GAME PROTECTION--I DO IT MY WAY

And I think it works.

All Attendees Participate

My main goal in training casino floor staffs is to make them as efficient and knowledgeable as possible without depending on the video and surveillance systems. Simply put: to learn and recognize all facets of casino cheating and advantage play before it gets to the surveillance-department stage. As an ex-casino dealer who has performed many highly-effective inside casino scams, followed by 25 years as a professional casino-cheat, I can offer pretty good insight on how these things work from both sides of the tables.

My main goal in training surveillance staffs is to remove them as much as possible from their video equipment and technology. In other words, teach them to be highly efficient even in the hypothetical circumstance that cameras did not exist. This is because floor supervisors and surveillance departments have become so dependent on the technology that many of their employees have very little knowledge of what cheating and advantage play are really about.
 
I always like to say, "A camera cannot tap you on the shoulder and tell you there´s a cheat-move going down on BJ 4." You´ve got to be able to identify what you see on the video or what you´re watching on the live game. If a floorperson does not recognize a cheat or advantage-play team at the tables, the cameras above are not going to alert them to it.

Game protection must work from the floor up.

If you have read anything about my cheating days, I was able to use cameras and surveillance departments to actually help me cheat casinos (see the Savannah move on my website). Capable cheats can actually separate the casino floor from surveillance departments by using psychology that overcomes game-protection procedure. For example, I was able to place $5,000 bets without dealers notifying supervisors, and as well was able to prevent the floor from notifying surveillance when I was actually caught cheating, all by use of psychology.

Seminar structure is suited to your individual casino's needs. Apart from the basic course structure that applies to all casinos, upon arrival I spend as much time as I can conducting an "undercover" surveillance of your gaming pits and cage operations. Here I can determine its strengths and weaknesses and work specific training into the presentation. Dealer and supervisor performances are noted as well as how players are behaving and taking advantage of weaknesses.

Often I come across advantage players and cheats operating in the casino, and worse, dealers who are cheating in partnerships with players or stealing for themselves. This is definitely an important factor in all casinos.

Sometimes when I conduct seminars, the attendees are a mix of floor and surveillance people. I find that this works well because communication between the two and working as one is integral for good game and casino protection. In more casinos than not, surveillance and the floor are not on the same page. I stress the urgent need for thorough communication between floor and surveillance staffs.

When I train table games departments separate from surveillance departments, I stress through examples and hypothetical situations how each department needs to thoroughly communicate with the other to achieve optimum game protection results.

In my seminars and training, all the attendees participate actively. I organize cheat and advantage-play teams and they work with me to demonstrate the various cheat-moves and scams. Nobody sleeps when I am there. Everyone is by my side at the tables. I get people involved, talking and asking questions, and at times they feel like they’re learning by themselves and I’m just there helping along.

One thing I like to do in blackjack and baccarat is have a few members of the casino floor and surveillance staffs, unbeknownst to the rest of the seminar attendees, participate in my cheating demonstrations while their peers are also seated around the gaming table. I have already met with these individuals before the seminar and taught them how to do cheating moves. Then when they actually do a cheating move during the seminar, the audience is shocked to see how easy it was for them to do it. This type of active-attendee participation works really well in generating more interest and closer attention from the audience.

It also adds some fun. My belief is that when the attendees enjoy themselves, they learn and retain a lot more from the seminar. Time permitting, I will tell a story or two about my experiences back in the day. Attendees seem to love that!

I do not do any tired-old PowerPoint presentations. I do not waste time going over videos of moves you have probably seen a thousand times. Nor do I try to dazzle attendees with memory and card tricks that have nothing to do with cheating casinos or advantage play. The only time I use video is for demonstrations of high-tech electronic games cheating using visual ballistics and slot machine cheating via cell phones and other equipment.

Everything is hands-on work on tables and throughout a casino setting. I not only teach how casino cheat-moves and advantage-play teams operate at the tables, I stress how they prepare inside the casino before their moves, how they communicate on and away from the tables, how they use psychology to control floorpeople and avoid surveillance, how they cash out their chips, and all the other necessary facets that must be known in order to have a chance of spotting the professional teams BEFORE they leave the casino with your money.

I have found over the years that casinos have very little idea how cheats communicate, nor do they invest much time in learning how cheats, especially those working with high-denomination chips, obtain them and cash them out without drawing suspicion.  For example, in my later cheating-days I worked exclusively with $5,000 chips and on some nights had more than $50,000 of chips to cash out. However, I never once in my life cashed out a single $5,000 chip. So how did I turn them into cash without raising eyebrows?

