Poker & Casino Cheating Tips From An Expert Cheat            

Due to bad beats, many Texas Holdem players think that online holdem games are rigged.

Stay in bed and sleep it off. If you gamble today, you're probably too hung over to pay attention or catch cheaters, so there's no point in my giving you a Tip of the Day today!

They may be pretending to be drunk at your home poker game, but they're not! Happy New Year!

Well, don't drink and drive either, as we all want to stay safe on New Years Eve. But I just couldn't resist the "don't drink and connive" line! While I'm at it, don't drink and be snide either!

Happy New Year to you all! 

If you want to know why, read this post in my blog!

Do not dare cheat the casinos or anyone else on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. If you do, you might have to answer to someone a bit more revered than casino surveillance...New Year's Eve though, that's another story. Take your best shot!

Nearly everyone thinks that if you are betting one color or denomination chip and then you press your bet or switch it for another bet when knowing the outcome but before being paid, you cannot do it with differnet denomination chips because of different colors. That is completely false. I used to bet three red $5 chips and then switch them out, replacing them with two purple $500 chips and one red $5 chip on top. The key was that $5 chip on top, which was the same color and denomination as the chip on top of the original bet. By keeping that conformity, I was able to psychologically outwit the dealer. Over the years, I did the same with yellow $1,000 chips and chocolate $5,000 chips.

Absolutely! But that's not the real question. The important one is "can they predetermine with accuracy a group of numbers or a certain section on the inner wheel where the ball will land?" Unless the equipment, meaning any working part of the wheel or the ball, is tampered with, roulette dealers looking to fleece the casino by way of spinning-ball control would have about as much success as craps shooters beating the casino by way of dice-control, which is not much.

Of course you can...but it's not going to help you, so don't bother.

They are the safest game in town! Collusion play is less than at conventional tables, there are no marked cards, no online bots, no crooked dealers and no hacking into the system...well, about the hacking I'm not a thousand percent sure but it's a safe bet.

Of course not! If you don't know which horse or dog is fixed to win the race, then in effect the race isn't fixed. At least not as far as your bet is concerned.

Casinos often look to catch cheaters they missed at the tables cashing out, but smart cheaters know how to skirt that. For instance, if they cheated the casino by using $1,000 chips and the casino cage is put on alert to call security if anyone cashes out those $1,000 chips, the cheaters will go to various tables and change those chips to smaller denominations, and then cash out those, perhaps on a later shift or the next day.

Smart roulette computer teams will know how to camouflage their advantage play and therefore get more action before casinos eventually pick up on them. What they do is first play blackjack, baccarat (punto banco) or craps to establish themselves as legitimate high rollers before moving in for their kills at roulette. I basically did the same when setting up casinos for my moves.

Big football games on TV are prime working conditions for home game cheaters. While the honest players are busy watching and cheering at the screen, the cheaters are busy fixing, marking and doing anything else with the cards they need to in order to fleece you. So if you're gonna play at home while watching sporting events on TV, watch the game you're in as well! And this goes for European football, cricket and rugby as well.

When you're gambling and losing and running to ATMs to fetch more cash, you're usually in a hurry to get back to the action and thus often careless. Many people after they get their cash simply leave the machine without punching the answer to the final question "Do you want to make another transaction?" If one of the many shoulder surfers who hang out by casino ATMs is standing behind you, and he or someone working with him happens to have already noted  your PIN when you punched it in either this visit to the ATM or last visit, the shoulder surfer will step up to the ATM and answer "yes" to that last question and make a withdrawal against your account. The term shoulder surfer comes from the act of looking over someone's shoulder to peek at the info on the ATM screen.

Their big giveaway is that they're often on their cell phone while standing behind you to give the impression they're busied and not looking at the screen to steal your PIN. To avoid becoming a victim, just make sure to be patient and properly close out your ATM transactions. 

I am hearing more and more stories about online casino players who are running into problems getting paid their winnings because of the casinos finding out that they have duplicate accounts. Most players complaining about this claim they didn't know about their previous existing account or simply forgot about it, but whatever the case, this is not a game you want to get involved in. They won't care about taking your money when you lose having duplicate accounts; I've only heard about the issue with players having difficulty withdrawing their winnings. So just avoid having duplicate accounts.

