Chinese Pair Guilty of Roselli Brothers Type Casino Credit Scam on Baccarat Tables!

I don't know if this Chinese duo read about the infamous Roselli Casino Credit Scam on my Scam of the Month Page (scroll down to it), but if they did, they should've probably picked up a copy of my book "The World's Greatest Gambling Scams," where the greatest version of the casino credit caper is detailed down to the most minute detail. I'm not saying they wouldn't have been caught had they read my book, but...who knows?

In any event, read about there casino credit baccarat attack and compare it to the Roselli's massive casino credit scam that destroyed casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City back in the mid '90s. I have called the Roselli casino credit scam the best casino scam of all time!

Source: Review Journal

A Southern California man was sentenced Monday to six years in federal prison for defrauding Station Casinos out of more than $1 million in a baccarat credit scheme.

De Rong Shang, 51, also was ordered to pay $1,011,400 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release when he gets out of prison. Prosecutors had sought a nine-year term behind bars, but Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt said he didn't believe a tougher sentence was needed in this case. Both Shang and family members tearfully begged Hunt in court for leniency. The Chinese-born Shang, who also faces deportation after he gets out of prison, showed remorse and apologized to the judge.

"I'm really sorry for what I did in the past," he said through an interpreter. "Your honor, I guarantee to you that for he rest of my life I will be a law-abiding citizen."

Shang, dressed in jail garb and chains, was convicted March 27 of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 22 counts of wire fraud after a two-week trial. His co-defendant in the case, Yuli Eaton, 47, of Southern California, pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Hunt sentenced her in July to five months in prison and five months of home confinement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Duncan revealed in May that Shang was the target of a new FBI investigation into a similar, but larger, baccarat credit scheme on the Strip. Multiple casinos, including Paris Las Vegas, were alleged to have lost millions of dollars in a scam by Shang's group. Duncan alleged that Shang got involved in the new scheme while waiting to be tried in the Station Casinos scheme.

In court papers seeking a lighter sentence, Los Angeles defense lawyer Anthony Brooklier described Shang as a "loving father and husband whose life careened out of control" because of a gambling addiction.

"He is not criminal by nature, but rather a decent family man who, in the throes of gambling debts, made the desperate and ill-advised decision to participate in the fraudulent conduct that brings him before this court," Brooklier wrote.

In a written response, Duncan called Shang "a greedy, selfish man unconcerned with the consequences of his actions to himself, his family and other supporters." He said Shang, a Chinese citizen who came to the United States in 1991, "preyed upon members of his own community" in the Station Casinos credit scheme.

"This group of mostly Chinese immigrants were easily taken advantage of and were left with ruined credit histories and, in some cases, criminal charges in the Nevada state system," Duncan wrote. In court Monday, Duncan described Shang's crime as a "large-scale fraud" and said he had "no respect for the law."

Brooklier told Hunt that Shang's arrest was a "wake-up call" for him. "Is there no room for redemption?" he asked. "Is there no room for saying I'm sorry?" In handing out the sentence, Hunt said he agreed with prosecutors that Shang's actions were "driven by greed." He told Shang that he should have sought treatment for his gambling addiction rather than trying to defraud Station Casinos.

The scheme unfolded between December 2006 and April 2007 at three of the company's resorts, Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch and Palace Station, prosecutors said. Shang and Eaton recruited people to open Bank of America accounts funded by Shang. Then, Shang helped the recruits apply for lines of credit at the casinos. Once the lines of credit were approved, the recruits transferred the money from their accounts to Shang's account, prosecutors alleged.

The recruits withdrew chips from their lines of credit and played baccarat at the casinos. They carried out a scam known as "rolling the chips" to make it look as though they were losing money, when in fact they were just hiding chips and giving them to other co-conspirators. Shang then cashed in the chips, prosecutors alleged. By the time the casinos tried to collect the unpaid markers, the accounts were drained or closed.

