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Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
Bill Zender
Sun archives
- Las Vegas Strip’s baccarat fortunes slide (8-13-2010)
- Baccarat in the sky (2-23-2010)
- High rollers bring baccarat boom to Las Vegas (2-22-2010)
- Baccarat making a big difference (1-17-2010)
In a darkened conference room at the Tuscany, a group of casino surveillance managers lean forward in their chairs for a closer look at video footage of a man strapping a metal device to his left wrist and concealing it in his jacket sleeve. Caught red-handed by the casino, he is now demonstrating his crime to police.
“Now, watch this,” says Bill Zender, a security consultant who teaches casinos how to spot gambling cheats.
The man in the video takes the two cards he is dealt in a baccarat game and holds them up to the camera with his left hand, lowers his hand for a second, then holds up both cards again. One is a new, more favorable card that he has slipped out of its hiding place in the metal device as the less favorable card took its place.
The man glances nervously about the nondescript room, far from the glitz and glitter of the casino floor. Caught by a Cambodian casino, he is being asked to demonstrate his crime for the benefit of police. Behind him, a soldier in uniform holds a machine gun — foreshadowing the man’s uncertain future in a less forgiving culture for criminals.
Another part of the film shows the man’s stash spread atop his hotel bed: card-switching equipment, cards from multiple casinos and designer watches to bribe casino managers and other employees.
Although this might sound like an exotic crime in a far-off place, Zender — a former Nevada casino regulator and manager — warns that it is being imported here. This is his first seminar devoted to baccarat, the only Nevada game that is growing despite the recession. Asians, who have not been as hard-hit by the economic downturn, are flocking to baccarat to test their luck.
Many baccarat players are Asian gamblers from outside the United States and Chinese-born Americans who come to Nevada for bigger gambling action, Zender says.
With baccarat’s growth has come a spike in theft, especially in California, where card rooms recently introduced a version of baccarat that is more popular with players. Those games are nearly identical to games offered in Nevada and elsewhere around the world. The new games are a shorter drive for Californians and in many cases can be played for less money.
Some California casinos have dozens of baccarat tables going at all hours, dwarfing the pits in Las Vegas properties and creating potential training grounds for cheaters, Zender says.
Although few people will try to cheat a casino game, baccarat — a high-limit, raucous game with simple rules and no strategy decisions to complicate the flow of the cards — is “ripe for the picking,” he says.
In fact, the largest cheating ring of all time involved baccarat: Some industry insiders say the San Diego-based Tran Organization may have stolen up to $15 million from dozens of casinos in more than 10 states and Canadian provinces over a four-year period until it was taken down by the FBI in 2007.
The group’s ringleader pleaded guilty in 2008 to scamming up to $7 million from as many as 27 U.S. casinos, including Palace Station, and was sentenced this year to nearly six years in prison. More than 30 co-conspirators have pleaded guilty in the scam, which involved bribing dealers to execute an incomplete or “false” shuffle of cards.
The crooks tracked the cards the first time they were played, alerting accomplices when the same combination of unshuffled cards appeared in the deck again. By knowing the outcome of the cards beforehand, the cheaters could make multiple winning bets.
Unlike blackjack and other card games where players may choose whether to receive more cards, baccarat requires players to draw a third card depending on the sum of their hand, allowing cheaters to determine the order of multiple hands in minibaccarat games where cards are reused.
“If I know what the next 40 cards are going to be, that’s about eight hands in a row” where a player can bet low or high and maximize his profit, Zender says.
Some cheats have worn baggy sleeves to switch out cards or have used accomplices, trading cards underneath the table. Others mark cards before they are dealt again.
“It’s high tech and low tech,” Zender says.
But casinos are catching on, and vendors are trying to keep up with a slew of gambling equipment aimed at improving security and profit, including preshuffled packs of cards, “smart shoes” that hold shuffled cards on a table game and can detect the order of cards as they are dealt, and playing cards embedded with radio-frequency identification chips. Using chip readers built into tables, casinos can track each card as it is played, detecting unusual winning streaks or foreign cards introduced into the game.
Besides high limits that can start at $100,000 per hand at posh Las Vegas casinos, baccarat is known for the curious antics of its players, which can include tearing cards after a losing hand, yelling for the desired outcome and jumping up from the table before uncovering a crucial hand that could mean the difference between losing and winning the equivalent of five years’ salary.
On Friday, Caesars Palace agreed to pay a $250,000 fine for allowing a man to walk and dance on a baccarat table while the game was being played. The player compromised the security of the game as well as people’s safety, regulators say.
Although standing on a table is unusual, other forms of childish behavior are common among high rollers, Zender says.
“It’s an annoyance casinos put up with for bigger players. If I’m playing $25 a hand at a minibaccarat at the Plaza I might be a big player and get away with something, but if I’m at Caesars betting $100 a hand they’re going to ask me to leave. If I’m betting $100,000 a hand they’re going to let me do it.”
Security experts aren’t easily distracted by such antics, Zender says. Moreover, casinos are watching tables more carefully these days because of the economy, which has forced debt-ridden companies to cut back and grab profits where they can.
“They sweat the big action” while fighting over a limited number of high rollers by offering discounts on gambling losses and other perks, Zender says.
Meanwhile, cheaters — some of them employees — will take their shot at a time when Las Vegas casinos don’t want to spend money on training, Zender says. (Las Vegas casinos were mostly absent from last week’s seminar, which was attended by supervisors of California casinos.)
“One, they don’t want to spend the money,” Zender says of Las Vegas properties. “Two, they think they know everything. With the major corporations there’s a big push now to cut back and save every penny.”
And yet, the risk-reward balance that largely deters crime has changed in this economy, he says.