The answer is yes, but only when one is trying to. Remember, standard casino cameras are never zoomed in that close without a specific reason, for instance when trying to detect card-marking scams or tiny electronic devices. One thing their cameras could never detect, though, was the color of the bottom chip sticking out slightly in my Savannah moves.

Is it the set-up? Is it the actual move itself, switching, pressing or pinching chips? Is it the psychology cheaters use to convince the bosses they're legitimate high rollers? Or is it the cover plays made after the cheating move to stave off the heat?

Answer: none of the above. It's the escape! Just like when robbing a bank, the robbers have to get out of the bank with the cash. So do the cheaters out of the casino after their moves.

Did you know that an ad in the Las Vegas Review Journal personals that read "Guaranteed winning craps system, $10,000 profits a month" ran every day for more than 20 years? It also ran in the Los Angeles Times. So obviously tons of people were paying first $500 (when the ad initially came out), then $1,000 (after two years) and even $1,500 and $2,500 over the last fifteen years. But did this famous craps system work, or did all those people get ripped off by cheating hucksters? They got ripped off. Ain't no craps system that works...And as far as that dice control stuff goes, those guys called the "dice dominator, terminator and regulator" and anything else that ends in "or" are all full of shit, and I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw 'em...or their dice.

Have you ever heard this statement: Casinos make too much money on the square and therefore would never risk purposely cheating their players...?  I mean on an organized basis, not  just a rogue dealer or two working a scam. So then is the aforementioned statement true? Not entirely. Virtually all casinos in North America, most of Western Europe and Macau are totally safe and free from organized casino cheating by casinos against the players. The last incidents of this type of casino cheating in these "safe zones" were in the Caribbean in the 1970s. However, as casino gambling has sprung up in far-flung places all over the world, don't think for a second that the word "casino" in a public place means you can gamble without the slightest fear of being cheated by the house. In some Asian and Eastern European casinos, I am not so sure. Crooked casinos are rare but they do exist--even today.

There's no real way to police this latest online poker cheating phenomenon although it can be traced to logging in/out of the site. The best thing to do is simply be aware that it happens, and when you note drastic playing-style changes of a player you're up against, it's very likely that it's not the same player, so you might have to adjust your style--without selling your account!

If you're a baccarat or mini-baccarat player, learn the third-card rule and pay attention while you're playing to make sure the dealer doesn't make mistakes when following it. Unless, of course, a mistake is in your favor.  As baccarat, especially mini-baccarat, becomes more popular in casinos, more inexperienced dealers are thrown behind the tables, and they often make mistakes applying the rule, because it is a bit complicated. I would say that one mistake per 50 hands is a reasonable estimate even for experienced dealers. So if you fancy the game, learn the rules!

Many roulette players feverishly spread their bets over the layout as if in a race against time, which is sometimes the case when you're making loads of bets and the dealer wants to spin the ball. Can you remember every bet you made? Probably not. There are chip thieves posing as regular roulette players who know that you cannot , and they go out there and scoop up some of your chips while laying down some of their own. You might think, "Well, what good would my non-redeemable roulette chips be to them?" Think again. There are many scams that casino cheaters and chip thieves do with other players' roulette chips, so watch out for yours!

Most people dealing the cards in home games, even those playing in big stakes home games, are not very experienced in dealing the cards, at least not in the professional sense where the cards must never leave the surface while being shuffled and not be held too high while being dealt. This reality leads to a vulnerability that allows the top cards coming to the players to be "peeked at" before they hit the felt. It's not easy to do, but with the help of shiny jewelry on hands resting low on the table and soda cans, cheaters will definitely get good reflective peeks some if not most of the time.  Make sure home dealers follow procedure and beware of excessive shiny jewelry and soda cans that just look too shiny.

