Russian Casino Cheat Team Collared In New Gorica`s Perla Casino!

Never heard of New Gorica? Well, it´s a quaint and very pretty resort area in the Alps of Slovenia near the Italian border that is home to the Perla Casino, the largest casino in the region which also now hosts major poker tournaments on the European Poker Tour. A cheating Russian roulette crew was apprehended there last week after beating the roulette wheels for more than 100,000 euros. The early reports I'm getting is that they were using laser scanners and cell phones to track the revolutions and speed of the roulette ball and then determine in which sections the ball would land. It seems to be a scam very similar to the London Ritz roulette scam pulled off in 2004 by other Eastern Europeans.

More on this when I get it.

Jennifer Newell Interviews Tokwiro COO Paul Leggett

Poker Player writer Jennifer Newell recently interviewed Tokwiro COO Paul Leggett about the giant Absolute Poker and UltimateBet Scams. Although what Leggett had to say is certainly interesting, he wouldn´t publicly lower the boom on 1994 WSOP champ Russ Hamilton as the major perpetrator of the scams, but I am sure his hushiness on the subject is nothing more than his lawyers instructions.

Here is Newell´s review of her interview with Leggett:

It started with the Absolute Poker super-user scandal, and continues with the UltimateBet cheating scandal. There are many similarities between these two cases that involve two online poker sites, but the one overriding tie that binds is their joint ownership. Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG is a Canadian company that was established to purchase the two companies and bring them together under one roof.

The investigation into the Absolute Poker scandal was reportedly concluded, though none of the alleged perpetrators have been prosecuted to the best of our knowledge. And the inquiry into the UltimateBet cheating operation has been ongoing since January 2008, which has since branched into several concurrent investigations, remains unresolved.

In early August of 2008, I had the opportunity to speak with Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Tokwiro Enterprises. Though no questions were off limits, there were many topics he was unable to address in any detail because of ongoing legal proceedings. However, Mr. Leggett was surprisingly frank in many of his responses during the interview. The questions and answers, in their entirety, were first published in a three-part article on PokerWorks.com, though excerpts will be printed here.

Leggett first explained that Tokwiro purchased Absolute Poker and Ultimate Poker in October 2006, where they were held in trust for several months while Tokwiro solidified its operations and became fully functional by early 2007. One of my initial questions regarded due diligence where software glitches and former employee improprieties were discovered.

Leggett said, “There definitely was due diligence done at the time of purchase. The company did rely on a lot of the public information that was available to us and the audits that had been done previously … We reviewed a lot of the public financial statements that were done when the company was actually traded on the London Exchange, so we did rely pretty heavily at the time on those public statements and filings. We reviewed them and the software, and we met with Excapsa management to go over all the details of the business, but this is a very large platform that we purchased. Unfortunately, during this due diligence process, we simply did not discover the code [in the software that was used by the cheaters] that was put on there … We didn’t discover it, unfortunately, until this investigation.”

I asked if there was a consideration of legal action against the prior owners, to which he could only reply, “We are pursuing many, many legal actions right now. I’m confident that a lot of it will become public in the very near future … I expect there to be some public information about that very soon.”

When pressed about the possible involvement of former owner and 1994 WSOP champion Russ Hamilton, Leggett was again limited in his ability to answer. He said, “I cannot confirm or deny anybody that is involved or not involved at this point … There’s nothing that would give me more personal satisfaction that to do that, but unfortunately, our situation is very complicated. But I have a ton of evidence—IP addresses, withdrawal information, transfer information, addresses, names—and I’m confident in my own mind that I know exactly what occurred.

“But we’re involved in complicated legal action, and our litigators have forbidden me to say anything about who is or is not involved at this point. I’m very hopeful that we’re going to be receiving a very large sum of money as a result of our legal actions, something that represents some kind of justice in this whole thing, and I’m very hopeful and committed to doing everything I can to make sure that enough information comes out about this, whether it be through our legal actions or whatever, to make sure that the poker community and the public at large are satisfied at the end of this.”

