosses are all far too dependent on the “eye in the sky” or the cameras. They figure that since every square inch of casino space is taped 24/7 they don’t have to be on their toes. Not so. I like to say, “Remember, a camera is not going to tap a pit boss on the shoulder and say, ‘The guy on blackjack table number four just made a move.’” It has to work the other way. The people on the floor have to know what they are looking for, as well as looking at. The cameras are just like computers. If you don’t give them proper input, you don’t get proper output. So I teach not only the scams but the subtleties that indicate a scam might be in the works. It is a different type of educational approach that the casino staffs really enjoy.
Q: Are high-level surveillance people comfortable with learning from the world’s greatest casino cheater? I mean, is there ever reluctance on their part?
A: If so, it dissipates quickly once they listen to me. After all, who is better able to teach this stuff than someone who’s spent most of his adult life doing it? Practically all of the so called experts who teach game protection to casinos have never been out in the actual field like I have. They’ve never been cheaters so there is a limit on their knowledge. In fact, at the WGPC (World Gaming Protection Conference) in Las Vegas, two surveillance directors from major Las Vegas casinos told me that they came to the conference only to see my presentation. Both admitted they were enlightened by what I had to say like never before. I certainly appreciated those comments. I really do enjoy teaching casino people the tricks of the trade. And I do guarantee prospective casino clients that my services will save them thousands and thousands of dollars each year.
Q: Do you ever miss it? The thrills of cheating, getting over on the casinos and all their multimillion-dollar surveillance equipment.
A: I guess that’s like asking a retired athlete if he misses the spotlight. You know, sometimes I think about those days and say, “Boy, I had fun, I made good money and I never got caught or arrested,” but as long as I stay busy now, I don’t really miss it. I do, however, love telling war stories about some of my greatest cheating experiences.
Q Would you tell me one?
A: No, Steve, for that you have to read my book!
Friday, June 15, 2007
THE BEST CHEAT MOVE EVER!
Believe it or not, it's not my famed Savannah move. It's actually a move that married identity theft to casino cheating. If you want to read the whole story, it's in my book "The World's Greatest Gambling Scams." But here's a brief description as to how it was pulled off:
THE CASINO IDENTITY THEFT CREDIT SCAM
Why is this the best scam of all time? Well, if casinos just give you millions of dollars and you don’t have to do anything, I’d say that that could never be beat!
Ever dream of walking into a casino, signing a marker for a hundred thousand dollars in credit, getting the chips, cashing them out and never having to worry about paying it back? It’s easy. Just takes a little ingenuity, criminal genius and big balls.
It’s part of today’s biggest scam. Identity theft. The Roselli brothers from Monmouth, New Jersey, pulled off a beauty in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico that began in the mid ’90s and lasted until January 2000. How’d they do it? They hired a computer hacker to break into the nation’s credit data systems, then pilfered the credit histories of certain Americans (and foreigners) having outstanding credit ratings and several accounts. Then after opening new accounts in these people’s names, the Roselli brothers applied to the credit departments of the major casinos in all three gambling capitals. They were told that stable cash balances had to be maintained in bank accounts for a minimum of six months before casinos would establish credit. No problem. The Roselli brothers, already career gangsters with fat bankrolls, had plenty of money to work with. They opened accounts in several names and stuck fifty grand in each of them. Six months later virtually all the major casinos gave them fifty-thousand-dollar credit lines in the name of each fraudulent account they had established with the banks.
The Rosellis alternated their scam between Atlantic City, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico every weekend for more than five years. They were completely comped in style for everything: penthouse suites, gourmet meals, Dom Pérignon, you name it. They signed markers, got their chips, then used “offset” betting procedures to make the pit bosses believe they were losing all their chips while cohorts were winning them on the other side of baccarat and craps tables. Then with the same fidelity an honorable person returns his books to the library on time, the Rosellis promptly paid their outstanding markers. This got their credit lines jacked up, since they showed tons of action and paid their markers within a few days of leaving the casinos, a gesture just loved by casino credit departments. The fifty-thousand-dollar casino credit lines soon became a hundred thousand, then two hundred thousand, then half a million, and even a million in some of the classiest casino megaresorts. And the Rosellis kept on signing, playing, signing and playing, all the while giving the impression of losing big. Naturally their operation became complex and employed dozens of loyal associates from New Jersey, but as long as the casino bosses never caught on to the fact that each Roselli was more than one person, they would never know they were being victimized in the biggest casino credit scam in history.
It was ballsy, at times incredibly hairy, but the brothers pulled it off. New Year’s weekend, 2000, they showed up in Vegas for the last time. They planned on beginning the new millennium with a bang. They made the rounds of casinos in which they had big credit lines in fifty names, carefully working each shift (day, swing and graveyard) as to avoid running into pit bosses who might address them with a name different from the one they were using at that moment to sign markers. Then after spreading their false gambling action all over town, with bets as high as $100,000 per hand, they absconded with the chips never to be seen again.