A marked box of playing cards would surely make a bad Christmas gift, especially if you're the one receiving it! Here's a guideline how to acoid falling prey to such a scam:

Examine the cards and the box:
If you play for money you should always insist that a new deck be used. Before and after the box is opened every player should have the right to examine the cellophane wrapper, the box, and the cards. Keep in mind that if the box has been tampered with you will most likely not discover any traces of tampering on the security seal. Boxes are usually opened from behind, or from the side where the flaps are glued together without being secured with a seal. If the bow was tampered with you may be able to discover some traces there. The cellophane wrapper is as important. Usually tampered boxes are glued back with Krazy Glue® or Epoxy®. This doesn't look quite the same as a factory sealed cellophane wrapper. Upon close examination it is possible to discover the inconsistencies. So don't just throw the wrapper away. Keep it, and if you lost too much money have another look at it.

Say someone approaches you in or outside a casino with $500 chips from that casino and says to you, "Look, I'm  in a hurry and I don't want my wife to know I've been gambling, so can you do me a favor and cash these for me? Tell you what, I'll let you buy them for four hundred bucks each." Sounds tempting, right? Maybe you're suspicious but you're also sure the chips are real. You've been in that casino many times and played with $500 chips. Should you buy them off the guy? Never! That's because those $500 chips may have been used in a scam that the casino caught on to. Since large denomination chips don't circulate as much as lesser ones, it's possible the casino has put a hold on all $500 chips and instructed the casino cashier to hold up anyone presenting the $500 chips for payment to be interrogated by security about that scam. See what I mean? You could find yourself in hot water, and when asked where you got the chips, you better hope the casino believes your answer that "I bought them off somebody." Even so, they might confiscate them and hold them as evidence and you'd be shit outta luck! So don't do any buying of casino chips unless the seller is the casino. 

If you think you are playing against a bot, a quick and easy way to ease your mind is to chat with the suspected bot. Say hello, ask (him, her or it) where they're from, ask if they saw the football game last night. Heck, how 'bout posing them this question: Are you a doggarn bot? If they get offended and cuss you out, at least you know they are not a doggarn bot. But if they don't get offended, and worse say nothing at all, they might just be a bot, doggarned one or not! Of course if someone doesn't respond doesn't mean that they are a bot; they might have either turned off the chat box or got really offended and chose to ignore you. If they don't respond to your first question or comment, keep trying. If they continue  to not respond, and you're losing, try another table.

The biggest scams in your home poker games are marked cards and cold decks. A cold deck ringer is someone who, when no one is looking, switches in a deck with the cards prearranged to give either himself or his partner at the table a huge winning hand, usually fixing up the pot's eventual losers with full houses getting beat by higher full houses, four of a kind or a straight flush. Ringers efficient at this won't even care if you're looking because they can make the switch right under your eyes. And of course the backs of the switched-in deck of cards are identical to the backs of the one switched out.

If you get burned by an incredible bad beat, you may have been cold-decked.

Like anything else in life, online software can come with its fair share of glitches. Internet connection delays can be detrimental when it happens in the middle of a hand. When you are frozen out, your opponents are not. By the time you are back on track the hand is over. Your chance of winning it is gone. Most of the time these glitches are caused by PC viruses. So be sure to protect yourself with anti-virus programs and anti-spyware.

No, I am not joking! The truth is, more than half of all home games have some kind of cheating happening in them, and the cheater or cheaters may be the person or persons you would least expect. Therefore, if you are suspicious that something is going on and you're not sure by whom, be sure that you are the victim! Which doesn't mean you're the only victim. If you'd like to learn about some common and not so common home-game poker scams, check out that chapter in my book "Dirty Poker."

No, I'm not talking about being careful when crossing the street. Had I been doing that, I would've had to add "Look to your left, look to your right" to satisfy pedestrians on both sides of the Pond. However, when sitting at a poker table or standing at a craps table, it is not a bad idea. In poker, you want to be aware of who's sitting on either side of you, as they could be colluders, peekers or even chip-sweepers, meaning you could get sandwiched between a hot babe distracting you and her parter lifting some chips off your stack--I've seen it happen. But more dangerous with this kind of move is at craps tables where the babe distracts you and her partner reaches into your chip rack and pecks away at your horizontal-lying chips. That's why the move on a craps table is known as rail-birding. And believe me, it goes on all the time. I've done it myself. Once, my partner (who wasn't even a babe!) and I scored three grand rail-birding a winning high-rolling craps shooter in Vegas. At one point during his hot roll, he looked down on his rack of chips and exclaimed, "Geez, I thought I was winning more than that!" So be aware when your chip bank is swelling or it will swell at a much less swellier rate! 