My take: Well, this Chinee duo weren't exactly the Roselli Brothers, who might have been even more greedy than them, but the Roselli Brothers, who ripped the casinos off for nearly $40 million, were obviously also smarter than the Chinese casino-credit scammers.

Cheating/Counting EZ Baccarat Dragon 7 and Panda 8 Side Bets?

There seems to be a rash of casino hold deficiencies on EZ baccarat tables across the US and Canada, especially in casinos in the booming oil-rich northwest part of Canada. Canadian casino executives have been seeking my advice and consulting in this area. They are hugely concerned about what is happening on their EZ baccarat tables, and their worries are concentrated around the tremendously popular Dragon 7 and Panda 8 side bets.

Are casino cheats and baccarat cheats out there and up there beating the EZ baccarat games?

The answer in short is definitely yes! For starters both these side bets are beatable without even getting into cheating. They can be counted down and wagerd on with a significant advantage going to the player against the house. I will talk more about this later, but now let me turn to the possibility of cheating these EZ baccarat bets.

As with everything in baccarat these days, the casinos' vulnerability to cheating by offering these EZ bacc side bets is quite high. In Canada, the problem is probably the highest in the world. This is mainly because of their vast action on the EZ bacc tables. You might be surprised to know, that I have NEVER seen so much action on baccarat tables anywhere in the world that even comes close to what's happing in western Canada. The size of the bets are big enough, but the volume, and I mean VOLUME of bets on these EZ baccarat tables is both incredible and crazy. Like in the UK and the Caribbean, Canadian casinos let multipe bets from multiple players sit side by side by side by circle in the betting squares! Get what I mean? Simply that there can be as many as four bets in one baccarat betting circle or square. That's all great for the action but helps cheats pull of their EZ baccarat cheat moves as well. There is so much confusion and dealer/player fraternization that the possibility for dealer/agent(s) collusion cheating against the casinos is endless.

I will be addressing particular EZ baccarat cheat moves in the near future, so stick with me!

Attn Casino Execs...Check Out My New Casino Game Protection Training Seminar Video!

For those of you who are looking for top-tier game protection training and instruction, check out my new casino surveillance and casino table games protection training video. Before you call any of the other so-called game protection consultants out there, take a look at what I offer and the experience I have in the field. Believe me, you will learn a lot more on how to protect and safeguard your casinos from me than from the others.

Guaranteed!

RICHARD MARCUS CASINO GAME PROTECTION TRAINING PAGE

I offer game protection seminars, casino surveillance and performance evaluations, and undercover investigations to identify your advantage players, cheats and dishonest employees, both on the casino floor and in the cashier cage.

Still No New News in Phil Ivey UK Baccarat Case

Baccarat Cheat?

I am sure that many of you are waiting for updates on the Phil Ivey standoff with London´s ritzy Crockfords Casino over the more than $10 million the American poker pro won during an amazing run of fantastic luck at the baccarat table. Crockfords, however, doesn´t seem to believe that luck had much to do with Ivey´s good fortune. Without outright saying they suspected him and his beautiful Asian female partner cheating, they still continue to withhold Ivey´s winnings, and now more than three months have passed and the impasse remains intact.

I have no further news on this and am as anxious as you are to see how this case is finally resolved. As soon as I hear, I will post any updates.

Australian Casino Cheat Rash Hits Queensland Casinos

Queenland Casino

Source: Herald Sun

Almost 50 gamblers have been caught cheating at Queensland casinos in the past year and dozens of others have been nabbed stealing chips, cash, wallets and mobile phones from punters.


Thieves have found rich pickings from casino gamblers accidentally dropping chips worth up to $1000 on the floor, documents released under Right to Information laws reveal.

Queensland Police Service's Casino Crime Unit laid charges for 236 offences in 2011-12, including 49 for cheating, 59 casino exclusion offences, 68 identity offences, 22 thefts, six drug and three fraud offences.