As far as direct training to surveillance departments alone goes, I like to put them in the shoes of a cheat or advantage player, show them how they think, plan and act. As I do with the floor staff, I take one member of the surveillance department and work with him/her alone before I meet the rest of the attendees. Then I teach him/her some cheating moves, and later we do a demonstration on the table while the rest are watching. As everyone is thinking I am going to do the cheat move, the surveillance person does it and of course no one sees it happen.

The point of this is twofold: firstly to show how everything at a suspect table has to be watched; the second, how the best cheat moves are so easily done. My Savannah move, which arguably was the best low-tech move in history, could be taught to you in under five minutes and can still be done at any casino if the staff cannot properly defend against it, which is still the case in most casinos.

We would also discuss the high-tech scams, the baccarat edge-sorting and other current scams--but remember, the vast majority of casino scams are not high-tech. We would also spend time talking about inside-dealer and floorpeople scams, on which I have much experience. As a dealer back in 1977, I may have been the first to do the infamous false-shuffle baccarat scam later done on a huge scale by the Tran organization 25 years later.

The seminar structure is determined by the different games in your casino and their relative importance to the casino drop. Each game is covered through all cheating and advantage play aspects. Sometimes during seminars we discuss my previous undercover observations in the casino and the weaknesses and vulnerabilities I documented, although some casinos prefer that such a discussion take place only with upper management.

Finally, at the end of the training, I give a 20-question quiz to everyone entitled "How good a casino-cheat-and-advantage-play-catcher are you now?" Then we go over it. The purpose is to see how much of my presentation the attendees retained.

I like to leave a property thinking that if a professional cheat or advantage-play team came to the casino three months later, the staff would catch on to a greater percentage of it than it would have before I'd been there. In fact, in some areas where gaming control is less rigid and permits, I actually arrange with casino surveillance and upper management to go back inside and actually do the cheat moves I'd taught the staff months earlier, and I am happy to say that they always catch a fair share of it right on the floor. Of course this cannot be done in all jurisdictions.
  
This is a general overview of how I work. Of course each training/seminar is tailored to the property depending on your exact needs and who will be attending.

Finally a note on choosing your game protection consultant/trainer, which although is self-promoting it is also true:

Many of them out there are ex-magicians who really have no firsthand knowledge of casino cheating, which has very little to do with sleight of hand. They talk the talk and sell themselves off as casino-cheating experts. Others evolve from casino surveillance experience, which of course imparts lots of knowledge to them, but alone it is still not enough to teach casino staffs how professional casino-cheat teams operate.

Good cheating-protection training is more than showing you video of sophisticated cheat-moves or even showing them on actual gaming tables in front of you. It is explaining to you HOW organized professional cheat-teams operate from start to finish; how they set you up for their moves, how they use psychology to control your floor staff and avoid surveillance interference, how in some cases they even get surveillance to unwittingly help them, and how they obtain and cash out their high-denomination chips without you picking up on them.

Most of today’s game protection trainers cannot teach you this…simply because they don’t know it. They do not have this type of experience, which is REALLY necessary to properly and completely train your table-games and surveillance staffs. 

I can teach you this...because I lived it for 25 years!

Just How Friendly Should Dealers and Floor Staffs be with their Players at the Tables?

Who's Controlling the Mini-Bac Game?

I'll bet that 99% of you know that answer about as quickly as I wrote "99%".

Obvious you're thinking, "Friendly but not too friendly, right?

And you are right. Any casino whose staff is as cold as ice is going to quickly steer their players right to the next casino. And any casino whose staff is too friendly to their players opens itself up to many game-protection risks at their tables.

But let's get into this analysis a little deeper.

Suffice it to say that you don't want your staffs to be cold, nasty, robotic or mechanical while dealing and supervising their games. We need not spend any time analyzing that.

But what are the real problems with your staff being too friendly and over-talkative with your players? Is it that they might meet up with them at a local bar and have a drink or two?

You bet that's one problem. My 25-year casino-cheating career began just like that. I was dealing my mini-baccarat game and was being chatted up and entertained by a real cool dude, who two weeks after meeting up with me in a bar became my professional casino-cheating mentor. The first result of that was my performing a mini-baccarat false shuffle scam that took my casino for $20,000.