Sorel Mizzi Adds PokerStars Ban To His Collection!

MIZZI NOW BANNED FROM POKERSTARS, TOO

High profile online player adds to his Full Tilt ban

High profile professional Internet poker players, who should know better, continue to break the multi accounting rule at major online poker websites like PokerStars, Full Tilt and PartyPoker. Some of these role models are perhaps tempted by the significant amount of hard cash available in games on the Internet, and knowingly take the risk - but the embarrassing publicity of a ban often follows.

According to the poker information site AintLuck.com this week, the latest to be caught out in this form of cheating at PokerStars.com is the successful and high profile young pro Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi who has been fortunate to have the six months exclusion originally handed to him for multi accounting reduced to three months after an appeal to the PokerStars management.

Mizzi should definitely know better - he was banned in an embarrassingly public incident at Full Tilt Poker last year for playing on another player's account in a major tournament.

On this occasion, Mizzi said he was playing in an important online tournament when he ran out of time and had to make a dash for the airport. Rather than abandon the game he asked a friend to continue playing for him. Details of how PokerStars caught on to the ruse are not available, but it illustrates the dangers of trying to pull a fast one on the world's biggest online poker website.

With the aid of Friend Google, a quick look back shows that multi accounting bans have been handed out to several top online players.

One of the most notorious involved Mizzi (again) and took place at Full Tilt Poker around this time a year back. Player "BluffMagCV", who subsequently turned out to be a poker writer, made some remarkable wins at the Sunday Millions tourneys at FT, repeating the success as "SlippyJacks" the following week at PokerStars. Quite an achievement. Until player "Kongsgaard" stepped forward with the news that the FT tourney had been awarded to him following a disqualification. It later transpired that Mizzi had been playing for "BluffMagCV" on the promise of a share in the significant winnings.

The PartyPoker case against "JJ Prodigy" aka Josh Field was the subject of extensive publicity. At 16 years old, he was caught by PartyPoker as a multi accounting cheater, initially attracting attention by boasting on IMs to friends after winning a $140 000 plus first prize in a $500 000 guaranteed event. Unfortunately for "JJ" his friends took up the boast on poker forums and other players realised that the winner of the tourney had actually been one "ABlackCar" - "JJ" had actually busted out early. Hoist by his own petard, JJ was busted in another, and even more unpleasant way, by the PP management. And he was stripped of his prize, together with $40 000 in another account.

Field also ran afoul of PokerStars when, already banned, he apparently opened new accounts, funding the accounts via accomplices and the PS transfer facility. When this was discovered, PokerStars threw the book at this multi-accounter, along with his "friends" and bans were handed out all round, precluding Field from participating in at least one major and lucrative tournament. For reasons best known to himself, "JJ" exacerbated the issue by publicly apologising....admitting that he had continued to multi-account after the ban!

Both PokerStars and Full Tilt multi-accounting bans were handed to Nick "gbmantis" Niergarth after the discovery of a sophisticated cheating scandal involving other players including JJProdigy. Niergarth played in the biggest tournaments on both sites regularly and was caught using the accounts of "friends" to play, taking over late in tournaments after he had already been eliminated.

Full Tilt pro and CardRunners instructor Brian Townsend was caught multi-accounting in some of the biggest online poker games online. Playing 25-50 Pot Limit Omaha all the way up to 200-400 Pot Limit Omaha, Townsend, who is respected as a formidable cash game player and uses the online screen name "sbrugby", created a second account as "Stellarnebula" under another 'handle' to disguise his identity from opposing players. He was accused of doing the same at PokerStars using the screen name "Makersmark66."

British pro Mark Telscher made the multi-accounting headlines in the widely publicised "TheV0id" affair, which cost him a huge prize purse when PokerStars stripped him of a WCOOP first prize worth $1.2 million - one of the biggest in online history. A successful and experienced player, Telscher set up "TheV0id" account in the name of his sister Natalie. He was then found to have used the account to play after he had himself been eliminated. The duo initially kicked up a huge fuss but PokerStars prevailed.

