Three arrested in Sam’s Town poker scam

Tuesday, June 8, 1999 | 10:52 a.m.

A dealer and two players have been arrested for allegedly slipping in a "cold deck" to win a $44,000 "bad-beat" poker jackpot at Sam's Town hotel-casino.

The arrests last month were made after security personnel reviewed video surveillance cameras monitoring games in the Boulder Highway casino's poker room. The tapes were reviewed when a player sustained a "bad beat" in one of the games.

Officials at Sam's Town and its parent company, Boyd Gaming Corp., declined to comment, so details of the specific hand weren't available.

The Sam's Town poker room is one of many Las Vegas that cater to local poker players. Some offer progressive "bad-beat" jackpots in specific live games.

In a typical scenario, a player holding aces full or better whose hand loses to four of a kind or better gets 45-50 percent of the jackpot. The player whose hand beats the jackpot winner gets about 25 percent, while the other players in the game split the remainder of the jackpot.

The jackpot is funded by a special "rake," or money collected from each pot, and climbs until the jackpot is hit. The prize then reverts to a smaller amount that grows until the jackpot is hit again.

The Sun has learned the tapes apparently revealed one of the players who participated in the suspect jackpot game brought in a "cold deck," or one in which the cards had been pre-arranged to deal out specific hands, including two that would qualify for the jackpot.

The player secreted the deck in a portion of the poker room, where it was recovered by the dealer and slipped in as a substitute for one of the normal decks in the game.

In the Sam's Town incident, the jackpot winner was paid about half the $44,000, while the player with the best hand got about $11,000.

When the incident was discovered, Sam's Town officials reinstated the $44,000 jackpot.

State Gaming Control Board officials filed cheating at gambling, conspiracy to cheat at gambling and burglary charges against dealer Gordon James Graves, 45, and players Charles Sanzeri, 51, and Andrew John DiVecchio, 41.

A Control Board official said the agency will make additional arrests.