How will the Bitcoin Crash affect Online Poker and Online Casinos?

Only Bitcoin Bits Left

Bitcoin investors are currently getting a stern lesson in the laws of financial gravity as Bitcoin crashed and took the whole cybercurrency market down with it. In fact, Bitcoin has lost a quarter of its value in the last week. As online poker and casinos are expanding into the use of cybercurrency to drive their sites, online casino and poker players are wondering, "Is it safe?"

Well, just a little before I wrote this article about CoinPoker's cryptocurrency and how its reps were saying that the cryptocurrency would help protect against online poker cheating and customer account deposit theft. My initial take on CoinPoker's advent measures was that it all sounded good and probably safe.

Now, as the Bitcoin falls into little pieces in cyberspace, I am surely having my doubts!

Cambodian Casino Dealer Robs his own Casino!

Thai Casino Dealer/Cowboy

Casino cheating and dealer-cheat scams have been on the rapid rise in Poipet City on the Cambodian/Thai border.

This time 26-year-old Thai dealer Thirak Phath Tichakhun of the Paramex Casino robbed his employer by simply removing the money from a cashier desk when no one was looking.

Well, I don't know what that means, but a least a video surveillance caught the theft on tape. There was no money to confiscate, however, because Tichhakun quickly wired the ill-gotten proceeds to his Thai friends in Bangkok.

My take: Seems like Poipet City is becoming somewhat of Wild wild East, something like the Old Wild Wild West versions of Carson City and Sioux City.

Lots of Year-End Casino-Cheating Scams, Robberies and Online Cryptocuurrency Problems

Bellagio Poker-Cage Robber

Lets start of with the late-November robbery of the Bellagio Poker cage in mid-afternoon. The Bellagio, which was victimized by the Motorcycle Casino Bandit back in 2010, is now stranger to casino robberies.

This time the bandit, wearing a wig and big sunglasses, and prepared with a big-money bag into which he put the loot, walked right up to the poker cage, pointed his gun at the teller and demanded the cash. The teller immediately gave him an unspecified amount, though I think it would be in the neighborhood of 50K.

And he did it so calmly as is seen on the video. Very few people noticed.

Actor James Woods, who played a banker that Axel Freed (James Caan) nearly strangled to death with a telephone cord, just happened to be there when the robbery went down. He said, "The Bellagio staff were fantastic. They surrendered the money quietly, so no customers would get hurt. Nobody even realized it was happening. Excellent staff, cool under pressure."

The "cool" casino-cage robber then jogged out a nearby exit, hopped into a suburban vehicle and simply drove away.

My take: Let's see if this guy is a little smarter than the casino bandit, who put an ad in the Vegas newspaper offering discounted rates for the high-denomination chips he stole.

False-Shuffling Florida Poker Dealer Goes Down in 30K Poker-Cheat Scam

Racino Race to Poker-Cheating

Thirty-year-old Tishun Butler performed a series of false shuffles at the St. Petersberg Derby Lane Racino by which his yet unidentified cohort walked away from the poker game with thirty grand in profit.

According to reports, surveillance at the casino/greyhound track had quality videotape of Butler false-shuffling the cards on several occasions. The winning player also was an ex-poker dealer at the casino. He has not yet  been charged with a crime but probably will be soon.

This is not the first smudge on poker-play in the Tampa/St. Petersberg area. Twenty miles from the Derby Lane Casino is the Silks poker room at Tampa Bay Downs where several cheating incidents and good old-fashioned ripoffs occurred in poker tournaments. In December, 2016 the Pompano Beach Poker Tour collapsed in disgraced after it was revealed that several winning players from its Aruba main event who were due more than $300,000 had never been paid, including the tournament winner Stephen Deutsch who was supposed to receive more than $133,000.

As well, Tampa Bay Downs is involved in a lawsuit in which a Ponzi scheme bilked several poker players out of large sums of money. And if that were not enough, pro poker player Mark Klang accused fellow South Florida pros Justin Zaki, Paul Dlugozima, Fillip Khavin and WSOP bracelet-winner John Racener of not paying nearly $500,000 in debts tied to games they played at the Derby Lane.

My take: Well, it seems to me like Tampa is to crooked poker what Steubenville, Ohio was once to crooked casinos!

