Card printing company implicated in SAfrican blackjack fraud

Tuesday, May 4, 1999 | 9:10 a.m.

Casino and police officials said Tuesday that the lone supplier of cards to South Africa's casinos had issued decks with the backs of high cards slightly altered. Cheaters using them at the Caesar's casino came away big winners, costing the casino $333,000 over 19 days alone last month, officials there said.

If the same scheme was used nationwide, as officials suspect, it would have cost industry about $8.3 million a year, said Ernie Joubert, CEO of Global Resorts. Global Resorts and the Caesar's World unit of ITT Corp. own the casino.

Casino executives believe information about the marked cards was sold to gamblers either for a flat fee or commissions on their profits. Who was behind the operation remained unclear.

Police Supt. Jan Hyman said the chief executive of the card maker, Protea Playing Cards, was cooperating with police, and a printing employee at the Johannesburg company was questioned. No arrests were announced.

Global Resorts said police seized printing plates with the altered designs and marked cards from the company.

The executive, Harry Roscoe, did not immediately return a phone call. Joubert said the company provides cards for all 22 of the country's casinos, and others in southern Africa.

Global Resorts moved quickly to disclose the fraud in a gambling market with mouthwatering potential for foreign investors. Once confined to the black homelands under apartheid, casinos are now appearing around the country and generating revenues of more than $333 million a year.

The marked cards had a tiny blank space inside a repeated floral pattern on the horizontal edge that lay exposed in the dealer's shoe. Only 10s, face cards and aces - the desired cards in blackjack - were marked.

Thus, the gambler could see if a good card was coming either to a player or the dealer and decide how to play and bet.

"Printing your own cards is like picking money from the apple tree in your back yard," said Steve Vorster, chief of surveillance for Caesar's.

Warning bells went off April 11 when Caesar's managers saw that the house's blackjack take had dropped from 14 percent of the "drop" - or amount of chips bought by players - to 11 percent.

Surveillance tapes showed suspicious behavior by a small group of players - such as darting their eyes quickly to the deck, making wildly fluctuating bets and always occupying the first two seats. Officials examined the latest shipment of new decks millimeter by millimeter and found the irregularities, Joubert said. Marked cards were found to have been used at 20 tables, and at least five cheaters were identified.

"I think they got greedy. They took too much too quickly, and we got suspicious," Joubert said.

The casino alerted police on Sunday. Other casinos were warned and began checking their decks.

The international average for a casino's blackjack take is about 17 percent, and the industry for years has wondered why it is lower in South Africa.

"People always thought ... that South African blackjack players were the best in world," Joubert said. "Now there may be another reason."