Then 20-year-old Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo was accused by both Party Poker and Pokerstars of multi-accounting and suffered a ban and the confiscation of some $100 000 from his accounts. Reports suggest that he brought suspicion on himself by boasting on a poker forum about his discovery of a PartyPoker software flaw that allowed a player to rapidly click on the Party Poker icon and open up new sessions. Each new Party Poker session could be logged in with a different account, and this is what he was accused of doing, using up to 6 accounts in the same multi-table tournament. It transpired that he had multiple accounts and was entering multi-table tournaments at both Party Poker and Poker Stars.

CBS "60 Minutes" Online Poker Cheating Segment Now Set To Air November 9th

Rumors have begun circulating that the American television investigative news program 60 Minutes will not be airing its long-anticipated story on the Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker cheating scandals this Sunday.

According to numerous reports, the segment will now air on November 9th, during the final table competition at this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) event in Las Vegas. This date could also be further affected by the upcoming American Presidential elections, as it would be the first Sunday following the vote. In any case, I think it is a great time to air the story!

The CBS television program has allegedly joined forces with a major newspaper for the story on the cheating, which began in 2005 with Ultimate Bet, an online casino operator licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The regulator issued a report late last month that identified the chief perpetrator as former World Series of Poker champion and former Ultimate Bet executive Russell Hamilton.

“The Commission found clear and convincing evidence to support the conclusion that, between the approximate dates of May 2004 to January 2008, Russell Hamilton, an individual associated with Ultimate Bet's affiliate program, was the main person responsible for and benefiting from the multiple cheating incidents,” read the report.

“Furthermore, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission is currently in contact with the appropriate law enforcement agencies and intends to fully cooperate in the prosecution of all individuals involved in the Ultimate Bet cheating incidents.”

The statement claimed that over $60 million in fraudulent play was involved and ruled that all affected players must be refunded while Ultimate Bet was fined $1.5 million.

CBS' "60 Minutes" Program Not Saying When Online Poker Cheat Segment Will Air!

As previously reported, the story about the huge online poker scandals was rumored to air on the CBS news program “60 Minutes” this Sunday, October 26th. However, when prompted for confirmation by certain other news agencies, the show's producers declined to verify the air date, instead saying that the content of the October 26th edition of the program had not yet been determined. 60 Minutes often airs current news content in addition to feature stories.

Of course I and probably every one of you reading this blog are anxious to see this segment and what else might come out about the scandals that we haven´t heard yet. Since CBS originally planned and then filmed this episode before former WSOP champ Russ Hamilton was named as the brains behind the UltimateBet scandal, it's possible that "60 Minutes" decided to further edit the segment in order to cover more about Hamilton.

Show producers stated that the content for the upcoming week is often determined on Thursdays. At press time, its website only listed the content for the October 19th installment, which aired last Sunday night. Stories on Afghanistan, Bank of America, and bullfighting took center stage last week and the show typically airs three features. Recently, 60 Minutes correspondents have also focused on the economic crisis in the United States, the details of the $700 billion bailout that was passed by Congress, and an in-depth look at Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

The news program has been making waves in the online poker world. CBS News officials have already interviewed Harrah’s executives as well as those involved with the recent legal actions in Kentucky. Prominent poker players have been interviewed, leaving the door wide open for a variety of topics to be discussed when the online poker story airs.

The scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker were originally slated to take center stage. The former room has until November 3rd to “commence refunding all players accounts found to have been adversely affected by the cheating of individuals under the control and supervision of the licensee,” according to a mandate issued by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which is the regulatory body that oversees Ultimate Bet. The site must also “remove any and all persons deemed as ‘unsuitable’ by the KGC from all involvement with the company, which shall include all levels of ownership, management and operation.”

Meanwhile, 60 Minutes could also choose to focus on the recent actions by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, whose seizure order of 141 internet gambling domain names was upheld in a Franklin courtroom by Judge Thomas Wingate last week. That, combined with the upcoming World Series of Poker Main Event final table resuming on November 9th, could make for a very timely feature on the show.

