Barry Greenstein Says Open-Faced Chinese Poker is Cheat-Infested!

Open-Face Chinese Poker has really taken off. For example, during previous years at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure we always had a $200/$400 or $400/$800 mixed game. But this year rather than a big mixed game, there were four tables of Open-Face Chinese Poker going.

I've just started to play the game. I'm not real good as yet, but I ventured in during the last day at PCA because it looked like a pretty good game and that there might be some people I thought I still might be able to beat. As it happened, I ran pretty good -- I had two straight flushes -- and I won a decent amount of money.

I was told then by some people that many were playing Open-Face Chinese on an app that's available for iPhones and the iPad. So when I got home I downloaded the app, and I started playing just for fun against some people. You can even play against the app itself.

I did that for a while until I thought I was ready to play for small stakes against some players. I started out playing small -- just $10 a point -- and I was losing a little bit as I was playing against people who were better than I was. Then once I got a little better I kicked up against some other poker players to $25/point because that seemed to be the normal amount for which people were playing.

Then a guy challenged me to $50/point, and even though I'd heard that he might be a better player than I was, I thought perhaps I could learn playing against a better player. Nowadays poker players seem to learn from videos and by going onto forums, but in my day the way you got better was you watched better players and tried to see what they were doing and then tried to incorporate what you saw into your game. That's what I was trying to do here.

Of course, one of the problems right now with Open-Face Chinese Poker is that you have a lot of disagreement about who the better players are. It's a pretty complicated game, and at this stage in the growth of the game everybody makes some mistakes.

In any case, I played this guy and I actually beat him out of about 100 points. Then he suggested we double the stakes and so we did and played some more, and that's when he started winning.

Now, it's not that he beat me, but it's how he beat me. It seemed like after being in trouble he kept getting saved on the river over and over and over. Even though it was believable that he was a better player than I was, I decided I wanted to start keeping track of when he needed to get outs in these situations. When he had to get an out on the river to beat me, I wanted to see what his percentage was.

I started keeping track, and the next 14 times it came up, he hit seven times. Now that's not every time, but it was enough that after that I quit.

I have a nephew who is a programmer and I called him up. I told him I thought I was being cheated, and asked him if he could figure out if there was any way you could see if a person could download this app and perhaps change the cards or do whatever, because I suspected there might be something going on here.

My nephew downloaded the app and once he had a chance to start looking at it he called me back within 30 minutes. He said anyone who's a programmer who knows how to hook up an iPad to another computer could easily cheat using the app.

He said he could see all the cards and do whatever he wanted. I asked him if he could give me a demo, and we played a game and he sent me three kings on top, a flush in the middle, and a straight flush in the back. He explained that anyone who was a programmer or who had a friend who was a programmer could cheat me at the game, no problem.

Using a proxy server, with the current version of the app, you can see all thirteen cards of yours and your opponents when each deal is begun. Most cheaters wouldn't spend the time to change the cards as my nephew did. They would know whether their flushes and full houses were going to come in, which allows them to play efficiently like normal Chinese poker.


It was just as I'd expected. I began calling around to people who were playing a lot. Pretty much anybody who has won big at this game at this point is under suspicion, because it's so easy to cheat.

My nephew got in touch with the app's programmers to tell them what they have to do to fix their app. The Apple documentation actually explains how to make an app secure, but when these programmers wrote this Open-Face Chinese Poker app, they didn't know people were going to be playing for lots of money using it. And so they didn't write it in a secure way, because they thought it was just going to be a fun game that people were going to play for free. So it's not even really their fault.

Besides offering a specific warning here about the Open-Face Chinese Poker app and its current vulnerabilities to cheating, then, I think there are two broader morals to the story.

One is that when you play on an app such as this one for money, you better know who you're playing with and that you're in possible danger of being cheated. Even as future games come out, you'll want to remain wary.

To draw a comparison with PokerStars, they have an app with a whole security team of people trying to protect you by keeping track of data, looking at hand histories for anything suspicious, and so forth. It's a very different situation to play an app written by just a couple of guys who weren't really thinking that their game might be played for a lot of money.

So you have to be very wary when playing for any significant sum of money on some of these games that may come out in the future.

Secondly, as a general gambling premise, if you go somewhere and you lose and you don't understand why you're losing -- especially if you seem to be losing in ways that don't seem right to you -- you have to quit. If there's one game where you think the players are better than you but you do okay, go and play in that one even if there might be another game where the players seem really bad, but you don't win.

That's just a general rule of gambling that you need to use to protect yourself.