While playing craps, you might be unwittingly losing money not to the casino but to fellow opportunistic players at the table. As craps is by far the most complicated table game in casinos, with all its lay, take and proposition bets, it's very easy to get confused and not realize when your bets actually win. The most glaring example of this in when the come bet wins when the dice "seven out." In this case, many people often leave the table in disgust when they hear the stickman's vaunted call of "seven out!" and see the dealer sweep away the losing chips they had on the pass line. What they forget is that the come bets they had just made before the roll have won.  These winning bets left on the layout by players leaving the table are called "sleepers" because they are left their to sleep until someone picks them up. That someone is usually a professional casino cheater working the crap tables for that exact occasion. It is very low risk for them becuase casino bosses do not watch to see who picks up which winning bets.

So beware. Remember, a come bet is the exact same bet as a pass line bet. The only difference is it's made after the come-out roll when a point has been established, and can be made any time between the come-out roll and the eventual seven-out. The come-out roll is the roll after a pass line winner or loser.

Before leaving the craps table, make sure you've left no winning chips on the layout!

Remember that all good cheaters and cheating teams will disguise their cheating moves the same way any good military operation uses camouflage to hide themselves and their real objectives. For instance, when my cheating teams hit casinos to do roulette moves, we showed them a lot of phony big action in order to camouflage ourselves and make the bosses believe we were legitimate high rollers. Often we enhanced the camouflage by showing this fake action on craps tables and baccarat tables, to hide the fact that our true attack destination was roulette.

The reason for this is that players speaking a foreign language at the table, especially a very foreign language like Farsi, Pashto or Dari, may be exchanging information crucial to the game, such as what cards they have in the hole. I am in no way accusing any native speakers of these languages of being more likely to collude than anyone else, just using the uncommon languages as an example of conversation that would rarely be understood by non-native speakers of them. The curious thing about minority players (in terms of being foreigners at the game) speaking their native tongues at the poker table is that often they fall into playing collusion without even realizing it, just having a laugh and innocently telling their comrades what "a lousy hand I have," or "finally I have a pair of bullets!" I'd even say that much more than not, that verbal form of collusion is completely innocent, but it still has a negative effect on your earnings...or losses. So if you find yourself in that situation, gently ask the floorman to inform the foreign-language speakers, "English only please!" These scenarios happen very often in the UK, and a sly professional cheating team can take advantage of it.

She's not flirting with you because she likes you. She's rubbing her body up against yours to get your attention away from your expanding rack of chips. On the other side of you is her partner, undoubtedly the guy she's sleeping with, who is nibbling away at your chips while your attention is garnered by the babe. Watch out and keep your eyes on your chips...or at least your hands over them if your eyes have to wander.

Dealers take winners for pushes more often than you might think. It happens on average 1.5 % of the time, and believe it or not, more with experienced dealers than those who are new to the game. Conversely, they make mistakes in your favor less frequent, so be vigilant at the blackjack tables. Doing so will save you a betting-unit every hundred hands.

Programs like Poker Tracker are able to monitor hand histories on the poker sites with a great amount of detail. What they do is create databases of games that occur on the site. Then they run through them to look for statistical inconsistencies. They search for unusual deviations in deck shuffles, draws and other details picked up by their trackers. By using them you not only can analyze your own play and improve on it, you can also analyze the play of your opponents, and by doing so, pick up on various cheating scams going on in the games, especially online collusion.