New Poker and Casino Cheat Alert Segment Coming to my Blog!

Starting in November, each Monday and on other days when needed, I will be passing along specific ALERT information on cheating scams and serious isolated cheating incidents in both brick and mortar poker rooms and casinos across the world and across the spectrum of online poker rooms and casinos. I will be getting this very important information faster and more accurately than probably anyone else online, so be sure to stay tuned to my ALERTS so that you can use them to help you avoid becoming a victim of any of the rampant cheat scams attacking the real and virtual world´s casinos and poker rooms!

More Bad Luck, Cheat Scandals and Nightmares for Former L.A. Poker King and Card Club Mogul George Hardie

George Hardie once ran the world's largest card club. In its prime, the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens was a second home to some of the top poker players in the country. It had a reputation for clean games, and folks liked to boast they could go there to vie with legendary card players Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, as well as celebrities such as Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

Now Hardie is 75, splitting his time between Las Vegas and the tiny town of Corozal, Belize, hoping to free his son and three security guards from a Mexican jail just over the border.

Every gambler has his story, and they all come back to luck. Hardie's latest turn came after he put down a big bet on casino gambling in Belize. His venture wasn't working out as well as he had dreamed even before his son, George Jr., wound up in jail. His son had followed unruly gamblers from Corozal to the Mexican border, where he was charged with possession of a gun and attempted murder.

At first, local newspapers portrayed the two Mexican nationals as innocent victims who were shot at in a quarrel over beer.

"I'm very afraid that something else will happen to me, because those people have a lot of power and money. They tried to kill me," the wounded man told a local newspaper from his hospital bed.

But after Hardie released video from the casino that night, some Mexican newspapers began to criticize the arrest of the four men, with a leading paper in the state of Quintana Roo calling it "a terrible injustice."

The case has Hardie looking back at the tough hands he's been dealt in his decades in the gambling business.

A sweet hand

None of those bad cards would have come up, Hardie insists, if he hadn't been pushed out of the best game in town nearly 15 years ago.

In the mid-1980s, Hardie was holding a sweet hand. He was the de facto king of the card clubs.

"Hardie was the driving force that created the Bike club, the largest card casino in the world," said Nelson Rose, a Whittier Law School professor and an expert on gambling. "You could almost say that Hardie was the father of the modern large California card club."

The games may have been on the up-and-up, but much of the financing for the casino, it turned out, was not.

In the late 1980s, the casino was raided by federal agents, who accused some of the card club's partners of building up the casino with laundered drug money. An investigation turned up no evidence that Hardie had any involvement, and he testified for the prosecution.

Things got worse for Hardie when the federal government got into the gambling business. U.S. marshals seized the club in 1990 after a jury convicted four men of racketeering charges stemming from laundering millions of dollars from drug deals through a number of companies, including the Bicycle Club.

Hardie stayed in the game for a while. But the government ran the club with the caution of a bureaucrat, he said. The feds weren't interested in taking chances on modernizing. Other clubs caught up. The Commerce Casino soon became the preeminent card club, surpassing the Bicycle Club, now the Bicycle Casino.

Hardie resigned as general manager in 1994, saying he wanted to pursue other interests, but remained a partner. But he had been at odds with the federal trustee who ran the casino. Two years later, the state attorney general's office recommended stripping the licenses of that trustee and top managers, saying they knowingly allowed scams, kickbacks, loan-sharking, illegal games and cheating at the club.

Meanwhile, the club's profits began to decline. He turned his eyes to Nevada, moving there in the late 1990s. He ran for county commissioner in Clark County but lost. He looked at opening a casino in Las Vegas, but he said he didn't stand a chance against the huge corporate-owned casinos.

Mostly, Hardie's time was consumed by a lawsuit he filed against the federal government, arguing that the feds nearly ran the Bicycle Club into the ground, eroding profits for Hardie and his partners. In 2004, an arbitration panel ruled in favor of Hardie and his partners, saying they were due $93.6 million from the federal government. The ruling is being appealed.