At Brisbane's Treasury Casino, security cameras caught a woman picking up a $1000 chip that had been dropped near roulette tables. Her female accomplice then cashed it in.

The pair later were arrested after one of the women was spotted returning to the casino.

One woman went on a shopping spree with the proceeds of two $500 chips dropped by a gambler in the Treasury Casino in February.

. Casino cameras caught the woman playing gaming machines and then cashing in the remaining chips.

When she returned to the casino two hours later, the woman told police she had gone shopping with the cash and had only $255 left.

Security footage helped police find a man who left Treasury Casino with a $500 chip dropped from another man's pocket.

When police later found him in a Brisbane square, the man admitted he had planned to return to the casino and cash in the chip to play poker machines.

Some gamblers found out they could not claim "finders keepers" at the casino.

One man was charged with stealing as a result of picking up a $50 note that had been spat out of a note-breaking machine at a casino, while another man was charged after using $50 he had picked up off a casino floor to bet on greyhounds.

Conrad Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast was stung with an unpaid bar tab of $207 after a man left the casino after shouting his mates dozens of drinks. The credit card he left behind had been cancelled by a bank.

Dodgy counterfeit notes also have been offloaded for casino chips.

My take: Even back in the day when I was in business cheating casinos, Australian casinos were ripe for the pickings.

Is British Casino Accusing Poker Star Phil Ivey of Being a Ten-Million-Dollar Baccarat Cheat??? Wow!!!

Crockfords ritzy entrance

Source: Mail Online

Britain's oldest casino is investigating a £7.3 million win by the world’s top poker player – and is refusing to pay him a penny. Crockfords, the exclusive Mayfair gaming club, has informed the Gambling Commission that it is withholding Phil Ivey’s payout. A source with close knowledge of the dispute described the situation as unprecedented. Accompanied by a ‘beautiful Oriental woman’, Mr Ivey, a 35-year-old Californian, was playing Punto Banco, which is a skill-free variant of baccarat, when he struck a remarkable winning streak.

The 184-year-old casino initially agreed to transfer the winnings to his bank account, but six weeks on it has returned only his £1 million stake. Instead it began an exhaustive inquiry. Staff, including the female croupier, were interviewed at length amid fears there may have been some form of collusion. This is thought to have been ruled out.

While it is unclear what, if anything, Mr Ivey has been accused of, lawyers for both sides are said to be engaged in an increasingly tense stand-off. It is not thought that police have been alerted. Sources said Mr Ivey played for two nights over the August bank holiday for about seven hours in all. Suspicions over the win intensified when it was discovered that his companion’s membership of another Mayfair casino had previously been suspended. The reason for this has not been revealed.

Crockfords, the oldest private gaming club in the world, is owned by Genting, the Malaysian gaming corporation. They believe that the £7m streak of luck that a Mayfair casino thinks is too good to be true

Genting investigators flew to London from Kuala Lumpur to speak to everyone who was working on the two nights in question and to examine hours of film from surveillance cameras. The cards used and the shoe they were dealt from were also scrutinised. ‘No imperfections, or marks, that would have given Ivey an advantage were found. In any case, Ivey at no time touched the cards,’ said a source. ‘The shoe was also thoroughly inspected; once again the investigators drew a blank. Doormen outside Crockfords Casino in Mayfair London Mr Ivey, who once picked up £10 million in a poker tournament in Las Vegas, was playing in a small private room on the ground floor of Crockfords. He sat next to his companion. The only other people in the room were the croupier and an inspector. All the action was recorded on ten cameras. Mr Ivey was initially gambling £50,000 per hand, which can be over in less than a minute. He was later given permission by the management to increase his stake to £150,000.

