Can You be Cheated in Casinos by the Poker Analyzer?

Poker Analyzer Cheat Hardware

Earlier this month we heard about a poker scam at the Alea casino in Glasgow, Scotland, where a poker dealer teamed up with a player and used high-tech electronic equipment to swindle the game.

So how much of a threat is this to you in brick and mortar poker games...and perhaps other house-banked games as well?

Before I answer that, let me explain how this Poker Analyzer scam works.

It takes a collusion agreement between a dealer and at least one player. It also requires that an electronically-marked deck of cards, similar to the way retail bar codes are embedded into boxes and bags, be put into play at the target game. The dealer must lay the deck of cards on the table untethered to his hands.

This allows a tiny mobile phone camera disguised as a cell phone lying on the table to read the "bar code" off the cards. It then sends a signal to a second mobile device inside the playing-cheat's pocket, which generates a recording that is received by an earpiece plugged in the cheat´s ear. The recording gives the cheat at the table the value of all the cards as they come into play.

That's pretty much the stone cold nuts advantage when you're playing poker against legitimate players.

But does this really happen in public casinos and card rooms?

Well, my short answer is that I've only heard of it happening this one time at the Scottish casino. I don't know how accurate the report is or how much money players at the table were fleeced for. I would say that you being a victim of a poker-analyzer scam inside a legitimate gaming establishment is extremely unlikely. Too many variables are involved, let alone the risk of bringing all that electronic equipment into the game, which in many casino jurisdictions is a felony in itself punishable by prison time.

However, this electronic poker scam can be deadly in home games and unlicensed and illegal games. Cheats working those games with the Poker Analyzer wouldn't have to worry about any legal consequences when getting caught, although they might face the risk of getting the shit kicked out of them.

The giveaway to this scam is the dealer laying the deck of cards on the table after each shuffle, as this is necessary to give the camera the space and time it needs to record the markings on the cards. Also beware of a winning player often touching his pocket to adjust the mobile device hidden there.

What about other casino card games such as blackjack and 3-card poker? Can you be cheated at these games by the Poker Analyzer?

Same answer as above: most likely only if you are playing in somebody's house or in an unlicensed or illegal casino.

All in all, I wouldn't worry about Poker Analyzer as a threat in aboveboard casinos.

What happened in Scotland probably stays in Scotland...and who knows just how aboveboard that Scots casino even is?

Can Roulette Dealers Control Where the Ball Will Land?...to Some Extent?

Can the dealer control where the ball lands?

If I was asked that question two years ago, I would have answered a firm "no."

But that all changed when I was training the staff of a Midwest Native American casino in 2016. I got into a conversation with the casino's table games director who asked me if I was going to include roulette-dealer-ball-control in my table-games-protection segment.

I told him no because there was no validity in roulette dealers controlling where the ball lands.

The astute table games director begged to differ.

He took me over to one of the wheels in his training room and asked me to pick a number. I felt like I was participating in another ages-old boring card trick, but not to be rude I said, "0".

He yanked the ball and I watched it spin around the cylinder with disinterest.

It bounded a few times and then dropped into the pocket for number 35, just three numbers away from his target 0.

"Not bad," I said, just to be polite.

"The objective is to hit a six-number quadrant of the wheel," he explained...to a still dubious audience.

"Let me see you do that again?" I quipped.

"Okay, pick the number."

"Go for 31."

He spun and hit number 6, just two numbers away from 31.

Still not impressed, I said, "Come on, this wheel must be biased, and you've been practicing."

He laughed and motioned me to follow him to another wheel in his training room. "You're right, I've been practicing...but you're wrong, that wheel is not biased. None of the wheels in here are."

There were four wheels in the training room. At this one, the second, he missed the six-number quadrant, but then hit it three of the next five spins. On the third wheel, he hit the number straight-up...and it was 13! Two more spins on that wheel and he hit the quadrant once more. On the fourth wheel he hit the six-number quadrant two of four times.

"Convinced?" he chirped after the multi-wheel ball-control demonstration.

Not wanting to give in, I said, "Well, maybe it's your lucky day. And I'll think about including it in tomorrow's training class.