But let's put my personal cheating career aside and let me give you two scenarios from my career as a game protection consultant/trainer, one of which risked game-protection problems while the other caused very serious game-protection problems.

Case 1)

I did a two day multi-shift undercover investigation of a major Native American casino. I cruised by every table-game in the casino several times and stopped to observe those that needed to be observed. I found some disturbing instances of dealer and supervisor over-friendliness with their players. Not only were the dealers and supervisors both encouraging their players how and how much to bet, some were jumping up for joy with them when they won and cussing out and stomping their feet on the floor when they lost.

In once instance, a blackjack dealer, after drawing out a five-card twenty-one to a table filled with splits and double-downs, actually slammed that last five-value card onto the table in disgust. It then fell off the table.

I witnessed several incidents of this type. One dealer advised a roulette player, "Don't bet on zero! It hasn't come up all night." Another roulette dealer paused in mid-sweep to have a minute-long conversation with a player at the game who appeared to be a friend.

Later on, in a meeting with upper management, I commented on these observations. They told me that it was casino policy for the dealers to be very friendly to their clientele at the tables. I quickly told them that that policy was inviting trouble. They at first demurred but then seemed to be in agreement. I have not been back to that casino since, so I don't know if they actually changed their "over-friendly" policy.

Case2)

I recently completed a two-casino training engagement in Canada. As I often do, I conduct an undercover investigation and evaluation of the casino before the training begins. In the first casino I noticed a stunning procedural violation of table-game protection.

A group of high-rolling Asian baccarat players were jammed-up at the casino's number-one mini-baccarat game with hordes of family members and friends behind them. Each player had at least $1,000 bet on the layout. Checking out big action games is of course a part of my game-protection job.

I stood and watched...and listened.

There were two bets on Player, the rest of the table on Banker.

The dealer dealt the cards. Then he suddenly did the unbelievable...or at least what I considered unbelievable.

He turned over the Banker cards first!

Rules state that the Player cards must be turned over first.

I was so stunned I almost said something. Of course I never say anything during an undercover investigation no matter how flagrant the violation. I always discuss it with upper management at the appropriate time.

So I held my tongue. I guessed that maybe the dealer made a mistake, although that seemed odd. He definitely was experienced.

The players on the Player side did not seem to object to the Banker cards being exposed first.

The dealer dealt out the hand, took the losers, paid the winners.

On the very next hand it happened again. The dealer dealt the cards and turned over the Banker cards first.

It didn't take but a few more hands for me to realize what was going on.

The dealer was turning over the Banker cards first because that's what the Asian player with the biggest bet wanted!

As I stood and watched in amazement, the dealer waited before each hand for the Asian player with the largest wager to command how he wanted the dealer to deal the game.

Unreal!

And when the relief dealer appeared, nothing changed. The high-rolling Asian baccarat players were actually controlling the deal of the game.

And the casino had no problem with this gross violation of dealing and game-protection procedures. In order to accommodate their prized high rollers, most likely out of fear of losing these players if they refused to grant their wishes, they relinquished to them the very control of their baccarat game.

When I came back to that mini-bac table on the next shift with a completely different staff--and a different group of Asian high-rollers, the same thing was going on. When the players wanted the Banker cards turned over first, the dealer obliged and the supervisor, glued to the game, did not object.

On my way to the second casino, I thought incredulously of what I'd witnessed at the first.

And guess what?

You guessed it! The same exact practice was occurring at the second casino. It all became very clear. Several casinos in this part of Canada, each afraid to lose high-rolling baccarat players to other casinos breaking the rules, broke the rules themselves in order to prevent a mass defection of their high-rolling baccarat players.

So next came my meeting with upper management of both casinos. They explained what I thought they'd explain: That they had to bend the rules and compromise their tables because other nearby casinos were doing it.

I wondered which was the first casino to do it.

I also wondered what the Asian high rollers would do if all the casinos in that part of Canada refused to alter the deal of mini-baccarat.

Would they get on a plane just to have the game dealt their way? I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is this: If all the casinos in Canada, and the rest of the world for that matter, didn't break the rules for these high-rolling players, the Asians would not quit playing baccarat.

I'd bet my life on that!

So, the story told, where is the REAL danger of these compromised dealing and game-protection procedures?