Ohio Casinos Open Cheat-Detection Classes For Their Gaming Inspectors

Source: newscincinnati.com

In a casino, there are three ways to cheat: change the wager, change the chances or change the prize.

Two dozen new undercover gaming agents at soon-to-open Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati were instructed to spot all three this week. They learned the angles from Jim Edwards, a retired Nevada gaming agent brought in to prepare the staff for the March 4 casino opening.

The most common cheats, he told them, are “capping” or “pinching” bets. “Capping” is when a gambler sees he has a good hand and slips more chips onto his bet pile while the dealer is distracted. “Pinching” is when a gambler removes some chips when he realizes he’s holding a loser.

Cheaters may think they’re smart, but the casino has four ways to catch them nearly every time, Edwards said – “Stop. Rewind. Play. Pause.” Every gaming table and slot machine in the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati has its own security camera, he said. All told, more than 1,000 electronic eyes – on top of security and surveillance teams – will be watching the action.

Pro cheats - and not-so-pro cheats

A three-decade veteran of Nevada law enforcement, Edwards also showed the agents how cheaters try to alter the odds by marking cards. A cheater might press a fingernail against the back of a high card making a dimple so he can recognize it later.

Another cheater might bend an ace at the corner without quite creasing it. Both are techniques the casual observer might not notice but agents will.  

“There are pro cheats and not-so-pro cheats,” Edwards said. “Some people after six Budweisers say, ‘Hey, I just invented a new way to cheat the casino.’ Cheaters sometimes attempt to change the prize by bringing in a “cooler” deck of cards. The deck is stacked so the cheat comes in second – losing the hand but winning an even richer “bad beat” jackpot. 

First-time offenders might get a stern warning by a dealer or security personnel and be told to leave. Professional cheaters are harder to deal with. “A pro doesn’t stop cheating because he’s got enough money,” Edwards said. “What makes him stop is getting caught or thinking he’s been detected.” 

Edwards trains agents with an eye toward prosecutions. Agents must know the games, identify cheating techniques and be able to explain to a jury in simple terms what a cheat did. A person convicted of cheating in a casino is guilty of a felony and can be banned for life from the casino by the Ohio Casino Control Commission. They also can be sent to prison for up to 18 months. 

Ohio officials take cheating seriously because anyone using illegal methods is corrupting the integrity of the game for legitimate players. Ultimately, they’re also robbing Ohio taxpayers of their 33 percent of all casino revenues. “When you steal from the casino, you steal from the state,” said Karen Huey, the commission’s director of enforcement. She noted that organized rings of cheaters already have hit Ohio’s other casinos. 

Cincinnati’s casino is the last to open of four authorized by Ohio voters in 2009. Casinos in Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus all opened last year; 45 people have been indicted for cheating there so far. Edwards notes that, while cheating is a concern, it is relatively rare: In Nevada, there are typically 450 to 500 casino-related convictions a year. Those offenses include cheating, but also such infractions as underage gambling.

My take: Well, I know Edwards personally and can say he's a pretty nuts and bolts guy when it comes to cheating knowledge and ability to communicate it. I wouldn't say he knows very much about the super casino cheat and poker scams out there.

Woman Poker Card-Swapper Cheat Cleared--Despite Daming Video Surveillance Evidence!

Lady in Pink Switching Cards

Source: cleveland.com

A woman accused of cheating at the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland went on trial Thursday, providing a rare glimpse of an eagle-eyed surveillance system capable of catching a gambler's every move.

Jessica Encarnacion of Akron was the first casino-cheating suspect to go to trial in Cuyahoga County -- others have pleaded guilty -- and also the first to be cleared. Hearing the case without a jury, Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Friedland ruled that the prosecution failed to prove Encarnacion knowingly or intentionally cheated at a game of four-card poker in August.

But the sparsely attended two-hour trial showed what state agents and casino security officers see while monitoring more than 1,000 cameras spread throughout three gaming floors.

A video screen split into four quadrants spied on the game from key angles: straight down on the dealer, a frontal view of the players, behind and slightly over the gamblers and a close-up of the participants' hands -- the flesh-and-bone kind.

An undercover agent, one of thirteen agents assigned full time to the Horseshoe casino, testified that they keep an eye on the system up to 23 hours a day and that casino security officers monitor continuously. Some cameras are fixed, while others pan, tilt and zoom.

Surveillance clearly shows Encarnacion, 23, swapping cards with Qing Zheng, a 41-year-old Cleveland man who faces a separate trial.