I thought about it all night, and I have to admit I was intrigued. I did not include it in that next day's presentation but I did the following day. And I had the table games director help me out. He spun the ball six times and hit the six-number quadrant twice, still a profitable outcome if betting equally on all six numbers.

After the demonstration he explained the three anti-roulette-ball-control measures that casinos should take, and I now include them in all my game protection seminars in casinos that offer the ball version of roulette.

They are:

1) Do not let dealers look into the wheel when they set and spin the ball. If they cannot set up the same way with the same starting point every spin, they will have a much tougher time hitting their target.

2) Have the dealers change the speed of the rotor before spinning, and even change the speed of their spins. I'm not saying every spin but certainly a few times during each individual tour at the wheel.

3) Change the roulette balls. Roulette balls come in different sizes and each size has a different feel in the dealer's hand. Therefore, by changing the balls you are making the dealer who is looking to control the spin less comfortable.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this lesson as much as I did when I received it...and don't get this mixed up with dice control! I will never believe dice control works with legitimate throws of the dice...unless, of course, I run into another sharp table games director who shows me differently LOL.

And by the way, that table games director who taught me roulette-ball control is now the head of casino operations at the same casino.

Do Casinos that charge Antes for non-poker Table Games actually have built-in Table Game Protection?

Ante-up in order to play...or cheat

Many of you might not know that casinos in some states actually charge players an ante on every deal in blackjack, spin of the ball in roulette, and toss of the dice at the craps table. I didn't know this myself until I arrived at an Oklahoma casino to conduct Table Games Protection Classes. I learned that every player must ante up 50 cents on all bets of $50 or less and $1 on all bets more than $50.

I couldn't believe that this was actually happening, but it is! And it doesn't seem to have any negative effect on table-games players, mainly that they still come to these casinos in droves.

But does the ante requirement effect table-games protection?

It actually does...and it helps casinos protect themselves from cheats! Though I doubt more than a few casino table-games personnel realize this.

The fact that all bets made without the player having put up the ante beforehand are declared "no-bets" makes certain casino scams more difficult to achieve, especially professional casino pastposting scams where a pro team uses a "claimer" who did not actually bet the pastposted chips he or she is claiming to have won.

A good example of this would be on a roulette team where a mechanic (person who manipulates chips) pastposts a high-denomination casino chip on a number in roulette and another person, the claimer, claims the winning bet was his. If that claimer did not put up an ante bet before claiming the pastposted winning bet, he would not be paid due to the violation of the ante requirement.

Notice I said that the ante requirement makes some casino scams "more difficult to achieve." I did not say that it eliminates them. Skilled professional casino-cheats find ways for their claimers to put up antes even if they are not actually making the pastposted bet. One way would be to have the claimer actually make a legitimate big bet on another section of the roulette layout and pay the $1 maximum ante per spin, and therefore he'd be able to claim the pastposted bet without it being voided for ante-violation.

Conversely, the ante requirement has little or no effect on run-of-the-mill casino-cheating scams.

What will Casino Cheating be like in Japan when Casinos Open up...Will it follow its Asian Counterparts?

Cheats Coming to Japan?

We all know there are currently four major casino gaming areas in Asia: Macau, Singapore, Cambodia and the Philippines...and we all know that each of the four are MEGA-Casino-Cheating areas. There is no doubt that casino-cheating scams in Macau and Singapore are the highest "per capita per casino employee/customer" in the world, and there is even more no doubt that they are the highest when speaking about casino scams engineered by dealers and other floor employees.

So what can we expect when Japan opens its casino doors? More of the same?

Well, I am already reading articles about the impending Yakuza infiltration of Japan's coming casinos, but that mob invasion is not directly, at least to my knowledge, connected to actual casino-cheating operations, unlike the Chinese Triads that do actually pilot casino-cheat gangs running rampant in Macau. The Japanese Yakuza gangs will most likely be limited to non-gaming casino criminal activities such as loan-sharking, money-laundering and prostitution.