“People think, ‘My life is going down the drain anyway.’ ”
The larger casinos use the Angel Eye system in baccarat. At the end of each shoe the cards are changed so the sames cards are not used. Mainly because the players are allowed to handle the cards. This does not mean additional card cannot be introduced to the game by a cheater, or a card switch. This does cut down on the options for a cheater. If the floorsupervisor is not watching his/her game, or the dealer is distracted or involved with the scam, a player could switch cards on a full game that uses the Angle System once the cards are given out. At this point it would be difficult to detect unless surveillance is watching the game during the switch.
The casinos are cheating us the players as well with their tightened up slot machines and 6:5 Blackjack. Who's watching them??
If the casinos hired people with experience rather than a pretty smile and crappy attitude, our table games would be protected. The wall street guys running these casinos have no clue what is going on on the casino floor and put their guys in charge to run them, who have no clue. There are so many gaming guys with experience out of work because the MGMs and Harrah's of the world wants a younger work crew. So they have sacrificed and displaced experience with phony smiles, arrogance no experience, and the gaming regulators allow this?????? As to environprotectors comments, the casinos dont know how to cheat, they just reduce the odds on the games and charge more for everything else while laying off staff where the only staff left are union members whos job does not have customer service in their job description. Its not only 6.5 BJ, its 6.5 Video Poker at stations. Worst odd that can be offered.
Very true Dipstick... "A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes."
Sorry but the bigger criminals are on the other side of the table.
I know cheating casinos is illegal...but sometimes you've got to admire the cheater's creativity. I don't have the balls to cheat but I would if I knew I wouldn't get caught.
Every good card cheater, and slot theif should know to only use their skills at Indian Casinos, much better chance of not getting caught because lack of talent working in these Casinos, but if you happened to get caught all they do is ask you to leave and don't come back. These so called Sovereign Nations have their own laws, and are the easiest to cheat.
"One, they don't want to spend the money," Zender says of Las Vegas properties. "Two, they think they know everything. With the major corporations there's a big push now to cut back and save every penny."
With that, the casinos get their just dessert. They want to cut corners on security, customer service and safeguards, let them pay the price.
I like to read these comments everyday, but this is the first time I've posted. With that said, one thing I've noticed is their are a lot of posters that call the casinos crooks. If you don't like the way they operate, don't gamble! I enjoy Vegas as a entertainment destination, where I can do and be almost anything I can think of and make some money every so often. For those who expect to make money or cheat to guarantee a return, power to you... but I bet that in all cases, that you'll end up bitter old blue hairs dreaming of what could have been.
Most of the casino operators here in Macau have recently been hit with some high tech scams where players have been using pin hole cameras to film the sequence of cards whilst running the cut card along the of length cards, this player will leave, the cards would then go into the shoe and other players knowing the order of cards would come and then play the shoe and of course take the casino for a ride. Venetian was hit bad, MGM got done for a few million, was never picked up by security or surveillance until the money had gone, we got done for some, but not as bad as others.
Thanks for the tip,Jimmyl.No,really I would only stand on my head to win at baccarat.
I guess if you are playing for $100,000 minimum per hand, a $250,000 fine isn't really that big on a relative basis.
the cheating is so overblown its unbelievable---usually pumped up by guys like zender to make money giving "seminars" where they cash out from the paranoid managers. Most of the cheats are at the new joints and indian joints where the help is less experienced. Steve weinberg has stole more money in the past couple years from the dealers than any cheat every stole in the history of gaming and yet no one bats an eye!
How come the 8 casinos in PA. pay more in taxes to the state of PA. than the 260 casinos in Nevada pay?
Cheating is wrong. Those who watch these threads know that I can't stand the duopoly of Harrahs/MGM, but to cheat them is wrong. Harrahs/MGM haven't taken to cheating their customers. They've taken to screwing them in many ways such as changing the odds, but they haven't taken to cheating them!
PGelsman;Probably because the one's here aren't making any money to be taxed on!At least that's what they say.
How the hell can you cheat at this game if you have to place your bet before the first card comes out of the shoe and you can't touch the cards?
If the public actually knew how thecasinos are not allowing thier customers a fair gamble by tightening up the slots they would never touch them. A 2% adjustment in pay outs is tough to over come.
How come the 8 casinos in PA. pay more in taxes to the state of PA. than the 260 casinos in Nevada pay?
PGelsman...becasue they have a 55% tax rate...they agreed to this because in PA they only have allowed 8 licenses...and at least 1/3 of the entire USA population is within a 2 hour drive..it's called paying for a monopoly...thats why Foxwoods was the most profitable casino in the world before other states started legalizing gaming.
As long as cheaters immagine and create, there should be Vegas jobs to train and teach not to, Unfortunely, ConcernNative is right. The bean counters are in control and not the people managers who live in LV and can stop this and keep everyone on level, safe, and enjoy what gaming is about. Las Vegas has lost its edge by loosing the care for the real customer to gamble. All the bean counters want is the money at all cost. No training for us to hold our job. The bean counter can just find a way to fire us if things go bad because it's his fault. As soon as this becomes more of a problem and they start loosing their high rollers, you can forget it. And when they do train, watch the bean counters hire from the outside of Nevada and leave us with still 14% unemployment.
The bean counters are running out of beans to count.Their job is definatly being phased out.Bean nice knowing ya!
Re. the comment by jimmy from macau: This is not a new trick. I know something similar was used in Poipet a few years ago. Also a team of armenians were touring europe, using it on b/j about 10 years ago. In truth even using latest high-tech, the tricks are just updates of old moves. I.e. the M.I.T. B/J syndicate were inspired by the Al Francesco/Ken Uston teams of the ealy/mid 1970`s, which all ties in with Concerned native s observation about not having enough experienced staff. Glen Grayson must be laughing in his grave.