Big-Time Video Keno Machine Scam!

Source: Joliet Patch

A Las Vegas man wanted for allegedly cheating the Joliet Harrah's out of as much as $500,000 was captured during a traffic stop.

Paul Jovenich, 42, was taken into custody by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Friday. He is the third of an alleged five-member team of professional casino cheats.

Jovenich was arrested without incident , said Las Vegas Police Officer Larry Hadfield.

Jovenich and four others allegedly teamed to fleece Harrah's in April 2012. The band of gambling cheats made their score by manipulating video keno machines, according to court filings.

Two of the crew, husband and wife Randle and Virginia Thorpe, were booked into the Will County jail last month. Both were released after posting $50,000 bond.

Rande Thorpe, 57, is the former superintendent La Porte, IN, schools. He and Virginia Thorpe, 58, also were charged with ripping off the Harrah's in Tunica, MS.

The two alleged casino cheats still at large—Randy Binning, 48, and Svetoslav Dorobanov, 38—both live in Las Vegas.

The alleged cheating scheme apparently unraveled when Binning was pulled over in Arizona and turned out to be carrying more than $400,000 he claimed he claimed to have won on keno machines that were malfunctioning at Harrah's casinos in Joliet, Illinois, and Tunica, Mississippi, according to a court filing.

Dorobanov, a Bulgarian chess master who also competed in the World Series of Poker, has accused Harrah's of trumping up the charges in retaliation for his triumphs in the casino. He called the charges against him "phony" and "preposterous." Dorobanov also said Harrah's is simply "very bitter for losing money to" him.

Hadfield said Jovenich will be held until police from Will County come to pick him up. Once he arrives in Illinois he will be held on a $250,000 bond.

My take: Well, we don`t have many details on this scam but it looks pretty high-tech and pretty big, so we`ll see what evidence the casino has on them.

Casino Cheating With the Stars! Why Not?

I have just sent a TV treatment to my agent for a new TV reality show based on competitive team casino-cheating. It is called "Casino Cheating With the Stars" and would be similar to "Dancing With the Stars."

Why not? with all the reality TV shows flooding the airwaves, everything from Tattoo freaks to duck hunters to storage herders, is there not room for casino-cheats duking it out?

"Casino-Cheating With the Stars" works like this: Groups of 4-man casino-cheat teams (each with 2 celebs and 2 real casino-cheats) start the qualifying rounds by showing how they can cheat the casino out of $25. Then in the next qualifying round they have to cheat the casino out of $100. The last qualifying hurdle is $500.

Then eliminations begin as the teams must do casino-cheat moves for $1,000 and $5,000. Then more eliminations until four teams make the casino-cheating "Final Four." Then the cheat-stakes remain at $5,000 until the final casino-cheat championship betweent the two remaining teams, when they both enter a HORSE-type finale doing $10,000 cheat moves. The only difference between my casino-cheating HORSE and basketball HORSE is that the team following the first successful $10,000 cheat move does not have to copy that move; they only have to duplicate the amount.

All the rounds must be completed by one singe casino-cheat move to make the amount of money at that level. Naturally real casinos have to be involved but their floor staffs will not be advised to the cheat competition. I know this might be hard to pull off, but it´s certainly worth the shot!

The Cheating Beat goes on in Singapore Casinos

Maze of Marina Bay Cheat Tables

It seems to me like the casinos in Singapore are becoming the ¨Foxwoods¨ of Asia. Every time I turn around I get another report of a casino-cheating incident in one of its casinos. The latest rash of casino cheats have been going down almost daily at the Marina Bay Sands. This time it was a group with a blackjack counting machine and another with a roulette computer. I  had thought the use of roulette computers to cheat casino coulette wheels had fallen by the wayside, but I guess even outdated casino cheating methods are still in fashion in ¨Foxwoods Far East.¨

As far as the US Foxwoods casino in Connecticut goes, it is still the favorite American casino to cheat, especially among the Asians with their baccarat scams.