The closest Hardie came to running a casino again was a small "slot parlor" store he owned in Cancun, Mexico. The machines did not give cash, but rather tickets that could be used for prizes, such as meals, at about 40 hotels. Belize was tantalizingly close, and he felt the country would appreciate any business.

"I felt like Columbus jumping on the boat, trying to find the trade route to India," Hardie said with a laugh. "You always think big."

Hardie dreamed of high-rollers from Mexico City and other parts of Mexico showing up to gamble in Belize. It took years to raise the funds and to find investors, and then to build the casino. There were delays.

Two years ago, Hardie's Las Vegas Casino finally opened in Corozal. But the high-rollers did not show up. Instead, most of the gamblers were local Belizeans and working-class Mexicans from just across the border.

He knew that one reason the well-heeled had not shown up was that his casino did not have a hotel yet. But the first part of his planned hotel, which he vows will be Belize's most luxurious, will open by the end of the year, he said. And the rest could be finished by April 2009, he added.

Hardie said he was hopeful.

Then, on July 13, two men from the nearby Mexican town of Chetumal showed up at the casino. Hardie was at his Las Vegas home when he got a call from one of the casino regulars in Belize: There had been a shootout in the parking lot.

Police in Corozal said the men from Chetumal had been ordered out of the casino for combative behavior and suspicion of being drunk. They returned, firing guns, according to police. At least one security guard apparently fired back, wounding one of the men, who fled over the border. Hardie's son showed up and with three security guards drove to the Mexican border. He said they went there to warn Mexican authorities about the shooters. But he and the guards were carrying weapons.

Mexican authorities arrested them and charged them with crossing the border with guns.

"They had every intention of letting the Mexican government know that this shooting happened," said their Mexican attorney in Chetumal, Luis Jorge Fitzmaurice Moguel. "Unfortunately, they presented themselves to the Mexican border with arms, and they were held. It was a moment of carelessness."

Fitzmaurice Moguel said Mexican authorities based the charges on the story the two Mexican men told them, and that the younger Hardie did not participate in the shooting. Authorities declined to comment, except to provide a statement saying that the younger Hardie and the security guards had violated Mexico's federal arms law and that they were held on additional charges of attempted murder.

A judge is expected to determine whether the charges are valid as early as Wednesday. Meanwhile, the onetime king of L.A.'s card clubs is paying for the legal defense of his son and his casino guards. He said he's cautiously optimistic that they will be released. Hardie said he's going forward with his Belizean gamble, though with a bit less excitement for the hand he's holding.

"This sort of dampened my enthusiasm for being here, quite frankly," he said. "To be honest, I'm just a little disappointed."

Man Caught Cheating At Roulette in Iowa Casino!

After busting a man who was probably not very skilled at cheating casinos, a table games director at the Greyhound Park & Casino in Dubuque, Iowa, has decided to mouth off about his view on casino cheats. After listening to what he had to say, I think I might catch the next bus to Iowa!...if you get what I mean!

Gaming officials contend that they caught a Florida man cheating at Riverside Casino this week, a scenario casino authorities say is highly uncommon.

David Esau, the director of table games at Greyhound Park & Casino in Dubuque, said the facility "virtually never" experiences cheating scandals. In addition, Tim Sammons, the special agent in charge at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, estimated that Riverside filed criminal charges against only three or four individuals for cheating in the past year.

"The reason is it's a Class D felony," Sammons said. "It doesn't matter if you cheat with a quarter, or a dollar, or $25."

On Tuesday, police arrested and charged 25-year-old Jose Polanco-Osvaldo of West Palm Beach with claiming winnings without a wager or more than the wager, a Class D felony. Officials said the casino's surveillance personnel allegedly observed Polanco-Osvaldo attempting to cheat at the roulette table by placing chips on winning bets after the spinning ball dropped into the slot denoting the winning number.

Three others are suspected of assisting Polanco-Osvaldo in his attempts, although officials are not releasing their names.

Despite what some may think, Esau said cheating is rare, thanks to state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and other security measures. It can be difficult to cheat, he said, noting that attempted roulette scams are the most common.