Vegas Mass Murderer Paddock's Motive Appears to be Related to Gambling Losses

Back on October 16, I wrote an article about what I thought was Stephen Paddock´s motive for mass-murdering 58 innocent people and wounding hundreds more in Las Vegas on October 1st. As deranged as he had to be to commit such a heinous act, the reason appeared quite obvious to me once it was reported that Paddock had no terrorism connection and had left no communication explaining his act.

And what really made the case for me was that he had been losing heavily playing Las Vegas video poker machines. He was also losing some of his high-living comps at the casinos, which must have aggravated him greatly.

So I wrote that his motive had to be an attack on the Las Vegas establishment itself, not on the people who were killed and injured. In other words, Paddock was pissed off about losing his money and decided to make Las Vegas pay for it.

Those of you who read my post may have been surprised by my summation but recently this article appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal. It supports my theory, and unless or until some other viable theory comes to light, it is a fact that Stephen Paddock murdered and wounded all those people simply because he was enraged about his massive gambling losses.

Does CoinPoker's Cryptocurrency Poker Room Help Safequard its Clients Against Online Poker Cheating and Account Deposit Theft?

Online-Poker-Cheat Sleuth reps CoinPoker

According to online-poker-cheating pundit Michael Josem, who is a Hall of Fame Cheatcatcher responsible for breaking up several online poker-cheating scams including Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, it does indeed.

Cryptocurrency will operate with CHP tokens and blockchain technology against unfair games and cheating.

According to CoinPoker rep and professional poker player Isabelle Mercier, "CoinPoker's mission is to provide safe, transparent and trustworthy poker games." She added that "Blockchain opens so much more opportunities for the community even in those regions where fans of the game have constant payment problems, like Asia and Latin America. Players around the world can be confident that their funds will be secure, their cards will be random, and their games will be fair.

Crytocurrency will reduce the time transactions take from days to just seconds, anywhere in the world, allowing players to take solid control of their funds and accounts. To guarantee total transparency, CoinPoker is putting their random number generator on blockchain.

My take: It does sound good....and safe!

Is there Fake News in the Media Covering Casino and Poker Cheating?

Source of Card-Marking Materials???

I never considered this...until I heard this: "German Police Arrest Woman on Suspicion of Marking Cards used in Casino Table Games with radioactive iodine."

According to various online news accounts, a 41-year-old woman, who--oddly--was not identified, Berlin police raided a restaurant after pieces of radioactive playing cards were found at a waste treatment plant and traced back to the restaurant. At the restaurant, thirteen playing cards with traces of radioactive iodine-125, which is a nuclide found in certain medicines. Shortly afterward, a night club, karaoke bar, an apartment and some office spaces were searched by the same police department.

It is not clear if any of these places, including the restaurant, was home to some sort of illicit poker game or casino.

According to the reports, the woman had a partner who had a radioactive detection device that would enable him or her to identify the cards that had the iodine on them. No German casinos were named in this report, so it is possible that this radioactive card-marking scam took place or was taking place in some kind of private, non-state-sanctioned game.

The police also noted that there was no health risk to anyone coming into contact with the radioactive cards as the dose was small and had all but disappeared when the cards were found.

The woman faces from one to five years in prison.

My take: Is this real? Or is this some kind of fake news? Well, I really don't know. Maybe we will learn later that it was all part of some kind of terrorism plot--that would be really scary!!

Russian Backgammon Cheat Busted in Las Vegas for Dice-Sliding at Craps

Sliding Dice

Well, this should not be surprising as backgammon and craps have one very important thing in common: that of course being the usage of dice. But what is surprising as hell, at least to me, is that dice-sliding actually works.

It is so damn easy to stop!

But 44-year-old Badri Tsertsvadze, who hails from the republic of Georgia, has managed to get away with dice-sliding for quite a long time in the world's casinos including Las Vegas. He was, however, busted this month for the same at the Flamingo casino on the Vegas strip.

He was charged with 18 counts of cheating at gambling (I imagine each count is for a dice-slide) and booked into jail with a $90,000 bail, which is certainly high for a casino-cheating  crime.

Tsertsvadze obviously has loads of international gambling-cheat experience. Back in 2008 he was arrested for using loaded dice in a Normandy, France backgammon tournament. He is also suspected of doing the same in two other European backgammon tournaments he won.