Apart from that, I don't see Japanese professional casino cheats sprouting up all over the Japanese archipelago. My opinion is based on the difference between Japanese culture and other Asian cultures, especially when it comes to gambling. As it can be said that Chinese, and to some extent Koreans, have gambling in their blood, it cannot be said this is true about Japanese. There is too much honor in Japanese culture to allow gambling, any form of gambling, to sit on such a high perch of cultural importance.

Therefore, when there is less general gambling within a population, there is, generally speaking, less people cheating at gambling. So we will not see the tremendous volume of cheating in Japanese casinos that we do in Singapore and Macau, and certainly much less when it comes to Japanese casino employees getting involved in cheating their own casinos. The Japanese Honor Code forbids it.

But don't forget that Japan, like all other major casino gambling areas, will get its fair amount of international professional casino-cheat teams flocking to the tables when they are open for business.

Harrah's New Orleans Card-Counting Scuffle Turns into Federal Lawsuit

Harrah's New Orleans

We first saw it in the movies.

Remember the scene in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" where the two blackjack hole-carders get dragged into the back room and one of them gets his hand crushed with a hammer?

Then came the famous Las Vegas wrongful-imprisonment lawsuit filed by renowned card-counter James Grosjean against the Imperial Palace, Caesars Palace and Griffin Investigation, where Grosjean was awarded $400,000 by a Las Vegas district judge after being roughed up and sent off to the Las Vegas city jail.

Well, apparently not all casinos have learned the lesson about not roughing-up and illegally detaining card-counters and advantage players, who by plying their crafts in casinos are not breaking the law.

This new card-counting/alleged false imprisonment scenario is playing out at Harrah's New Orleans casino. In this case, Justin Grant and Jordan Kerr, two self-proclaimed professional card counters, say they were assaulted, handcuffed, illegally detained and threatened with long prison sentences over the card-counting accusations, all of which their complaint says caused them grievous emotional distress and embarrassment.

They have filed a federal lawsuit against several employees of the casino and the Orleans Parish Sheriffs Office, whose officers put the handcuffs on the two accused gamblers.

The complaint also says that Grant and Kerr repeatedly notified the casino authorities that card-counting and advantage-play (any form of legal play-strategy that gives the player a statistical advantage over the casino) are not illegal, which they argue shows that the authorities knew indeed they could not charge either with any crime yet they still told them it was criminal because it was against the casino's policy, perhaps a ruse to get them to somehow cop out to a crime.

No charges were filed.

My take: This is a very stupid action taken by (a) the casino, whose employees should have known better, and (b) the Orleans Parish Sheriffs Office, who officers obviously didn't.

Has Collusion Cheating Been Down at 2018 World Series of Poker?

WSOP Collusion Book

The answer to that question is an absolute yes. And decreased collusion at the WSOP has been the trend for more than a decade, especially during the main event.

Why is that so? you may ask?

Simply because there are just too many entrants at the main event, which makes it statistically improbable to obtain a big enough advantage with collusion play to make it worthwhile.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s collusion play at the WSOP was endemic, even at the main event. This is because the fields were much smaller than today, just a mere fraction of the multi-thousands of entrants we now see each year.

In my 2006 book Dirty Poker, for which I took a huge amount of negative criticism from the poker community, I pointed out how professional tournament collusion teams involving big-name players were taking down several tournaments at the WSOP.

They were able to do it mainly by chip-dumping in order to get key members of their collusion rings to advance as the limits went up. I showed how the numbers of both repeat final-table players and tournament winners defied probability when you compared the degree of difference in skill between the top players who were mainstays of the WSOP.

Adding to that the huge luck factor intrinsic to poker, it was just impossible that collusion rings weren't the best strategy for taking down tournaments in the WSOP.

But today the fields are just too big, thus professional poker tournament collusion teams now play smaller tournaments.

Ex-NBA Star Charles Oakley Busted in Vegas for Cheating Casino! Accused of Pastposting and Pinching Bets.

Accused casino cheat Charles Oakley in better days

First thing I want to say is that I hope Charles Oakley didn't get his idea to cheat casinos from reading my website!