Casino Table Game Protection...Training, Seminars, Classes

Casino bosses and table games directors are always asking themselves what is the best way to initiate game protection for their floor staffs, surveillance operators and security personnel. Many direct the vast majority of their casino´s game protection budgets to costly game protection seminars that boast well-known but mostly irrelevant speakers as far as real casino game protection is involved. And to boot, some casinos in their naivete send groups of their employees to the same seminars.

I have always said, and have always taught to my casino clients, that the bottom line for casino game protection training is simply about keeping the teaching and learning methods simple. In fact, much of it can be reduced to something very simple that you have all heard of...a checklist. In the same way that pilots of airliners have checklists before taking off, casino employees on the floor should have similar checklists that must be followed and updated during their nonstop operations. By following such checklists, given that they are the right ones, casinos would be able to nip the vast majority of casino and poker cheat scams at the bud, way before they even threaten the casino´s coffers.

Apart from this, casino trainers are busying themselves too much with high-tech cheating scams that in reality happen rarely and in only certain type-select casinos. Remember: more than 99% of all casino cheat scams are done the old-fashioned way: no cameras, computers or cheat gadgets of any kind.

New Undetectable Loaded Dice in use on Casino Craps Tables?

There have been reports of professional casino cheat teams working craps tables with a new brand of loaded dice that are supposedly extremely difficult to detect. The reports are coming from US midwestern casinos, mainly those in Detroit. While I have no specific evidence of this, the claims say that the boxmen you see habitually examining the dice in play cannot notice these slightly weighed dice on peripheral inspection, which, of course, would be enough for the dice cheats to successfully work craps tables.

As far as switching in loaded dice and removing the originals is concerned, that in itself is not too difficult for those skilled in slight of hand and deversionary tactics. But the question is really whether these dice can pass eveb the perfunctory examination that boxmen routinely give dice, especially when they jettison from the table. My opinion on this is that it is surely possible that with the improved technology seen in all types of casino and poker cheating these days, some new gaffed dice would be effective and pass inspection at the craps tables, but it would be nearly impossible for loaded dice to pass for legitimate dice when really put to the test once they´re taken off the table.

I will have more on this in the months to come.

Super Bowl Weekend Casino and Poker Cheat Reports In!

Seattle not only SB winner!

As many of you know, Super Bowl Weekend is the second biggest casino cheat event of the year, preceeded only by New Year´s Eve. And the difference is not much.

Each Super Bowl Sunday, or I should say Super Bowl Friday and Saturday Night, the casinos around North America and the Caribbean are packed with gamblers, football fans, and, of course, poker cheats and casino cheats. Las Vegas always sees the biggest of these crowds.

However, and it may be surprising to you, but the annual Super Bowl Casino Cheating report sheets show that the casinos victimized for the biggest amount of money lost to professional casino cheats were those located in Western Canada. Various baccarat and blackjack scams, many involving baccarat´s famous Panda and Dragon side bets, took place during the frantic action seen is Western Canadian casinos. There is so much oil money being thrown around in those casinos that the staffs working for them hardly notice the money being lost to the cheats.

But don´t think Vegas got off lightly. Several million was lost to cheats there as well, including to a highly sophisticated roulette team from Italy pastposting black hundred dollar chips straight up on numbers, and where the limits allowed, even two of them on a single winning number.

I believe firmly that these early 2014 casino cheat reports indicate a steady increase in low-tech casino cheating as I had predicted earlier in the year.

What will be the biggest casino/Poker Cheat Scam of 2014?

Well, we had had some big ones in 2013, such as the Phil Ivey baccarat edge-sorting card scam at Crockfords casino in London, and the inside casino-surveillance-camera hacking scam at the Crown casino in Australia. Both these will be pretty hard to beat, not only in 2014 but in years to come.

But don`t get me wrong! I am not saying that they won´t be beat, only that it will be difficult. As I previously stated that more low-tech scams will proliferate in casinos and poker rooms this year, especially that of card-marking, I still think that we will see one or two big-time high-tech casino cheat scams.

Where and when will they happen?

Heck! If I knew, I´d be out there doing them. But I will say this: It will most likely be away from the baccarat tables, where a huge amount of high-tech scams have taken place in recent years. I would look  to the roulette tables. It has been quite a while since high-tech casino cheats have plied their craft at roulette. In fact, we haven´t seen much high-tech roulette cheats in action since the roulette laser computer cheats five or six years ago.