Total take: $37 million. And the real beauty of it was that neither the casinos, the FBI nor the US Secret Service realized a scam had taken place until six months later. First the casinos sent polite reminders to the addresses (real apartments in upscale neighborhoods) the Rosellis had set up for the scam, asking for payment of the markers. Then when those went unanswered they turned to dunning letters demanding payment or else there would be legal action. Next came phone calls from their credit departments, but they fell upon professional answering services unwittingly picking up the phones for fraudulent businesses. And they called again and again—more letters, too, even certified, but no one ever answered the door for the mailmen. All that took six months before the FBI was finally alerted. By that time the Roselli brothers were lying on a beach somewhere very far from American casinos.
And one last detail: The Roselli brothers didn’t exist either. The real Roselli brothers whose ID they thieved died long before their scam was conceived. So in fact, the FBI and Secret Service have no idea who they’re looking for. But I do. They’re looking for shadows.
THE CASINO IDENTITY THEFT CREDIT SCAM
Why is this the best scam of all time? Well, if casinos just give you millions of dollars and you don’t have to do anything, I’d say that that could never be beat!
Ever dream of walking into a casino, signing a marker for a hundred thousand dollars in credit, getting the chips, cashing them out and never having to worry about paying it back? It’s easy. Just takes a little ingenuity, criminal genius and big balls.
It’s part of today’s biggest scam. Identity theft. The Roselli brothers from Monmouth, New Jersey, pulled off a beauty in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico that began in the mid ’90s and lasted until January 2000. How’d they do it? They hired a computer hacker to break into the nation’s credit data systems, then pilfered the credit histories of certain Americans (and foreigners) having outstanding credit ratings and several accounts. Then after opening new accounts in these people’s names, the Roselli brothers applied to the credit departments of the major casinos in all three gambling capitals. They were told that stable cash balances had to be maintained in bank accounts for a minimum of six months before casinos would establish credit. No problem. The Roselli brothers, already career gangsters with fat bankrolls, had plenty of money to work with. They opened accounts in several names and stuck fifty grand in each of them. Six months later virtually all the major casinos gave them fifty-thousand-dollar credit lines in the name of each fraudulent account they had established with the banks.
The Rosellis alternated their scam between Atlantic City, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico every weekend for more than five years. They were completely comped in style for everything: penthouse suites, gourmet meals, Dom Pérignon, you name it. They signed markers, got their chips, then used “offset” betting procedures to make the pit bosses believe they were losing all their chips while cohorts were winning them on the other side of baccarat and craps tables. Then with the same fidelity an honorable person returns his books to the library on time, the Rosellis promptly paid their outstanding markers. This got their credit lines jacked up, since they showed tons of action and paid their markers within a few days of leaving the casinos, a gesture just loved by casino credit departments. The fifty-thousand-dollar casino credit lines soon became a hundred thousand, then two hundred thousand, then half a million, and even a million in some of the classiest casino megaresorts. And the Rosellis kept on signing, playing, signing and playing, all the while giving the impression of losing big. Naturally their operation became complex and employed dozens of loyal associates from New Jersey, but as long as the casino bosses never caught on to the fact that each Roselli was more than one person, they would never know they were being victimized in the biggest casino credit scam in history.
It was ballsy, at times incredibly hairy, but the brothers pulled it off. New Year’s weekend, 2000, they showed up in Vegas for the last time. They planned on beginning the new millennium with a bang. They made the rounds of casinos in which they had big credit lines in fifty names, carefully working each shift (day, swing and graveyard) as to avoid running into pit bosses who might address them with a name different from the one they were using at that moment to sign markers. Then after spreading their false gambling action all over town, with bets as high as $100,000 per hand, they absconded with the chips never to be seen again.
Total take: $37 million. And the real beauty of it was that neither the casinos, the FBI nor the US Secret Service realized a scam had taken place until six months later. First the casinos sent polite reminders to the addresses (real apartments in upscale neighborhoods) the Rosellis had set up for the scam, asking for payment of the markers. Then when those went unanswered they turned to dunning letters demanding payment or else there would be legal action. Next came phone calls from their credit departments, but they fell upon professional answering services unwittingly picking up the phones for fraudulent businesses. And they called again and again—more letters, too, even certified, but no one ever answered the door for the mailmen. All that took six months before the FBI was finally alerted. By that time the Roselli brothers were lying on a beach somewhere very far from American casinos.
And one last detail: The Roselli brothers didn’t exist either. The real Roselli brothers whose ID they thieved died long before their scam was conceived. So in fact, the FBI and Secret Service have no idea who they’re looking for. But I do. They’re looking for shadows.
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