I'm serious. Although my website is meant to be educational and somewhat entertaining, I do not endorse casino-cheating in any way, shape or form, and I discourage people from cheating each and every time I am contacted by someone I think might be interested in cheating.

Oakley is accused of "pinching" a $100 chip from a betting table (I don't know which game) after realizing he had a losing bet at the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan Casino. Pinching is the act of taking your losing chips off the table before the dealer can collect them for the casino. It can happen after a loss or when a player realizes he will probably lose, being at a disadvantage.

Some accounts state that Oakley was also "pastposting" bets, which is the opposite of pinching when a player adds chips to his bet after it won or when he realizes he probably will win the bet.

Oakley is not the first superstar athlete to be arrested for casino cheating. Back in April 2017, Australian rugby star Joe Ofahengaue was caught at the Treasury Casino in Brisbane for pastposting a $100 chip in a proprietary poker game, eerily similar to what Charles Oakley was arrested for.

My take: First thing that comes to mind is why Oakley would be involved in cheating a casino...and for a mere $100. I use the word "mere" because Oakley earned nearly $50 million during his prolific NBA career.

The first thing that comes to mind answering my question is gambling. Many high-profile athletes, especially NBA basketball players, have either admitted to or been alleged to being very heavy gamblers. I believe Charles Barkley has admitted to losing huge sums of money gambling while Michael Jordan has been alleged to have gambled for big money as well.

Perhaps Oakley had gotten himself into severe financial trouble through gambling. I sure hope not, but in any event this is indeed sad news.

Armed Robberies not the only Crime on the rise in North American Casinos

Canadian Money Laundering Palace?

Not by a longshot!

Pulling up alongside armed robbery at the top of the casino-crime stretch is...you guessed it!...money laundering.

As more and more casinos sprout out of the ground and those already existing get bigger, organized crime is growing along with them. And the new new-wave casino crime is big...and it's federal.

It's good 'ol money laundering.

And I'm not just talking about the drug and LA gangs using Vegas casinos to clean up their dirty money. Nor am I talking solely about the United States when I mention "North America."

Canada is getting their fare share of casino money-laundering action as well. Just today a report made available by the British Columbia Office of the Attorney General has poured rotten eggs all over Metro Vancouver casinos.

According to an article on Castanet.net, "information revealed through a freedom-of-information request details suspected cheating, fraud and money laundering at the Kelowna Playtime Casino."

The article goes on to state that eleven other investigations of cheating or collusion are underway, not only in Vancouver casinos but as well in Okanagan casinos.

One Vancouver casino allegedly accepted $13.5 million in $20 bills in a one-month period.

I don't know if all of Las Vegas gets that many $20 bills in a month! It does seem like money laundering to me.

Attorney General David Eby says at least $100 million has been laundered through these casinos.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Peter German, commissioned to investigate by Eby, found that the actual total laundered is probably much higher.

To top that off, surveillance video from an unnamed Vancouver casino shows gamblers walking into the casino with suitcases and a hockey bag full of $20 bills.

It does not say if they simply dumped all those twenties on the craps table. 

Is the name Marco synonymous with Cheating Casinos?

 Most common casino-cheat name?

Well, all kidding aside, I am starting to wonder!

My first encounter with an Italian casino cheat named Marco was when I literally bumped into one while cheating a roulette wheel in Lake Tahoe back in the late 70s. That Marco was a roulette mechanic (one who switches, pastposts or pinches chips), and his hands were headed out to the dolly to switch the winning chips underneath it while my hands were headed in the exact same direction with the exact same intent.

Our hands collided, both the dolly and the chips underneath went flying, and the result was a doubly failed international pastpost by two teams from two different countries that led to a lot of chaos, which was finally cleverly subdued by my infamous cheat partner Joe Classon who purposely spilled his drink on the roulette layout, which was successful in covering one mess with another mess, the former being a lot riskier to us as casino cheats than the latter.

Well, we later met up with Marco and his Italian teammates, and after much haggling we forged an agreement to stay out of each other's way, not only that time in Lake Tahoe but whenever we had the misfortune of running into each other in different casino venues over the years.