I explained it to upper management of both casinos: I said to them, "What happens when one of these Asian high rollers blows off lots of money and his business goes bad at the same time? What happens when he goes broke?"

I know it seems like these Asian baccarat players have endless supplies of cash, but believe me, many of them don't!

I'll tell you what could happen. That particular suddenly-broke Asian, who already is chummy with the dealer and speaks his native language, and who already has exercised some control over him as he has for a long time now dictated to that dealer how he wants him to deal the game, starts talking to that dealer about entering into a collusion partnership against the casino.

Look, I am not saying that this will happen, but I am saying for sure that the possibility of it happening is much greater when the casino shows its weakness to a desperate high roller by having let him control the game for a long period of time.

After giving several possible examples of how this compromise of game-protection procedures to keep high-rolling players high rolling at their casino can backfire, I added...

"Oh, by the way, did you hear what happened to Crockfords Casino in London and the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City when they altered their baccarat-dealing and game-protection procedures for Phil Ivey?"

They shook their heads in comprehension.

DO NOT ALTER PROPER DEALING OR GAME PROTECTION PROCEDURE FOR ANYONE!

If you do you will eventually get stung.

Has Casino Game Protection Gone too Far? Or Should we just Change its Name?

Just Game Protection...ONLY!

I recently received an email from a reader of my blog criticizing me and others in the game protection industry for "just going way too far." He said that we are covering things that simply have nothing to do with casino game protection. He cited the October 1st Las Vegas massacre as a prime example.

The writer is someone who is not in the business but whom I know well for having made several worthy comments to me over the years. So I began to think about what he said and soon I found myself asking if his critique did indeed have merit.

Has casino game protection gone too far?

We all know that the number-one horror story in Las Vegas, and in the entire United States for that matter, during the year 2017 was the terrible mass-shooting committed by Stephan Paddock. Fifty-nine people died and hundreds more were wounded in this unbelievable senseless act of terror.

The shooting also seemed to be the number-one story for casino game-protection-related websites and blogs, especially those operating from Las Vegas.

We all certainly appreciate the loss of life, destruction of lives and the terrible suffering that this tragic event caused, and I certainly appreciate the roles that casino surveillance and security must play in order to better prepare for these types of events and maybe even help stop them before they happen or at least minimize the devastation.

But what I am suddenly not so sure about is that terrorism and mass-murder, whether it be internationally inspired or the work of some madman (or in Paddock's case a seemingly sane guy seeking revenge for gambling losses), should be so directly related to all the topics and practices that fall under the umbrella of what you and I call "Casino Game Protection."

I have followed just about everything online about casino game-protection since I first got involved in it after a 25-year-career cheating casinos that culminated in my writing a book and finally becoming a casino game-protection trainer myself.

For the first few years during my transition from an interested person to an active participant in game protection, "game protection" simply meant protecting casino games from cheats, thieves, crooked employees and advantage players. It was nothing more than training casinos how to protect their table games and slot machines from those looking to take advantage of weak internal controls and other flaws to take money out of the casino cages.

But it surely began to evolve after 9/11.

I first noticed it when an Israeli anti-terrorism expert gave a gruesome presentation at the 2007 World Game Protection Conference at which I was the first speaker. Although I was a bit surprised by his very presence there, I certainly understood it. Of course there was the real threat of a terrorist attack at a Las Vegas or any other American casino.

Next came the computer hackers and high-tech fraud experts. I understood that as well. Hackers and fraudsters certainly had already invaded casinos' financial and information systems, so we did no wrong including these experts under the widening umbrella of casino game protection.

But then came astronauts and people whose areas of expertise I didn't even understand So maybe then I first had some inkling of doubt about the people getting involved in giving advice how to protect casinos, if not casino games. But I just shrugged it off and said to myself..."okay."

Finally, after that terrible event in Las Vegas, game protection did indeed do a major shift to where our experts (including myself) were now speaking out daily on matters that some may consider more apropos to SWAT teams and Navy SEALS.

The writer pointed out that we should not be voicing our opinions on how the Las Vegas Sheriff's Department and FBI were conducting their investigations and giving out information to the public.

That's where he said he drew the line.

He added that casino game protection people do not need to make public statements about mass killings and killers' backgrounds, nor do we need to be "criminal news agencies" transmitting photos of armed robberies, sexual assaults and murders even if they do happen in or near casinos.