As the casino dealer gazes down, Zheng twice moves to offer a card to Encarnacion before she accepts; she then holds out a card that Zheng snatches. Encarnacion gave up a 10 of spades and got a queen of diamonds, leaving her with a pair of queens. The dealer won with a flush.

According to the agent, Zheng's boisterous behavior had already attracted the casino's attention. Security officers were preparing to escort Zheng from the property when the agents intervened.

Encarnacion was taken to a holding room, where more surveillance video, shot from overhead, shows her answering questions in a slightly annoyed tone. She said it was her first trip to a casino, and Zheng, whom she had just met, was coaching her. She said she didn't know how to play poker and had no idea that what she was doing was wrong.

"I'm not a cheat," Encarnacion says on the video. A few moments later, she adds: "I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know anything."

Testifying Thursday, a poised Encarnacion said she was with a friend named Mike but met Zheng at a poker table, and he accompanied her as they broke for roulette and then sat down for the four-card game. She said she went through $600 at the casino, but Zheng was buying her beer -- eight Budweisers, she estimated -- and supplied her with more than $100 in betting chips.

"That was the only reason I stuck around," said Encarnacion, who plans to seek return of $100 the casino confiscated from her. "He had a bunch of chips, and he knew how to play the game."

Encarnacion's attorney, Leif Christman, said the fact that Encarnacion and Zheng exchanged cards in the open, with plenty of witnesses, is evidence they were not cheating.
Assistant Prosecutor John Toth said that ignorance is no defense and questioned how Encarnacion could not be aware that she was involved in a crime.

"It's common sense," he said in closing. "You do not take cards from another player while you're playing for money at a casino."

The Horseshoe opened May 14, making it the first of four casinos allowed in Ohio under a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2009. The fourth is scheduled for launch March 4 in Cincinnati
Cheating a casino -- and possibly reducing the tax revenue collected by the state -- is a fifth degree felony punishable by maximum penalties of six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. Guidelines generally provide for lighter sentences.

According to the Ohio Casino Control Commission, 28 cheating cases have been filed in Cuyahoga County, with 14 convictions obtained so far.

My take: Heck, maybe I should re-take-up casino cheating in Ohio! If they get clear video evidence of switching cards on a poker game and the judge throws out the case, who knows what would be possible for me!!! LOL...And what about Zheng? They gotta let him go too, don't they???

More Baccarat False-Shuffle Cheat Scam Mania at Trump Casino!

Source: Courthouse news 

 A Trump casino took back $280,000 that a player won at baccarat, and threatened to have him arrested, despite a police report that concluded he had not cheated, the man claims in court.
     Kook Chee Hoe sued Trump Entertainment Resorts, Trump Taj Mahal Associates and Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resorts, in Atlantic County Court.
     Hoe says he won $290,000 playing mini baccarat for two hours at the Trump casino in Atlantic City in December 2011.
     He played a little more, lost $10,000, and left the casino with a $240,000 check and $40,000 in chips, according to the complaint.
     With 75 regular tables and 14 tournament tables, the Trump Taj Mahal has one of the largest poker rooms in Atlantic City.
     Hoe says that though the casino security team monitored his game at all times, the casino asked New Jersey State Police to investigate, claiming that he had been involved in some type of dealer cheating scam.
     Hoe claims the police concluded there had been no criminal activity, and did not press charges against him or any dealer.
     Nonetheless, Hoe claims, when he returned to the casino the next day, it threatened to arrest him and tried to make him return all his winnings.
     "On Dec. 12, 2011, Mr. Hoe returned to the Taj with his chips to gamble," the complaint states. "He was approached by Ray Effinger, dual rate security shift manager, and escorted upstairs to a room to meet with Nick Ferraro, casino shift manager. Chung Lee, the Taj Asian marketing host, was present for translation if needed.
     "At the meeting, Mr. Ferraro told Mr. Hoe he was in trouble.
     "Mr. Ferraro also told Mr. Hoe that he had won based upon an improper shuffle and that Mr. Hoe knew of the improper shuffle. Mr. Hoe denied such knowledge.
     "There is no evidence that supported any assertion of impropriety.
     "The relevant gaming law permitted the Taj dealer to reshuffle each hand, a practice known as 'shuffling at will.'
     "The Taj personnel failed to exercise their right to reshuffle despite hours of play, and permitted the entire shoe to be played out without any reshuffle.
     "During the meeting, Mr. Ferraro pointed to a security officer who raised a jacket exposing handcuffs, indicating that Mr. Hoe would be locked up for his conduct by the police and go to jail if plaintiff did not return the ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) of winnings he had gambled and lost.
     "Mr. Ferraro also confiscated forty thousand dollars ($40,000.00) in chips Mr. Hoe had in his possession.
     "Plaintiff was then escorted out of the casino and dropped off at a bus station."
     Neither Effinger nor Ferraro are named as defendants.
     Hoe claims the casino canceled the $240,000 check he had deposited in his account, which cost him a chargeback fee.
     He seeks compensatory, punitive and treble damages for breach of contract, unfair business practices, fraud, false imprisonment, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, conversion, and discrimination.
     He is represented by Michael Mosca.