Ken Uston and the MIT Blackjack Team just about finished off this decades-old method of beating blackjack games. What do good teams do now? All their members sit at the table and play as ONE person. Of course they all bet, but when the count goes up they mix up their increased increments; for example, one guy betting two units, another three units, and a third only one unit. Then the next hand at the same count they switch around their bets, keeping the same total. Then if the count goes up higher, one player might actually decrease his bet while others at the table bet threefold or even more. This type of betting effectively disguises the card-counting team because if each individual is tracked by the casino, none will be exposed as a counter. This method even fools casinos' card-counting detection software!

This opens avenues of cheating, mainly collusion, softplay and chip dumping. Most brick and mortar poker rooms have the policy of assigned seating for their tournaments, but many still don't. If you happen to live near poker rooms that only offer open-seating tournaments, just be a little more aware of collusion groups in your tournaments. Watch for the telltale signs of collusion--lots of re-raising, and chips placed in different positions on hole cards by the same player or players. For more on collusion sign languages, see my book "Dirty Poker" or refer to my "Collusionspeak" article in Bluff Magazine's October edition (Bluff Europe as well).

Although cheating by blackjack dealers in casinos is rare, it does occasionally happen. When it does, ninety-nine percent of the time it's in handheld games, where the dealer can peek at the top card and deal seconds. Usually this involves a dealer helping his partner playing on the game win, and in order to conceal this, he must help other players lose. So if you're not counting cards you have nothing to gain by playing the single and double-deck blackjack games. Just go find yourself tables using card shoes and automatic shufflers.

This means that there are lots of crooked players in home games, some of whom you may work with or even be friends with, so always be on the lookout. When the games are at their houses, they have more opportunities to cheat you, i.e. use marked cards, hidden mirrors or even cameras to see your cards. But when they come to your house, they can't really insist on using their cards, can they?

By adopting this practice in public cardrooms, you will cut down on opportunities for others to cheat you. Most professionals won't look at their hole cards until it's their turn to act. There are intelligent reasons for this, and it's definitely something you should do yourself. Why? Because there's simply no upside to looking at your hole cards before it's your turn to act. You shouldn't need much time to decide whether you want to play the hand, especially if you're seasoned. But more important than this, if anyone's out to snatch up your hole card information, they will have more time to do so. With the advent of hidden micro cameras, this high-tech cheating is now a reality.

Most poker players like to believe they have faces of stone. They think they're incapable of revealing any physical tells. This is not true. Everyone has tells, even professionals, and if you watch players at the table carefully, you'll eventually spot them. The same thing applies to you. Pros, or even good amateurs, will catch on to your tells, so in effect, by allowing this to happen you are cheating yourself.

When playing poker online, track your hands and determine if you are losing more pots on the river to either of two or three players, regardless which one of them wins the pots. Then examine hands that you folded on the turn after a raise or reraise. If the last raisers in these pots are the same two or three players more often than normal, you may be getting chopped up in a collusion game.

The answer to this question really resides in how much surveillance operators are looking for marked cards and which methods cheaters are using to mark the cards.  Most sophisticated card-marking operations will go undetected by surveillance cameras unless they are suspected and the cameras are zoomed in from multiple angles.  But don't forget that surveillance operators can pick up on many forms of card marking without seeing the marks on the cards. It's the actions and movements of the card markers that give most of them away.

Although there is no viable difference or advantage in cheating skills between left and righthanders, the percentage of cheats who are indeed lefthanded is far greater than their overall population. Left handed people make up less than 10% of the world's population, but they make up more than 20% of the world's poker and casino cheats. How do I know this? I will only tell you that I am lefthanded!

If you're playing in a home game and you lose a pot with a monster hand, say four of a kind with no wild cards, should you be suspicious that you've been cheated? Well, maybe...If you lose two pots in a night with a monster hand, should you be suspicious?...Yes, very!  If you lose two monster pots with hands of four of a kind or better, you were more likely the victim of a switched-in cooler than bad luck! A switched-in cooler is a prearranged deck of cards that is switched into the game. And it is stacked against you!