Sammons, however, took a different approach.

"It's very easy to cheat at probably any game if you put your mind to it," he said. The challenge is outsmarting the dealer, security personnel, and the "eye in the sky" - surveillance cameras.

These cameras watch the game from all angles, making it even more difficult to successfully pull off a scam.

But Sammons said if a casino ever mistakenly loses money, it's most likely not attributed to a successful cheater. Instead, it's considered a simple mistake.

"What we see more of is human error, where a dealer may overpay you," he said. "It's just through repetition all day long. They've been there eight hours."

Sammons attributed Polanco-Osvaldo's arrest on Tuesday to the surveillance operators, who he said performed "very diligently."

Polanco-Osvaldo's preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 29.

Biloxi Hard Rock Casino Roulette Dealer Caught Cheating His Game!

A table games dealer who worked at Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi was arrested Saturday for allegedly cheating the casino. David Smith, 50, of Marina Avenue in Ocean Springs, was arrested on a felony charge of violating the Mississippi Gaming Code. He was caught defrauding the Hard Rock Casino by placing winning bets for players on his roulette game after the ball already landed. His move was skillfull as he already had the players´ chips in his hand and then laid them on the winning number as he placed the roulette dolly on it. The move, which I can tell you from experience as an ex-roulette dealer, is quite difficult to perform, and when it is performed well it is very difficult to spot, even from the eye in the sky.

Smith was taken to the Harrison County jail by agents of the Mississippi Gaming Commission and released on $5,000 bail. Apparently this type of cheating was confined to Hard Rock Casino. The Mississippi Gaming Commission alerted all other area casinos to be on the lookout for the roulette scam.

British Roulette Pastposting Cheat Team Nabbed in Jolly 'Ol London!

I never thought Brits were any good at casino cheating. They're always getting caught trying to get on with really rank amateurish cheat moves. In fact, just by the sound of the British term for pastposting, "top-hatting," I could never take the Brits' attempts at doing this very seriously. I have done many interviews for UK television and print media, and it is hard to believe how little is actually accomplished by UK casino cheat teams, although let it be said that UK casino staffs are the sharpest of the sharpest when it comes to protecting their table games. I always considered it a challenge to take off London casinos, where inside some there is an inspector sitting in a high chair above every single roulette wheel. You can imagine some of the diversion techniques my casino pastposting teams had to use!

Here's an article covering the ill-fated UK "top-hatting" (LOL) team

A Roulette cheat from Manchester who was part of a gang that used bogus identities to sneak into casinos has escaped jail.

But Robert Evans, 36, from Broadlea Road, Burnage, was banned from every casino in the country for two years.

Evans, a tutor, was given a 48-week suspended jail sentence after admitting three false ID offences and must also complete 160 hours of community service.

The gang, led by Anthony Lopez, 42, also included 33-year-old Danny Ngo.

The trio were sentenced at a hearing at London's Southwark Crown Court.

Police said thousands of pounds had been made through the trio's scam known as 'top hatting'. This involves secretly placing a chip on to the winning number while distracting staff monitoring the game.

Officers believe the three made a 'substantial amount'.

Ringleader Lopez, of south-west London, also wrote a manual for the other cheats, with instructions on how to carry out the top hatting move and obtain false identification papers.

After being banned from a number of casinos, the trio used the false identities to gain entry to other gambling places.

Police monitored the gang operating at branches of Gala Casino in London and Stockport but believe other casinos were duped. The three were arrested in July and August last year.

When their homes were searched, numerous false identity documents were uncovered as well as some crack cocaine.

Lopez, a landlord from Wimbledon, pleaded guilty to three offenses under the Fraud Act 2006, eight offenses against the Identity Cards Act 2006 and three counts of possession with intent to supply crack cocaine.

He was jailed for three-and-half years.

Unemployed Ngo, of Birmingham, pleaded guilty to four offenses under the Fraud Act 2006 and two against the Identity Cards Act 2006.

He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years. He is also subject to a supervision order for two years and excluded from casinos for two years.