Casinos bring in outside experts to fight cheats

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1999 | 10:52 a.m.

Most popular ways to cheat at casinos

A list and description of the most popular ways to cheat casinos, according to two Las Vegas companies that help casinos nab cheaters.

A player "marks" certain cards in a deck, sometimes with lipstick or a crease. When he next sees the marked card, he knows what it is before it is shown. The player can then bet big when he knows the deck is favorable.

The outside of a small cup is painted to look like a stack of $5 chips. When the dealer is in on the scam, he will load the cup with $100 chips, then give it to the player. It looks like the dealer has just given the player a stack of $5 chips.

Two blackjack players sitting next to each other quickly look at the other's cards after they are dealt, then trade them. It happens so quick, most people probably would never catch it.

Cheaters will file down the edges of casino coins to a smooth finish. When a shaved coin is inserted into a slot machine, the machine registers a coin played but returns the smooth coin, plus any winnings. That way, a gambler can play without spending money.

A device to rig slot machines to pay out a jackpot. The wire is inserted into the slot machine and fools it into thinking a player has won a jackpot.

Dave Rapp has barely finished his lunch when he gets the call -- a suspicious blackjack player is racking up the chips, and the casino is nervous.

"What kind of money's he betting?" Rapp asks the casino in Tunica, Miss.

A thousand dollars a hand and he's winning. The casino has no idea who the gambler is -- strange for a high roller.

Rapp heads to his pickup truck and flips on his laptop. With a few clicks, he sees a live shot of the player in Mississippi, all from the comfort of his small truck.

If the player was a known cheater or card counter, it's a safe bet Rapp would know the face. He has 5,000 memorized. But, he tells the casino, this one isn't among them.

For years, casinos have relied on the old method of catching cheats -- spotting a suspect in the casino, then looking through pages of mug shots, hoping there's a match.

Now nabbing cheaters has gone high tech -- computer programs that recognize faces, databases of suspects and networks that link nearly every casino in the country.

A person playing blackjack in Las Vegas could be caught by virtue of his record at a casino in Atlantic City -- in real time. Casino operators say it's not too late: With the growth in gambling nationwide has come a surge in cheating and its sophistication.

"There's just so much out there people don't realize," said Andy Anderson, another cheating sleuth. "People don't realize how easy it is to cheat."

Anderson, 55, pops in a "Beat a Cheat" demo tape and points out two guys next to each other at a blackjack table. As soon as the cards are dealt, the two quickly switch cards. It happens almost every hand, but most people, including the dealer, won't see it.

To Anderson, it's obvious.

"There, there, you see?" he said, pointing to the switch.

His adrenaline is pumping. Even though this is an old tape, the high of catching a cheat has returned.

"To me, it's exciting and it's never the same," said Anderson, who even tracks down college math whizzes who pay for their education with casino winnings.

Authorities arrest an average of 600 cheaters a year in Nevada -- people like Dennis McAndrew, formerly known as Dennis Nikrasch. He masterminded two slot cheating schemes that netted $16 million, two of the biggest scams in Nevada history. He is serving a seven and a half year prison sentence. His trick was to conceal a hand-held device that could program slot machines to deliver him winnings.

Anderson used to patrol the casinos, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. Many cheaters began to recognize him and now he rarely enters.

Instead, he lets technology do the work. He has put cheaters' mug shots into a computer program and markets the database to the casinos. His service is for hire through his company, Casino Visual Identification.

To look up a cheat or card counter in Anderson's program, a casino official clicks the mouse on the icon for the game the player is playing. Blackjack has a picture of a blackjack hand, craps is a picture of dice, roulette is a roulette wheel. Each game has a list of known cheats or card counters. Each name has a picture or several to go with it, aliases the player uses and a list of associates.

Plus, a casino can communicate directly with another casino, sending a live picture via a system similar to e-mail and asking: "You seen this guy?"

Anderson's services can run up to $16,000.

The other company in town tracking cheaters is Griffin Investigations, owned by Bob Griffin and his wife, Beverly. Rapp has worked with the company for 10 years.

The companies' latest advance is a facial-recognition program that helps casinos identify a player even if they don't know his name or background.

A surveillance camera takes a still picture of a player, then focuses on the eyes and their shapes. The computer searches through the thousands of pictures in its database to find which people most closely match the eyes of the player.

"The old mug shot books, you had to look through there and hope you could find it," said Derk Boss, director of surveillance for the Stratosphere Hotel-Casino and Tower. "It makes it a lot easier and brings it up to high technology -- where we all want to be."

The biggest threats to casinos are gangs of cheats, who swoop in and quickly target several casinos over several days or weeks. Many wear disguises, some even dress in drag. Some are just notorious gangs of card counters, a practice that's not illegal but vigorously discouraged by casinos.

At least one former cheater believes the technology will scare away some cheats.

"I have a strong belief that it's going to affect who these people are able to play with," said the man, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of getting in trouble with casinos. "They're going to be able to catch the guys real quick and not depend on the memory of some pit boss or surveillance guy."

On this day, Rapp has his eye on a gang of local cheats who have taken $5 million from casinos over the last 10 years. Even though they've been arrested, they haven't been prosecuted because conspiracy is difficult to prove, Rapp said.

"I've been chasing this same group. They're always doing something. They aren't there for the buffet," he said, staring at their mug shots.

His cellular phone rings. Another casino suspects a cheat and wants Rapp's opinion.

"It keeps us working," he said.

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