We have all heard of the countless betting systems out there, for everything from backgammon to horse racing to even poker. That's right, I have heard of people using variants of the Martingale and Double Martingale betting systems in calling and raising poker pots. As incredible as that may seem, the greatest use of betting systems still occurs in roulette, where people throughout gambling history have come up with systems to tell them in advance whether the ball will land on a red or black number, or on an even or odd number. So, let me say this: NO betting system will work in the long run; believing one will is only cheating yourself.

There are two answers to this question: 1) When they're losing. 2) When they're not winning enough. If you didn't know, the vast majority of online poker cheats have no problem beating the games on the square, but sometimes they go on tilt and lose and then decide to resort to cheating to get back ahead of the game.

 

 

 

 

 

If you ever sit down at a poker table and happen to see New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick sitting in the game, just get back up and walk away! Get what I mean? If not, read today's blog entry.

There are many ways to press or "cap" bets on craps tables. The most effective move is when the bet presser uses the camouflage of legitimately adding to or subtracting from his odds bets. Casinos allow you to incease or decrease your odds bets at any time, so they are not bothered by players' hands on the layout. Skilled bet pressers will take advantage of this from the don't pass bar and illegally press their don't pass bar bets while they are legitimately increasing their odds bets against the shooter making his "point." The same "pinching" move occurs on the pass line when players legitimately changing their odds bets on the shooter making the point pinch a chip or two from their original pass line bet, which is now at a disadvantage.

With all their state of the art surveillance technology and its 24/7 coverage of every square inch of casino space, have you ever wondered what the chances are that a casino surveillance department would catch you cheating redhanded? I mean actually see you cheating? Well, the answer  depends on how much exposure your cheating moves take. If you're the type of cheater that I was where your moves are split-second boom-boom, they would NEVER catch you. In 25 years as a professional casino cheat, no surveillance operator anywhere in the world ever caught me in the act. They only saw some of my moves after replaying video footage after I was long gone. But, however, if you run an elongated cheating operation such as hole carding or card marking where you're at the table cheating repetitively over a period of time, their chances of catching you in the act increase dramatically. Hard to pin a percentage on it, but I'd say this: the shorter the duration of your actual cheating moves, the less chance you have of getting caught!

Lots of people have been asking me about the Blackjack Card Counting method known as speed counting. Is it easier to learn? Is it more effective? The answers are that it is easier to learn but less effective. My advice to card counters is to stick with the Hi-Lo counts if they are serious about maximizing their edge against casinos. Plain and simple, it's easy enough to master ANY card counting system, therefore, why not take the time to master the best?

Never split tens at blackjack! Why? Because by doing so, you're either dumb or stupid. A smart player (probably a card counter) doing so would be stupid. That's because splitting tens would tell the pit that he's a counter, so gaining that extra percentage edge on the hand would cut down playing time due to exposure, a stupid move. A dumb player splitting tens would just be plain dumb, because splitting tens without knowing the count favors splitting tens is just plain dumb...So you see, it's a Catch 21!  Not at Catch 22...pardon the pun!

Remember that when running a card counting operation, one of the most important facets of it occurs in the casino but away from the blackjack tables. If your operation does not entail this, then it is not running at an optimum level. You must camouflage your card counting play by camouflaging it with action at other table games, giving casino bosses the impression that you're an all-around casino high roller and not just a blackjack big player. For more on this follow my blog in the coming days.

Do you know what it means in football when the quarterback calls an "automatic?" That's when the team comes up to the line of scrimmage ready to snap the ball and the quarterback yells signals to his team to change the play that had just been called in their huddle. The same ability to change strategy in card counting can be very effective for a professional card counting team.  We all know the Counter/Big Player method of card counting. So do the casinos. But what if the casinos were looking for this type of operation while you were at the blackjack table doing it? Wouldn't it be great if you could change to another form of card counting in mid-deal that the casinos wouldn't recognize? One that would even fool their card counting software? Well, this can be done. To read more about it, go to my card counting page and click on the "Beat the Heat" article I wrote on this subject.