Private club: Crockfords is Britian's oldest casino Punto Banco is the favoured game of high-rollers. The result is determined as soon as the cards are dealt – it offers marginally better odds than games such as roulette. At first, Mr Ivey’s losses were heading towards £500,000 but he recovered, and at the end of the first night was £2.3 million up. His winning form continued on the second night and by the time that he signalled he was ready to quit he had amassed £7.3 million. He told the management he wanted the money transferred into his bank account. The casino allegedly told him it couldn’t be done straight away because of the bank holiday, but assured him that it would be done on Tuesday, August 28.

Mr Ivey left the club and the casino began an immediate investigation. Because of the difficulties involved, instances of Punto Banco cheating are rare. Twelve years ago a Triad gang used covert surveillance footage to read cards being dealt and relay a signal to a receiver outside the casino. The information was then transmitted to the player using a hidden earpiece. There is no suggestion that Mr Ivey is accused of using any of these methods.

Although he is a respected figure in the poker world, casinos regard him as a ‘hit and run’ gambler, with a tendency to ‘quit after just a few hands if he wins big’. On this occasion, Mr Ivey, a divorcé, assured Crockfords bosses that he would play for a serious amount of time, and transferred £1 million into the casino’s bank. Mr Ivey declined to comment when approached by a Mail on Sunday reporter at a tournament in Cannes last week. ‘Please don’t talk to me. I am concentrating on my tournament,’ he said.

His mother, Pamela Ivey, who lives in Las Vegas, said: ‘He never mentioned it. It can’t have been very important to him, or I think he’d have mentioned it.’ Last night a spokesman for Crockfords said: ‘As a private club we put great store on the confidentiality of the relationship between ourselves and our client and we therefore have no comment to make.’

The game Punto Banco is the sister game of Chemin de Fer Punto Banco is the sister game of Chemin de Fer, the high-stakes card game favoured by James Bond. The aim is to hold cards with a count of nine or closest to nine. You bet that either the hand held by the player (punto) or banker (banco) will win and place bets on the appropriate area on the table. You can also make a ‘tie’ bet. Tens and picture cards and multiples of ten count as zero: for example, 7 + 3 = 0; 10 + 4 = 4; king + 10 = 0. Its appeal rests on how the advantage can switch with each new card, lending huge excitement to the action. Like blackjack, the game is played with several packs of cards, which are shuffled by a croupier and dealt from a shoe.

My Take: WOW!!! I am suspicious as hell. First off, why would Phil Ivey be risking a penny on baccarat when he has far the best of it in any poker event, be it a tournament or live action? Something had to be up. Okay, Ivey did not touch the cards bur that means absolutely nothing. There are so many ways baccarat shoes are fixed up and false shuffled with shuffling machines or without them. I suspect Ivey being part of a huge baccarat cheat scam involving Crockfords' employees but of course have no evidence. For me, it's the only thing that makes sense. But knowing Ivey, if he got involved in any cheating scam, he probably had way the best of it too, so you can expect to be hearing soon that Crockfords paid his winnings to him.

Again...WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Full Tilt Poker Star Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud!

Source: Tightpoker.com

Nelson Burtnick, who was employed as the payment processing chief at Full Tilt Poker, the online poker giant that is now acquired by PokerStars, pleaded guilty of having taken part in a conspiracy to cheat banks and financial institutions into processing funds related to online poker gaming, in violation of US online poker laws.

It may be recalled that the US federal government had cracked down on major online poker rooms Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker, seized their domain names, and indicted key people associated with these online poker rooms of bank fraud, illegal gambling, and money laundering. This happened on April 15, 2011, a day commonly referred to within poker circles as the Black Friday of online poker. Subsequently, the US government and PokerStars signed a settlement deal, according to the terms of which PokerStars would refund Full Tilt Poker’s players and acquire the company and the US government would drop all charges against Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

A 41-year-old Canadian citizen, Burtnick told Judge Gabriel Gorenstein, US magistrate judge, that US banks would not have processed gambling related funds for Full Tilt Poker as it is illegal for them to do so. He admitted that he had cheated banks while working for Full Tilt Poker as well as PokerStars. He said, “We had to do this type of deception to enable US poker players to load their accounts. I know that what I did was wrong.”