Woman Rapid Roulette Dealer Sentenced For Cheating in New Zealand Casino

Source: 3 News NZ

A dealer at SkyCity Hamilton casino has been sentenced to 18 months' home detention for cheating.

Bo Du, 33, who had worked at the casino for six years, was also ordered to pay reparation of $20,000 when she appeared in Hamilton District Court today.

She had earlier pleaded guilty to obtaining, with two casino patrons, $52,000 by deception and of accepting an illegal gratuity. Her two associates have been similarly charged and are being dealt with separately, the Department of Internal Affairs says.

The department was called in after the casino discovered irregularities around its rapid roulette table game. Gambling inspectors found that Du had illegally obtained $52,000 by manipulating the game. Du had also received a one-off payment of $15,000 from a SkyCity Hamilton patron, in breach of the Gambling Act.

"Du's sentence underlines the seriousness of the offending. Members of the public should be able to expect that all casino gambling is operated responsibly and with the highest integrity," Internal Affairs casino compliance manager Rob Abbott said in a statement.

"It is our job as the regulator to ensure that SkyCity has systems in place to detect and deal with any criminal behaviour on the part of their employees. In this case the casino's systems detected the offending and enabled us to bring this court action."

Du's conviction means she's banned from working in casinos again.

My take: Article doesn't say anything about how Du and her cohorts pulled off this scam. It had to be something good, or at least cool!

Any Truth To Those Blackjack Lasers Supposedly Used To Scan Blackjack Shuffles?

I received this email from a seemingly knowledgeable person: 

 I was in the Casino Gaming business (Table Game) for 33 yrs and yes, an Asian group of cheaters perfected a 'laser', placed it in a cigarette pack, placed it on the BJ table, aimed it toward the Shuffle Master Shuffler and did create what is now known as "The Computer Cooler" thus allowing them to know the exact order of the 6 deck shoe that is about to be dealt to them. 

If you don't believe me, contact Shuffle Master because I actually saw an article from Shuffle Master admitting that their shuffler had been compromised by this laser and they took the necessary steps to correct this flaw. I believe it happened around mid to late 90's.When the shufflers first came out, so that the players could see that the cards were actually being shuffled, they created a batch shuffler that had a 'smoked-glass-window' so that the players could see cards being shuffled. Because the glass was somewhat transparent, the laser beam could track the card order. 

Do you know how they discovered the laser? The cheaters used their laser at a casino that still had some black and white cameras in use over their BJ games. Funny thing about a laser beam, color cameras can't see the beam but black and white cameras can. Surveillance noticed this red beam coming out of a player's cigarette pack aimed at the shuffling machine and discovered this cheating move by accident. Check it out and would love to hear back from you to see if you did find this to be true or if I am some nut job with a huge imagination. My mind doesn't work like it used to but I am 99.9% sure that what I just wrote is accurate. Please let me know. 

My take: well, is this possible? Not only is it possible but I would not be surprised if it has already happened! Shuffle Master automatic card shufflers have already been compromised several times, both by crooked dealers and players from the outside, so a laser attack on the vaunted card-shuffling machines is by no means a stretch of the imagination.

Lance Armstrong Wins World Series of Poker Main Event!!!

Wow! Imagine this scenario: Lance Armstrong hits a royal flush on the river and wins the BIG ONE! Would you think he did it legitimately or did super cheat Lance somehow pull a poker cheat move to take home the bracelet and the booty?

Well, I know what I´d think! Why am I writing about Lance Armstrong on my poker cheat and casino cheat blog? Because his dastardly acts cerainly deserve mention, and as poker is considered a sport by the international media, and as many professional athletes play in the World Series of Poker, there is a definite connection between poker cheating and cycling cheating.

But what I really want to say is that Lance Armstrong is the biggest cheat and fraud in sports history. He is worse than Russ Hamilton, the demonic figure who bilked tens of millions from online poker players in the UltimateBet poker cheat scandal. He is far worse than Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa. Why? Because those three steroid-shamed baseball players were likely Hall of Fame ballplayers before they turned to steroids, certainly Bonds and Clemens were. But Armstrong, who won seven Tour de France cycling competitions in a row, probably would have not only failed to win a single one but as well may have gone literally unheard of on the cycling circuit, if he even qualified to enter a race.

