Surveillance and security professionals at the World Game Protection Conference in Las Vegas voted that four casino scams involving baccarat rank among the top five scams of the century.
The top five scams were unveiled at the end of the conference, after attendees were provided with an extensive list from which to choose.
It’s not surprising that four of the top five scams voted on at the conference involve baccarat. “That’s where the high limits are,” conference founder Willy Allison said. “With baccarat, they play up to $1 million limits and everybody can bet on the same thing.”
The number-one scam is known as the Baccarat False Shuffle Camera, in which crooked dealers are hired by players to conduct false shuffles. It’s estimated to have cost casinos as much as $100 million this century, Allison said.
During the last step of the shuffle, the dealer “high riffles” about two decks of cards, followed by a “step-through” false shuffle. A woman accomplice seated at the table rests her bag on the table, while the dealer shuffles. Inside the bag is a concealed camera that records the shuffle. The woman leaves the table, returns to her hotel room, and plays back the video to obtain the sequence of cards. She relays this information to players at the table who wait until the pertinent slug of cards appears and bet accordingly, Allison said.
Number two on the list is the Exploitation of Asymmetrical Cards.
A woman searched for casinos that used automatic shufflers on baccarat, open-faced shoes, and poorly designed and manufactured cards that could be “edge sorted.” Conspiring with a big player, the two requested and were granted changes in the casino’s standard procedures. The most significant changes were dealing cards face down and having the dealer reveal each card to them individually before she instructed the card be turned straight over or to the side. This facilitated the identification of high and low cards before wagering, gaining a considerable edge over the house. Those losses were in the tens of millions of dollars as well.
The Cut Card Camera is third on the list.
A baccarat player who volunteers to cut the cards has a camera up his sleeve connected to a video storage device. The colluding dealer turns the eight decks 90 degrees to the player. Before inserting the cut card, the player glides it across the top of the cards and scrapes his fingernail across the corner of the cards to reveal the indexes of a sequence of cards to the sleeve camera. The player leaves the table after the cut, reviews the video in a private place, and relays the sequence to players at the table, Allison said. The estimated losses for this scam also exceed $100 million, Allison said.
The Crap Call-Bet Collusion Caper, fourth of the top five, has accounted for more than $1 million in losses, Allison said.
In this scam, crap dealers in collusion with players pay long-odd “hop bets” that don’t exist. Since there are no spots on the layout for hop bets, as the dice are rolled, one of the players mumbles some instruction to the dealer that no one can understand. After the dice come to rest, the crooked dealer pays the player for a winning hop bet.
The last scam on the casino hit parade is the VIP Host with Inside Information. This one’s losses have been estimated between $10 million and $100 million.
As a precautionary measure, a casino uses a machine to check that pre-shuffled cards for baccarat with eight decks are shuffled correctly. However, the machine exposes the entire sequence of the cards to a surveillance camera before they go to the tables. A VIP host persuades management to give him access to the casino surveillance system claiming that his high-roller client requested independent oversight. After reviewing video of the deck-checker machine and recording the card sequences, the VIP host relays the inside information, including the shoe identifier serial numbers, to his high-roller cheater.
Willy Allison had one top scam on his list that wasn’t on the one voted upon by the conference attendees. The Jackpot Prediction Computer has resulted in casino losses ranging from $10 million to $100 million, he said.
A computer hacker acquires a slot machine, analyzes the random number generator, and creates a sequence prediction program. Organized trained teams are dispersed around the world to locate the specific machine type in casinos. After locating a machine, they record or stream a portion of play with their cellphone cameras for computer analysis. After the analysis is completed, the cellphone is synchronized to the time sequence of results.
The cell phone sends vibration alerts to the player signaling when to push the play button. The computer guides the player to small jackpots that fly under the radar of casino managers, Allison said.
“One of the reasons we picked that is it took a lot of money, was very creative, and is still going on,” Allison said of his top scam.
Allison said reports show that between 1997 and 2015, about $1 billion was stolen by cheaters in casinos. He added, however, that no scam worth $1 million or more has been reported in the last five years.
“I believe we’re starting to get on top of it,” Allison said. “We learned some really hard lessons, then we evolved and used technology to help us. We have to look more and more at technology.”
In speaking at the conference, Allison said cheating will always be part of the game, but that the casino industry can manage it. There’s much more to worry about.
“I think it’s the unknown head,” Allison said. “That’s the issue that we talked about. People ask why is the Game Protection Conference talking money laundering, human trafficking, and cyber threats. That’s because it’s risky and we’re shifting and moving. Someone has moved our cheese and the only way to mitigate this risk is to do it together. That’s what we do here.”