Burtnick will be sentenced to 15 years in prison by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan; however, no sentencing date has been set as yet. Burtnick’s lawyer Kelly Currie refused to make any comment.

According to US prosecutors, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and PokerStars devised a number of ways to dodge the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 so that banks could be fooled into processing gambling related funds.

Preet Bharara, US attorney in Manhattan, the prosecutor in the case, who had filed a civil suit against Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker, and PokerStars, announced in July that PokerStars and the Department of Justice (DoJ) had signed a $731 million settlement agreement, as per the terms of which PokerStars would refund Full Tilt Poker’s ex players in the US and other parts of the world and acquire the brand.

PokerStars will directly refund Full Tilt Poker players in the rest of the world, while the DoJ will refund US players.

My Take: What else is going to be new with Full Tilt and the cheating, scamming and defrauding surrounding the site?

Was this Guy the World´s Biggest Casino Cheat?

World´s biggest casino cheat?

Well, read this article and see what you think. Then at the bottom, see what I think. Remember, for a significant period of time, I held that title.

Source: Online-Casinos

The king of casino cheats and his two accomplices have finally been caught and convicted in a London court after more than twenty years cheating at casino roulette.

Francis Farrugia, Francesco Baioni and Frank Camilleri, all of Italian descent (can you tell?) ripped off casinos around the world for millions of dollars over a period of twenty years, becoming the scourge of casinos and striking fear into pit bosses who would speak of the trio in hushed tones around the campfire, such was their legendary and fearsome reputation. Their jetsetting criminal lifestyle saw them hit casinos around the world including Vegas, Macau, Australia and dozens of cities across Europe.

The Roulette Cheat Technique

The casino cheats didn't resort to some of the more modern cheating techniques such as hawkeye laser computers (not to be confused with the legitimate Hawk roulette technique)or intricate magnetic devices. They instead relied on good old fashioned sleight of hand to employ a technique called 'top-hatting' where they distracted the dealer and placed late bets on winning numbers after the roulette ball had landed.

The top-hatting scam usually involves the complicity of the dealers but the gang were so adept at sleight of hand that they were able to engineer the scam all by themselves. They were rarely caught, despite the fact that dealers are highly trained to catch out such devious roulette techniques as moving the chips after the wheel has stopped and suchlike.

Instead most casinos simply had to resort to banning them for being 'too lucky', in the absence of any real proof. But this did nothing to deter them.

Fake ID

Their huge wins obviously brought them to the attention of the casinos and they ended up being banned from nearly every casino in the world. However this didn't stop them, they just created fake ID's for themselves - by the time they were caught they had over fifty fake Identities each.

The chairperson of the International Association of Casino Security (IACS), Dave Livermore, had this to say about the case; "They were quite slick, but they were going a long time. They’ve been banned for 20 years. They targeted casinos all over the world. During the court case the judge asked his lawyer where the money used to place initial stakes in the casinos came from and he couldn’t answer because all of their money is from casinos. They didn’t have any legitimate funds.”

High Stakes

Dave went on to say that it was their insatiable greed which was their downfall as they began to search out the highest stakes casinos. This inexorable march up the stakes ladder inevitably led them to London, the home of the most glamourous and exclusive high roller casinos.

Unfortunately for the trio the surveillance in London casinos is also top-notch and after police were contacted, rather than arrest them straight away, they were made the subject of a lengthy investigation in which countless incidents of 'top-hatting' were caught on camera.

Getting Away With Cheating In Casinos

Despite the investigation, the decades of scamming and cheating, the millions of pounds in ill-gotten gains in the end the only charge that could be made to stick was possession of forged documents! Farrugia was charged with eight counts and his accomplices merely served with curfews and a nationwide ban from the Gambling Commission!