So with this in mind, I really don't care how Lance Armstrong comes clean tonight on Oprah winfrey`s show.   He has lied and cheated for more than a decade, threatened and bullied anyone who dared expose him, and for sure is only coming clean for his own benefit to get himself reinstated in triatholon competitions or whatever. He is not doing this because he`s truly sorry for his cheats and lies.

So if you ever have the misfortune of seeing Lance Armstrong at the poker table, simply pay him your disrespect by getting up and walking away.

New TV Show "Vegas" Uses Atlantic City Borgata Poker Cheating Incident on Latest Episode

Remember, the big high-stakes, high-tech poker scam busted up in a penthouse suite at the Atlantic City Borgata hotel and casino? If not, its the one that ex-casino game protection consultant and convicted casino cheat Steve Forte was originally accused of engineering. Supposedly high-tech cameras and computers were used to film players' hole cards and transmit the information to cohort poker cheats taking down the victims at the table.

 In the "Vegas version,"the casino boss character Mia askes the character Jack to figure out how a poker cheat from Providence is cheating high-stakes players in a private game in a hotel suite. Jack convinces Mia to let him play in the game and he figures out that the poker cheat is working with another poker cheat who is spying on the game from the room above. Of course he is doing this through a hole in the ceiling.

 My take: Well, I would think the creative writers for the show could come up with something a bit more original, and at the same time I`m wondering if they used Steve Forte as a production consultant.

Ex-Riviera Security Boss Accuses the Las Vegas Casino of Cheating its Customers!

It`s rare when a casino employee at the top level blows the whistle on his casino, but that`s what happened at the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas.

 I know the Riviera quite well. It used to be one of the top and glamorous casinos on the Vegas Strip. When I first arrived in Vegas in 1976 as a nineteen year-old, I legitimately beat its baccarat pit for a hundred grand--before giving it all back and then some in a single day. You might say that my Riviera experience directly led to my career as a professional casino cheat.

 According to the Huffington Post, the former security director of the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas says he was fired for reporting that the casino rigged one of its slot machines. Douglas A. Poppa is suing the Riviera for wrongful termination and whistleblower retaliation, Courthouse News reported Tuesday. Poppa's lawyer, Sharon L. Nelson, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday that the case "falls squarely" under Nevada's whistleblowing protections. "Mr. Poppa did the right thing and attempted to correct a wrong perpetrated by the Riviera against the public and its customers," Nelson wrote in an email. "In objecting to what was clearly illegal conduct, Mr. Poppa complained to the proper authorities and for that his career was abruptly and unlawfully ended."

 The Riviera noted it had yet to be served with the papers, but a representative for the hotel-casino said Poppa's claims were not true. "While we do not normally comment on active litigation, the claims included in Mr. Poppa’s complaint are false and totally without merit and we intend to vigorously defend against them," the representative told HuffPost in an email. "We look forward to the actual truth coming out during the course of the legal process."

 In October 2011, Poppa claimed in court papers, he learned that the hotel had manipulated the payout of the "Money Blast" slot machine so customers couldn't win the jackpot, Courthouse News wrote. He reported the alleged cheating to the Gaming Control Board in November 2011 and was suspended by the hotel-casino in December. After receiving a warning by the Riviera to cease communication with the gaming board, he was fired in January 2012, the report notes.

 Global Gaming Business Magazine described Money Blast as a "high-volatility slot" with a dynamite-mining theme. The Riviera, built in 1955, is attempting a renaissance under CEO Andy Choy, who took over in 2010 after the property emerged from bankruptcy, the Las Vegas Sun previously reported.

 My take: Hard to believe that the Riviera engaged in slot-machine fixing, but I certainly believe it!

Ever Wonder What Casino Surveillance Operators Look at Up There?

Well, this is about it.

They watch various video monitors, the actual amount depending on the size and surveillance budget of particular casinos, and very seldom see anything actually happen. Their job is pretty boring to say the least, and many operators actually do lose consciousness up there while you`re gambling or cheating down there in the casino, depending of course, on who you are.

Casinos tend to depend too heavily on their cameras, not realizing that these state-of-the-art cameras cannot tap the surveillance operators on the shoulder and say, "Hey, Rip Van Winkle, I just filmed a cheat move go down on blackjack table number 13!".