Security & Surveillance
SPECIAL REPORT
The Top 20 Casino Gambling Scams of the Century
A look back at significant casino scams from 2000 to 2021
By Willy Allison
Two years ago , Bill Zender and I sat down and started going through our notes from the past 20 years on casino scams . Our goal was to compile our “ Top 20 ” scams for a presentation at the 2020 World Game Protection Conference — a kind of retrospective of the last 20 years where we could share our findings and lessons learned with students of the games . The conference never took place .
Our criteria to make the Top 20 was simple : how much money casinos lost ( estimated ), how creative it was , how far spread it was ( geographically ) and how long it went on . To qualify for our Top 20 , the scam must have beat casinos ( or players ) out of at least $ 1 million .
Exact numbers for casino scams are hard to come by , and often underreported . So I took the conservative officially reported numbers and the insider whispers of unofficial numbers , and rounded them off to the nearest million .
How long and where the scam went on is almost impossible to ascertain exactly . The casino industry doesn ’ t keep or compile that sort of information . It should be noted that casino scams are often copycatted by different groups and perpetrated in areas of the world that don ’ t have cheating laws or in casinos that either don ’ t want to or are not required to report casino scams ( i . e ., illegal casinos ). At the end of the day we only know what we know .
In this article , the 20 scams we selected are listed in no specific order ( more on that later ). Each scam has a brief synopsis of no more than 100 words . No names of people or casinos are mentioned ; the focus is on the modus operandi . This is done in the hope that even though the list may cause debate ( we hope so ), the historical account of these significant scams can be used as an educational reference guide for casino managers in their quest for achieving effective game protection .
THE TOP 20 SCAMS
The Baccarat False Shuffle
Crooked dealers are hired by players to conduct false shuffles . During a shoe , a player writes down the order of the cards as they are placed in the discard rack . At the completion of the shoe the dealer takes the eight decks and proceeds to shuffle . The dealer purposely keeps a clump of up to 100 cards to the side and shuffles around it , thus maintaining the sequence of cards ( slug ) in the same order that was previously recorded . In the next shoe , the players wait until the slug appears and are able to calculate future results and bet accordingly . Casino losses : $ 10M- $ 100M
The Baccarat False Shuffle Camera
Crooked dealers are hired by players to conduct false shuffles . During the last step of the shuffle , the dealer “ high riffles ” approximately 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 . The bag contains a concealed camera that records the shuffle . She 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 back at the table who wait until the slug appears and bet accordingly . Casino losses : $ 10M- $ 100M
18 Global Gaming Business FEBRUARY 2022