Then he wrote, "Posting and Tweeting about Steve Wynn's alleged sex abuse under the heading of game protection devalues the integrity of what you do."

These comments got to me.

Upon serious thought, I can agree that those are not game-protection issues. They are issues that concern specific functions of casinos' security and surveillance staffs that have nothing to do with gaming. So maybe the guy's right. Maybe we should leave these issues to the very capable and dedicated casino security and surveillance professionals whose reality it is to deal with them.

There is one item coming off the massacre supported by game protection forums that does bother me. This is the promotion of software programs that inventors say can track degenerate gamblers' playing patterns and behavior at the tables to identify which ones are more likely to go back to their rooms and get their guns and grenades after taking a bad loss at blackjack.

Come on, gimme break!

This is just some innovator's way of profiting off the hysteria. There ain't never (pardon this double-negative onslaught) gonna be no software to tell us which degenerate gamblers are going to go on a casino rampage, no more than there's gonna be software to tell us which high school wacko-psychotic posting his love for killing online is gonna storm into his classroom with an AR 15.

Please don't buy that crap.

Although the school shootings have been very repetitive in nature, the Las Vegas-style massacre will probably never happen again. And if it does, there is not much we would have been able to do to prevent it...except maybe if by some miracle the gun laws change. (I don't want to get political here--because doing so is CERTAINLY NOT game protection! LOL).

So maybe game protection needs to stay more focused on what it is (or was)--simply protecting casino games and gaming operations. In my eleven years training casino and surveillance staffs in game protection, never once have I uttered these words during a seminar: terrorist; tracer bullets; automatic weapons; active shooter.

And not one attendee has ever asked me why not. 

Finally, my opinion is this: We should probably continue talking about these issues but not overdo it. Unless, of course, we want to change the name of what we do to something other than "casino game protection" if we're going to be so all-encompassing.

I expect you might have some diverse comments, so keep 'em coming!

Table Game Protection Dilema: Should Casino Floor Staffs Receive Game Protection Training Together with Surveillance Staffs?

This is a very common question.

The worry that most casino upper managers have is that if Gaming Floor People are shown all the cheat moves that Surveillance Personnel are, the result might lead to more inside dealer/floorperson/surveillance scams against the casino, or simply that casino floor people should not have as much knowledge of scams as surveillance, so that they might not be tempted on their own to cheat their tables.

I have always conducted my game protection training with the two groups together. I feel strongly about this because I believe the casino staff on the floor must be on the same page as the surveillance staff "upstairs."

True, there are potential negatives, even dangers. But let's look at a few facts first.

The first is that collusion scams performed by casino floor staffs very rarely involve surveillance people. So by that alone, you can rid yourselves of the worry of a major scam going down in your casino from the bottom all the way up. That can only happen in a casino that has disastrously poor internal controls and game-protection policy, and complete lack of adherence if there is any game-protection policy in place.

Second: There are always some dealers who turn to cheating the house. This can NEVER be avoided. But the global percentage, even in casinos with poor internal controls that are literally asking their dealers to cheat them, is extremely low, probably lower that the vast majority of worldwide industries.

With that in mind, excluding dealers and floor supervisors from knowledge of the inner-workings of table scams being taught to surveillance staffs will have a negative impact on your casinos.

Why?

Simply because your dealers are your first line of defense against ALL casino scams not involving dealers. If they are ignorant to a particular cheating scam happening on their tables, then, unless a very sharp supervisor behind them takes notice of the moves going down, surveillance immediately becomes your FIRST line of defense.

Now I have absolutely no bias against surveillance staffs, but in my 25-year casino-cheating career, not once has a cheat-move of mine been spotted on time or stopped by surveillance alerting the gaming pits.

I mean NOT ONCE!

This is not to say that surveillance operators aren't efficient. By and large they do a great job, especially if they have good training and follow internal policy. But it is much too difficult to spot the majority of professional moves when you're away from the table--no matter how good your equipment is.

Remember, good game protection must come from the floor up. Surveillance serves best when the floor staff alerts them to something suspicious. Then they can focus in on whatever it is going down on the tables, and then mobilize the entire casino to eradicate the problem.

So all that said, it is firmly my opinion that you should train your floor staffs in game protection, cheating and advantage play as you do your surveillance staffs.

However, I do suggest that if dealers are participating in game protection training, they should not be present when inside-dealer scams are being presented. They can learn these when and if they become supervisors.