Beware of online poker bots and colluding bots in low-limit games! That's right, it is a fallacy that good poker bots are used only in upper-limit games. The reason bots are a threat is because it’s not too hard to code a bot that will beat the small games, both limit and no limit. Small games are the lifeblood of the poker economy and the $100 losses at $2-$4 are ultimately what feed the $1,000-$2,000 games at the top. In a normal small stakes game, incompetent players fill most of the seats, and the few good players win consistently there. However, most of these good players do not have the patience for low-limit games--but programmed bots have all the patience in the world.

Can certain roulette dealers performing legitimate spins of the ball actually influence where the ball will land? Unlike dice control at craps, which is basically a falsehood, some talented and well practiced dealers can control where the ball will land--but to a minimal point. As they work day in and day out in their casinos, they become aware of certain tendencies or defects in some or all of the wheels they deal on. By utilizing that "secret" knowledge they can sometimes steer the ball to certain sections of the wheel, perhaps within two or three quadrants or about half or three quarters of the numbers, which is a huge advantage bettingwise. However, they won't be able to do this on a majority of spins but perhaps on just enough where they and their partners betting selected sections on the wheel will make out like roulette bandits! As far as a dealer actually hitting a number straight up...it would have to be a trick wheel, trick ball or April Fools Day!

If you're in the United States, watch the story of my 25-year casino cheat career tonight on the Biography Channel. If you're not, take the night off! Details for the TV show are on today's blog post.

Most roulette computers selling online actually do work. They give you a measurable edge and in a perfect casinoworld you would clean up with them. However, as I constantly stress to those who inquire, the computer itself is just a small element of the formula to be successful at roulette computer play. There are numerous issues integral to a profitable operation, such as set-up (not your equipment but setting up the casino), camouflage, betting procedures, your own internal security and cashing out chips. To learn more about this, peruse my blog. There are several informative posts on the subject

In many areas of the world, casinos have installed electronic roulette tables that are directly linked to the real tables inside the casino, which gives people a chance to play live roulette when the actual tables are too crowded. So for those players using computers and scanners to determine where the ball might land, is it just as advantageous to play at the electronic roulette stations? All things being equal, the answer is yes, though don't assume you will take less heat because there are no pit bosses or inspectors watching you. Remember: the eye in the sky IS watching you, and alone at an electronic roulette table, anything you do out of the ordinary will stand out more...So be cool!

Can wearing sunglasses help a poker cheat? You bet, especially if he is part of a collusion team.  See my blog entry for more about this. Can wearing sunglasses help an online poker cheat? lol!!!

Protect yourself against these scams where you get seemingly legitimate emails from a popular online company, such as eBay, PayPal or Neteller, that ask you to follow a link and enter your account information.  There are a wide variety of excuses used in these false emails to get you to click the links within them.  However, these links will bring you to a false website which looks just like the real one. And once you give them your personal information, they will wipe out your accounts!

Remember that true professional sites like eBay and PayPal will never request information in this manner. If you ever receive an email from one of these "companies," simply forward the email to the real company that supposedly sent it, expressing your concerns and hopes that they will investigate it. NEVER click on the link as it may also contain a virus!

Hole Carding, which is trying to get a gander at the dealer's hole card at blackjack, may be a dying breed but it is certainly not yet dead. Although the vast majority of today's blackjack tables use card shoes, which greatly prevents dealers from exposing their hole cards, and card readers, which eliminates dealers' need to peek for blackjacks, there are still a lot of hand-held games where dealers hold the decks in their hands instead of dealing the cards from a shoe, mostly in Nevada. These are the only games that you can get an edge by hole carding. This method of play might be considered a form of cheating in some jurisdictions, so when doing this take precautions that you lessen your chances of being caught. Wearing baseball caps is good camouflage but don't make idiotic attempts at concealment by pulling the cap's bill way down over your eyes, or anything else that makes you look like a freak!

Is this a mantra or a question? I guess it could be both. As a mantra it could signify many things, but in the poker and casino world only one: should I cheat or not? Well, poker and casino cheats not only have to know how to cheat but also WHEN to cheat. Just because they have the cheating skills doesn't mean they have to always apply them. In 25 years as one of the world's top casino cheats, I actually cheated a very small percentage of the time. The vast majority of time was spent on move-preparation, practice, camouflage, setting up casinos and storing and cashing out chips. So I guess the mantra part of that phrase for cheaters should be "To Cheat or not to cheat...some of the time."