If you want to read more about my encounters with Marco and the Italians, who, by the way, were the greatest roulette pastposters I've ever seen, there are some very funny and entertaining stories about us and them in my book "American Roulette."

The second casino-cheating Marco I met was not Italian but he was a member of my own cheating team, albeit briefly. This Marco was from Iran, and in 1989 he responded to this ad I put in the classifieds of a Las Vegas newspaper: "Ballsy guy wanted for Professional Casino Cheating Team."

Okay, I'm kidding about placing that ad in a newspaper, which couldn't be done for obvious reasons, but I did  put the word out at the time that I needed a claimer (person who claims and takes the money from pastposted bets off the table) for my casino-cheating team.

A guy I knew in Vegas hooked me up with the Iranian Marco, who was all swagger and braggadocio. He told me that nothing in this world scared him and that he even withstood torture from the Shah of Iran's secret police (SAVAK) and didn't tell them a damn thing. He said cheating casinos was just taking candy from a baby.

I did not bother asking Marco why he was being tortured by SAVAK. I already had an inkling that his bluster and bragging would later reveal that he was full of shit.

So I took him to a Downtown craps table in Las Vegas, had him stand behind me as I bet three red $5 chips on the pass line. I explained to Marco that if the bet won I was going to switch out the red chips and replace them with two black $100 chips with a red $5 capper on top, changing a $15 bet into a $205 bet.

I told Marco to claim the bet.

The very first roll was a winner-seven and not only did Marco clam right up, he shit in his pants he was so damn scared!

It was one of the funniest episodes of my 25-year casino cheating career, and as we walked out of the casino I told Marco he would be better off being a spy for some Middle Eastern country than a casino cheat because it was obvious he'd have an easier time being waterboarded in a dark cave than claiming a craps move in glittering Downtown Las Vegas.

I never met any other Marcos involved in casino cheating.

But lately, or I should say during the past several years, I've been reading about a heck of a lot of 'em.

First there was the Marco involved in a Russian cell-phone-hacking-slot-machine scam. Then there was the Marco who got caught bilking the Baha Mar casino in the Bahamas. Actually in that scam, someone else caught sneaking roulette chips from one table onto another where they played for a higher denomination admitted to casino security that he was convinced by a guy named Marco to do the scam.

Then along came the Marco in not one, but two different Players Club scams.

Now...how many times have you heard in a criminal light, even if it was in a film, "Yeah, a guy named Marco roughed 'em up..." Or..."Wait for Marco behind the truck..."

Okay, I know that Marco is a very popular and international first name, but it seems to me that a higher percentage of them than random probability would dictate are casino cheats!

Ahhhh...heck, it's just my imagination.

In any case, to all you hardworking Marcos employed honestly and gainfully in the casino industry, please don't take this article too seriously!

What's With Tommy Hyland?

What's he up to?

The legendary blackjack card-counter has been popping up over the past few months in casinos you probably wouldn't expect to find him. But several smaller casinos across the US have not only spotted Hyland, they've shuffled up the decks on him. One thing I find a bit weird is that he has reportedly been playing blackjack without a disguise, which doesn't seem to fit when you're one of the most famous card-counting enemies of casinos across the country.

Why is he getting caught so often?

Why is he not bothering with disguises, which would most likely reduce the amount of times he gets caught, or at least the amount of time he spends in particular casinos before getting caught?

I've heard he's been caught several times just minutes after sitting down at the blackjack table!

So what's he up to? Did one of the best card-counters in history suddenly develop stupid-syndrome?

I highly doubt it. As a matter of fact, I have a hunch about what Mr. Hyland is up to. It's a little off-the-wall but it might make sense.

Consider this, especially if you're in casino surveillance: Could Tommy Hyland be using himself as a decoy while other unknown card counters, of course members of his team, are going through the casino devouring positive counts while the surveillance apparatus is trained on him?

Well, I guess that would work for him and his team, at least for a while. But eventually, and without me telling them, surveillance people are going to figure this out if it is indeed what's going on.

How? Simply by properly monitoring their tables and investigating all the red flags their software and table games staff alert them to.

Remember, good table games and surveillance game protection measures will weed out all the counters--no matter what guile and games they craft.