All that said, this does not mean that floor personnel and surveillance staffs must be trained together in the same place at the same time. It just means that they should learn the same material, albeit perspectives unique to each department should be addressed to both.

How Bad Ass Casino Dealers Cheat Your Ass

Watch out!

Most casino gamblers believe that casinos do not need to cheat the customers because their profits are huge enough on the square.

What they overlook is that the vast majority of cheating in brick and mortar casinos is done by dealers in business for themselves who keep their casino bosses in the dark.

Suspicious gamblers, especially losing ones, will say that all dealers cheat at one time or another, and often bend their own bad-beat stories into horrific tales of being the victims of cheating dealers.

So what’s the truth?

It’s simply that casino cheating scams engineered by dealers or other casino employees are of a small proportion, but since there are so many casinos with so many tables, there are several episodes of dealer-cheating in all major casinos across the world—every day.

How do they do it?

They cheat in two basic formats.

One is to partner up with an “agent” to cheat their own casinos for individual profit. The other is to cheat legitimate players at their tables in order to replace the chips missing from their dealer chip racks.

That’s to say if Dealer-Peter is cheating the casino and dumping off those chips to his Partner-in-Cheating-Paul, he then has to cheat Poor-Innocent Mary out of her chips to balance out his chip rack and avoid suspicion.

5 ways Dealer-Peter cheats his casino and gets the chips to Partner-Paul

1       

P    Paul plays at Peter’s mini-baccarat table. On a baccarat score card provided by the casino, he charts the exact order of the cards dealt from the first hand out of the shoe until the last hand.

Peter then performs a false shuffle of the six decks of cards and puts them into the shoe. Paul, knowing the exact order that the cards will come out of the new shoe, bets accordingly and kicks the casino’s ass.

Peter and Paul divvy up the money outside the casino after Peter’s shift.

2       Paul next sits at Peter’s roulette table and buys in for chips. Peter, who has mastered the craft of roulette “section shooting,” by which he can control the ball so that it drops into a certain six-number quadrant on the spinning roulette wheel a fair percentage of the time, carefully monitors both the speed of the wheel’s revolutions and the speed with which he lances the roulette ball, and hits the desired quadrant more than probability would dictate.

Once again, Peter and Paul divvy up the cash over a cold one at the neighborhood tavern and play some live video poker.

3       Paul now strolls up to Peter’s blackjack table and takes a seat. He knows Peter will help him along in various ways.

        

a) Peter will “push” or even pay Paul’s losing hands.

b) Peter will overpay Paul when his hands do win.

      c) Peter will help Paul steer tens and aces to his hands off the top of the shoe through a method of controlled-shuffling whereby he protects the order of certain cards or clumps of cards.

      d) When dealing handheld blackjack games, Peter will take a surreptitious glance at the top card of the deck that Paul would receive on a hit, double-down or split. He will signal Paul how to proceed.

This time when the party’s over, they split up the booty in Peter’s apartment, which happens to have a blackjack table in the dining room so that Peter can practice his dealer-cheat moves.  

     

4        Paul takes a long walk to the other side of the behemoth live casino. Lo and behold, his buddy Peter is dealing a lively craps game, which is flowing along at an impressive pace. He hunkers in between two players along the human wall surrounding the craps table.

As is common with today’s craps tables, there is no supervising boxman seated at the middle of the table between Peter and the other dealer at the opposite end of the craps table.

a)      Paul makes a $50 bet on the Don’t Pass Line.

b)      The shooter rolls the dice and they come out 5-5 for a total of ten.

c)       Paul lays $100 double-odds against the shooter rolling another ten before he rolls a seven-out

d)      The shooter does roll the winner-ten and Paul’s bets lose.

e)      Paul quickly swipes his $100 double-odds bet off the layout before Peter can collect it for the house.

f)       Peter sees Paul do this but purposely ignores it.

g)      Paul loses only the original $50 Don’t Pass bet.

h)      The shooter rolls the dice and they come out 3-1 for a total of four.

i)        Paul lays $100 double-odds against the shooter rolling another four before he rolls a seven out.

j)        The shooter rolls the seven-out.

k)      Paul leaves both his winning bets on the layout.

l)        Peter pays them both.

m)    Paul wins $50 on each bet for a total profit of $100.

Paul continues swiping his losing odds bets off the layout in the dark, but leaves them intact when they win. Peter, knowing there is no one supervising him, just keeps paying Paul’s winners and ignoring the losers that Paul swipes off the layout.