So I imagine that some high-tech roulette cheats are spinning their wheels right now to come up with a beauty--pardon the pun!

A Universal Return to Low-Tech Casino Cheating in 2014?

Yes! I think we will be seeing a decrease in all the high-tech laser scanner and digital casino cheating and an increase in good ol' fashioned low-tech casino cheat moves, not only in 2014 but also in the years to come. I believe this trend will be seen as well in poker cheating.

Why? Because casinos have shifted their entire surveillance and security operations to catch high-tech cheats, and they are getting smarter, especially after the high-tech $30 Million cheat scam pulled off at the Crown Casino in Australia, and Phil Ivey's attempt to swindle Crockfords Casino in London out of $12 Million. Ivey's failure at pulling off an-edge sorting scam at the baccarat table really shows casinos' improvement in defending themselves against high-tech scams.

So now we will see a proliferation of low-tech professional casino cheats who will take advantage of the casinos' now "less covered" areas. I am not talking about the average cheats who take shots now and then but rather the real pro teams who can pull off moves such as the roulette Savannah scam and roulette slide.
You can read about that type of cheating on my best casino cheat moves page.

How Exactly Did Poker Pro Phil Ivey Use Edge-Sorting Card Scam to Cheat Crockfords Casino out of $12 Million?

The best article with graphic descriptions I have seen on Phil Ivy's baccarat cheat scam is here. Ivy claims it is not cheating, but indeed it is because by asking the dealers to alter their mechanics while dealing the game is outright influencing the outcome of the game to his favor, which is one of the definitions of casino cheating. Once the dealers complied with Ivy's requests, they were inadvertently helping him to cheat.

Mohegan Sun Baccarat Deakers and Players Acquited in Baccarat Marking-Cards Cheat Scam

Well, this is quite surprising since the two dealers busted in this baccarat-dealer/baccarat player collusion scandal had admitted to marking the cards. I don't know the details of the trail, so if anyone has them, please do let me konw. The original news article on the case follows: Two New York City men accused of cheating a Connecticut casino out of more than $150,000 in a scam involving crooked dealers and marked cards pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. Leonard Hu and Hung Leung, both of Queens, denied felony casino cheating and larceny charges in New London Superior Court. They remain free after posting bail. State police said two dealers, Jian Ng and Bong Louie, both of Norwich, marked the 7, 8 and 9 cards at mini-baccarat tables at the Mohegan Sun casino in southeastern Connecticut by bending them with their thumbs and helped Hu and Leung win tens of thousands of dollars. Mini-baccarat generally is played with the same rules as regular baccarat but with lower betting limits. It involves betting on whether players' hands of cards will beat the dealer's hand. On Feb. 11 and in the early morning hours of Feb. 12, after Louie had marked the cards and left the table when his shift ended, Hu pocketed $101,600 and Leung walked away with $52,000, a state police arrest warrant affidavit says. The two dealers also were charged with casino cheating and larceny and were released on bail. Their lawyers didn't return phone messages Tuesday. State police said Ng admitted marking the cards eight times since last fall but told troopers he didn't know if any other dealers were doing the same thing. A Mohegan Sun spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday. The affidavit said Hu and Ng met at the nearby Foxwoods Resort Casino last fall and Hu asked Ng to mark the mini-baccarat cards in return for $1,000 a night. A week after winning the $153,600, Hu and Leung returned to the Mohegan Sun and won more than $30,000 at a mini-baccarat table where Ng had marked the cards, state police said. Hu took in more than $25,000, and Leung won $6,100. Casino patron win-loss records obtained from the Mohegan Sun by state police showed that Hu won nearly $235,000 at mini-baccarat from October to December of last year after state police said he met with Ng. He won another $119,000 last January, troopers said. From January to September 2010, Hu had $129,000 in losses and $37,750 in wins at the casino. Leung lost $100 at Mohegan Sun in July 2010 but went on to win $9,870 in November, $51,400 in December and $34,600 in January, state police said. No one answered phone listings for Hu and Leung on Tuesday. Their cases were continued to Aug. 2.