For his crimes Farrugia was given a nine-month suspended sentence so will spend no time in prison unless he reoffends. All he has to do is resist the temptation to cheat in casinos again, the question is, has he cheated casinos out of enough millions to satisfy his greed or does he just want to have one more go?

My take: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the lightness of the sentence he and his casino cheating teammates received. As far as his being the biggest casino cheat in the world, maybe for the last ten years he was...But his first ten years? Absolutely NOT! That´s because yours truly was still active cheating casinos!!

Legal INTRAstate Nevada Poker Taking Steps to Combat Online Poker Cheating

Source: Cardplayer

A start-up company in Tennessee is looking to provide upcoming Nevada intrastate online poker sites with something they could be in desperate need of one day — a centralized list of player information.

Why would competing online sites in the Silver State want to share such data? Per Nevada regulations, players can self-exclude. Also, some players will become, as what Bwin.party Digital Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has called, “fraudsters.” Protecting the integrity of a platform is a must for the fledgling industry, which will bring all eyes on Nevada. A big scandal could devastate Internet poker efforts at the federal level and in other states.

Ryan, speaking to the Nevada Gaming Policy Committee in May, expressed the need for such a third-party hub of information. MGM Resorts International, Bwin.party’s Nevada partner, wants one too. Here comes Player Verify LLC, led by Managing Member Mark Dalton, who told Card Player Friday that his company has submitted paper work to do business in Nevada.

For $4.99 a year, would-be Nevada online poker players can upload their personal documents to Player Verify, which would store all of it for when a casino (also paying $4.99 per year) wants to access and inspect it as part of the player registration process. Nevada regulators were very conscientious about giving business the flexibility to self-police in this area, Commission Chairman Peter Bernhard recently said.

For self-exclusion — a mammoth deal to opponents of online gambling who worry about increases in addiction figures — casinos could tap into such information to prevent a player with troubles on another site from even registering. Cheaters could also be flagged thanks to a digital drawer full of player data. In other words, if you collude on one site, the entire industry would know about it. Possible criminal penalties are another story.

Just like Nevada’s online poker industry, Player Verify is just starting out. Dalton said that he has reached out to “a bunch” of gaming companies about possibly doing business together, but he hasn’t heard back from any yet. He thinks that once his company snags a license it will be “taken more seriously.”

According to Dalton, Player Verify already has a few hundred sign-ups, but admitted that there won’t be any real incentive to use his site until many Nevada casinos come on board with the concept, as well as his version of it. “The sky is the limit,” he said about his business if it becomes popular in the Mojave Desert.

Dalton’s company is still in its infancy (two years), but he said his team has been working hard to put together a product for the launch of the nation’s first ever intrastate web poker market, which could kick off as early as this fall.

“We’re the only site that I know of doing what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re outside the box.”

My take: This is good stuff, and I think it will help in one day getting online poker legalized in the entire US!

Source: Channelnewsasia

A 63-year-old French national was extradited back to Singapore on Tuesday morning for allegedly cheating at the Resorts World Sentosa casino in 2010. Police said Reynald Georges Victor Lasnel was caught in Germany, with assistance from German authorities and Interpol. He is wanted by the Singapore police in connection with cheating offences, namely placing bets after the results are known, at the roulette table.
He is suspected of having committed the offences with two other persons on 26 March 2010 and 3 April 2010 at the casino.

The three were initially arrested and charged in 2010, but they fled Singapore while out on court bail despite having their passports impounded.The suspect will appear in court later Tuesday to face the charges against him.

My take: Wow! This is the first I time I´ve heard of an across-ocean extradition for a little casino pastposter! Even if he´s accused of beating the Singapore casino for a hundred grand or so. And to think Interpot was involved in this apprehension! I guess the two Singapore casinos are so sick and tired of getting beat that they have to go worldwide to make an example of a cheat...Hey, that rhymes!