This time the casino-cheating pair split up the profits at Paul’s house.

             

5       Finally Paul finds the brick and mortar poker room where Peter is dealing a $10-20 hold’em game. He sits down and immediately plays a hand. He receives his two cards face down and is delighted to see a pair of black aces. He tucks his cards underneath his chips in a predetermined way which signals the value of his hand to Peter, who immediately peeks at the top card to be burned before the flop.

By golly, he notes it’s a pretty red ace!

Instead of burning it, Peter holds it atop the deck and peels off the second card and burns it. Then he turns over the flop which contains the red ace. Paul goes on to make an aces full house and win the hand.

Paul continues playing with the artful dealer’s help and cleans up the poker game.

This final time, the happy boys cut up their ill-gotten gains at their girlfriends’ house (they’re sisters.)

  

Did we forget about Poor-Innocent Mary, the victim whom Peter has to cheat to hide the cheating-profits he made with Paul?

We did not!

So how does Peter cheat Mary?

The same way he cheated the casino with Paul, but in reverse.

When Mary sits at Peter’s blackjack table, he shortchanges her on winning hands, sweeps her bet on push hands, and just takes her losing chips when her hands lose.

Of course Mary might catch on and claim that Peter shortchanged her or took her chips on a push hand, to which Peter will apologize, make the correction--and then wait for the next “Mary” to hit his table.

The same vicious cycle continues on all the other games that Bad-Ass Peter deals in the casino.

How Pro Casino Cheats Psych Out Their Casino Victims

Casino Cheat Brain Power

The world´s best cheats use a powerful and proven 10-step method to dummy-up casinos into believing their cheat moves are legitimate bets and that they’re legitimate high rollers.

1)    Buying the chips they need away from the table they’re about to move on.

When a casino-cheat team wants to do a blackjack move using $1,000 chips, they get those $1,000 chips at the craps or baccarat table, thus avoiding any heat on obtaining large-denomination chips at the blackjack table they’re targeting. This gives them the element of surprise when putting them into dishonest play.

2)     Making set-up bets to establish credibility as a high roller.

When the team pastposts or bet-switches a $1,000 chip, the person who will claim that phony        bet will first make a legitimate bet using the same denomination chip. The dealer and supervisor will both remember this big original bet and not be suspicious when the same high-roller appears claiming a bet-switch containing a $1,000 chip.

3)    Using a little psychological “force” when possible.

When trying to manipulate a dealer’s mind, a little physical touch can go a long way. As casino dealers are almost never touched, a switched-bet claimer can reach out and gently tap the dealer’s hand to alert him to the cheat-move and speed up the process of getting paid. This soft touch has the effect of whacking the dealer’s head with a baseball bat because he’s totally shocked at being touched at all by a player. The result is that he forgets what he´d seen in the betting circle and therefore cannot contest the cheat’s claim as to how much is in the circle now.

4)    Betting back after the switch goes down and gets paid.

The best way to avoid post-move heat is to cool the casino down. Doing this entails a bet-back, which is the same as the set-up bet but placed after the move goes down. If the cheat-move earned $1,000, then a bet-back or two of $200 will do the trick. Of course those bets are at risk, but in the long-run the cheats will only lose a small percentage of their cheat gain.

5)    Being gabby from the start to the finish.

The best way to control the situation at a table and avoid having it turn negative is to create the mood the cheat-team wants, which is obviously a jovial one. When there is talk and laughter at the table, it is much more difficult for negative reaction and suspicion to surface. With this in mind, the cheat who is raking the cash off the layout engages his gambling neighbors in affable conversation during the entire time he’s at the table.

6)    Chumming-up the supervisor.

The cheat wants to immediately establish a rapport with the supervisor, who is the second most important person at the table and the one who ultimately determines whether or not the cheat-move will be paid. As most supervisors come over and greet the players, especially those showing big action, the cheat wants to ingratiate himself right away. He thus accepts the supervisor’s offer to rate his play in order to qualify for casino comps. What better outcome to get paid on a cheat-move and then wine and dine yourself as the casino’s guest!

7)    Not coloring-out chips at the table.

Although the cheat wants to leave the victim table as soon as possible after the move and subsequent bet-backs, he doesn’t color-out his chips to a higher denomination. Doing so gives the impression that the cheat may have finished his gambling and is headed to the casino cage to cash out and then leave the casino. Not doing so leaves the impression that the cheat who has just been paid on a bet-switch is still ripe for lots more gambling and will probably give the casino back its money at another table.