I don't have any info on how much Tsertsvadze dice-slid the Flamingo for but I imagine it is a significant amount given the high bail.

Back in September of this year, two Bulgarians were arrested after allegedly dice-sliding their way to more than a million dollars on a Caribbean cruise ship. There have also been major dice-sliding casino-cheating incidents in Louisiana and other US casinos.

It just amazes me that this scam repeatedly works when it is so damn easy to stop!

Colorado Casino Prosecutes Man for Playing $2 Abandoned Slot Machine Credit!

Wow, talk about draconian casino measures....or talk about just plain ridiculousness! But this actually happened.

Dan's bill for paying a $2 abandoned slot credit 

A man referring to himself as "Dan" in order to protect his identity entered Johnny Z's Casino in Central City, Colorado back in February. He sat down at a slot machine and there was a $2 credit on it. He innocently--OK, he knew it was a freebee--or at least without malice--played the credit. Next thing he knew he was grabbed up by security, who had traced him through his players card, and hauled to the backroom of the casino, then arresrted and charged with misdemeanor casino fraud. He then found himself in jail.

All this over two lousy dollars.

Dan, who has a state professional license to practice some sort of profession or business, now has a criminal record and his whole career is in jeopardy. He stated that it was not his intent to steal from anyone, even less the casino, and he pointed out that it was not the casino's two dollars in the first place. He said he simply saw the credit, figured no harm no foul, and played it. After all, he felt it was quite unlikely the player would come back looking for the two-dollar credit.

And, believe it or not, Dan's case is not at all unique in Colorado casinos. In the last five years, 80 people have been jailed for misdemeanor casino fraud concerning slot machines. These "offenses" included playing other people's credits, Dan's crime, as well as finding slot vouchers on the floor and cashing them out and finding casino chips on the floor or left abandoned on gaming tables.

In Dan's case, after pleading guilty and paying $250 in various fees and fines to avoid a bigger problem, the state of Colorado offered him the chance to expunge his record so that his $2 crime would not smear the rest of his life. But he still had to do 24 hours of community service and now must stay out of casinos.

My take: This is really hard to take! I think a little warning to any casinogoer who happens to play an abandoned credit would suffice.

6 Steps Casino Surveillance Practices to Weed Out Casino and Poker Cheats

They see you coming!

Today's casinos do everything they can to stop the cheat and advantage-players, including steps that take place before cheats and APs even enter the casino. Six of them are listed below.   

1)  License Plate Recognition Technology: Casinos take digital photos of all vehicle license plates as they enter the property. So if you're a known casino cheat or poker cheat and you arrive at the casino with a vehicle registered in your own name, you're sure as hell giving the casino a head start!

2) Biometric Face Recognition: It's the same thing as the license plate recognition except it's your face that's being recognized by the cameras. Then the photo is compared to the photos in the casino's database, and if you're a match, you're again giving the casino a head start.

3) Angel Eye Technology: This is not about your car or your face; it's a sensor embedded in card shoes that track the cards as they're dealt and relay the info to a computer. So if the results of the hand at the table don't agree with results showing up on the computer screen, you're in trouble if you're the one causing the deviation.

4) RFID Technology: These radio frequency identification chips are embedded in the casino chips and allow the casinos to follow their chips on and off the tables, wherever they go inside the casino's range. So if you're claiming you bet more than you bet or less than you bet, all the casino has to do is check the monitor and see how much you actually did bet.

5) TableEye21: An overhead video camera records the action and then with special software that analyzes the data in conjunction with the RFID technology, it matches the video feed with real-time information of the cards being dealt and the chips being wagered. This paints a pretty good picture of what happens on the tables that is very difficult to alter after the fact.

6) NORA Technology: Another high-tech software package that allows suspicious casino bosses to connect members of casino-cheating teams or advantage-play teams who are trying to make them think they are not playing or cheating together and don't even know each other. It makes a non-obvious relationship awareness very obvious when the casino bosses learn that two or more people winning big at the table while seemingly not knowing each other are actually neighbors and went to the same high-school.

My take: Well, not all casinos have all of these weapons but most have at least some of them. While the gaming-table technology seems really effective, I am less convinced by the face-recognition technology, especially if the cheats and APs go through the bother of disguising themselves.