8)    Tipping the dealer.

Last thing a top-cheat wants to do is leave the table having an unsatisfied dealer. If the dealer is a little suspicious or upset, he might nudge his supervisor to call surveillance to have them take a closer look at what went down on the table. A good secret that cheats know is that a nice tip will remove most of the doubt from the dealer’s mind.

9)    Leaving the table aggressively.

Another last thing a cheat wants to do after cheating a casino game is leave the table as if he’s trying to escape. Doing so will pop red flags in casino-employees’ minds. Leaving sheepishly or in a hurry does not seem natural for a high roller who’s just won a grand or more at the table. So the masterminding cheat walks off with tailing conversation and laughter, maybe even a friendly slap on the back or handshake to his neighboring player.

10)   Avoid talking to the teller at the casino cage while cashing out chips.

The chatter cheats use to control the atmosphere with neighboring players and supervisors at the table is not needed at the casino cage. Skillful cheats just lay their chips on the counter and wait for the cash. If the teller has any questions as they sometimes do, the cheat just answers them succinctly. As the casino cage is a prime locale for money-laundering and other serious criminal operations, the less felonious casino-cheat just wants to get outta there as soon as possible.

Total psychological effect

Psyching out the casino is probably the strongest weapon in the skilled casino-cheat’s arsenal. Most actual cheat-moves are quite easy to do and contain nothing more than good timing and hand-coordination. But the key to cheating-success is to keep the casino oblivious to the very fact they are being cheated, and the only way to do that is by building a psychological step-by-step ladder that leaves their personnel so dumbfounded that they just go along for the ride.

Game Protection--Why some casino staffs just don't get it.

Teaching the right way

I travel to different areas of the world doing game protection seminars and hands-on training to casino floor staffs and surveillance staffs. I often visit the same casinos more than once, and the second time around is when I notice how much the casino’s staff benefited from my first visit.

Sometimes it’s not as much as I would’ve liked.

Is it my fault?

Well, I like to believe that with all my experience as a casino-cheat and advantage-player, and then as a speaker and trainer of casino game protection, that what I deliver to casinos that hire me is the best out there.

So then if I’m not to blame for this lack of game-protection progress on the part of the casinos, who is?

I hate to say it but the answer is: the casinos. I mean their staffs.

And the reason is twofold:

One is that not enough key employees are in attendance.

The other is that some of the key employees who are in attendance are not there with the right attitude. I have encountered many with an already-know-it-all attitude that is very detrimental to both themselves and the casinos they work for.

A good example of this occurred recently at a major South American casino. The head of its surveillance department was from the United Kingdom, which happens to be the sharpest casino area in the world as far as cheating is concerned as far as I’m concerned.

This particular Brit, who no doubt had seen his share of high-end casino cheat scams, immediately took on an attitude of “How can I learn anything from you if I’ve already seen it before.”

I had asked the casino’s director of table games beforehand to supply me with an employee who could help me during the seminar by actually doing cheat moves I would teach him. I often do this to draw attention away from myself so that the attendees can witness (after the fact) that it was their own colleague doing the cheating and mot me, whom everyone expected to see do it.   

This type of attendee-participation approach serves well to get attendees interested in the seminar.

But in this case at the South American casino, the surveillance director who was assigned to help me decided to challenge my knowledge at every turn. I was trying to get him to a blackjack pastpost to which he responded, “That’ll never work in a casino where I’m surveillance director.”

I wanted to respond, “How much would you like to bet?” but instead asked the table games director to lend me another employee, which she did.

Then during the seminar, while the self-exiled surveillance director stood behind the blackjack table with his arms crossed and a bored look on his face, his replacement did the blackjack pastpost and fooled the dealer and everyone else in the room.

The surveillance director saw nothing, but still insisted in rebuttal that the move would not work in a real blackjack setting. What he ignored is that it worked over five thousand times over the course of twenty-five years on real blackjack tables.

He and I got into it verbally throughout the seminar and the result was that the more than one hundred employees in attendance got very little out of the seminar.

So my point is: casino employees—especially key employees--need to keep an open mind and leave their egos at home when attending and participating in casino game protection seminars.

Link to Richard Marcus Game Protection Seminars