Should you invest in learning one of the so-called dice control methods that claim to give you enough control over the dice when you throw them to gain a statistical edge in craps? Not unless you enjoy throwing your money out with the dice. Plain and simple: dice control does not work!

This tip comes from my longtime cheating parter Pat Mallery, who is, of course, as Irish as they come! He says: When playing poker on St. Paddy's day make sure you're not so sloshed to the point where you can't see your cards AND to the point where you can't see Fitzpatrick making a quick switch of cards with Fitzroy or Fitzgerald. In other words, according to Pat, maybe you should just get drunk and skip the poker game tonight! HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

"Play in your own backyard." What does this mean? Simply that like any sports team playing at home, you have the advantage. In poker's case, your home field advantage is that you're less likely to get cheated, especially as far as equipment such as marked cards and hidden cameras are concerned.

The first thing you're thinking is how ridiculously hypothetical this question is. But, believe it or not, I was witness to a gentleman finding a $5,000 chip on the floor of the Las Vegas MGM Grand in 1994. Naturally, that chip belonged to me (it's a long story), and the gentleman did give it back, but what should you do if you ever stumble upon a $5,000 chip, $1,000 chip or $500 chip that doesn't belong to you? Should you go directly to the casino cashier and cash it out? Absolutely not! You're subjecting yourself to lots of questions upon cashing out big chips like that, such as "Do you have any markers to pay?" or "Where were you playing in the casino?" So the way to turn your lucky finding into cash is to go to a blackjack or craps table and break the large chip down into smaller denomination chips so that you don't go to the cashier with any chips higher than $100. This way they will cash you out without any questions...And make sure you don't end up blowing all those chips BEFORE you get to the cashier!

I'm sure most of you at one time or another have googled "Online Poker Strategy" and landed on sites asking for money for its "guaranteed" winning online poker strategies. Well, some of these sites do offer good information that can help you while others are just scams. In order to weed out the legitimate ones, do a search of each individual site you fall on and add the word "scam" to the search text. For example, if the site you are looking at is called RichardMarcusOnlinePokerSystem.com (now I don't offer any online poker playing strategies! lol!), simply search "RichardMarcusOnlinePokerSytem.com scam." Also repeat the search using the quotations marks. By doing this you will fall upon reviews of people who have visited these sites and who have probably paid for their systems. If you see lots of disappointed reviewers, you are probably dealing with a site that is not legitimate. If, however, more than half the comments are positive, there's a good chance the site is a good one.

Did you ever get a chat box message like this?..."I need a favor, I'll send you $1,000 to online poker site A if you send me $750 to online poker site B."

Accepting this favor for the $250 profit can get you in a lot more trouble then you think. It starts out with a player asking you to do a favor and trade money with him from one site to another. He’ll even offer to send first and give you extra money for your trouble. You decide to help out and the transaction goes smoothly… until your account and funds are suspended for being involved in money laundering!!! Yes, the money you received was most likely stolen from another player's poker account who wasn’t very careful with his password. Since transfers between accounts usually aren’t monitored, scammers trade stolen money on one site for legit money on another with unsuspecting players. The innocent player who now has the laundered money in their account is left in a mess of trouble, while the crook simply cashes out of the other site.

Watch out who you're considering loaning money to among your fellow online high-stakes players. The player asking you for the loan may not be the trusted player you think he is. I mean he may not BE who you think he is! Some hackers are able to get high-limit players' passwords and then use their screen names to complete the perfect online poker identity theft. Then they proceed to different tables asking high-limit players who know the screen names to borrow significant amounts of money as there is mutual trust among these well-established players. Not long ago, one skilled hacker/player garnered more than a hundred grand in profits before the high-stakes player/victims caught on.

“Send me $20 and I’ll pay you back $40 tomorrow”

In this scam, the scammer is after a lot more than $20. By sending that first $20, you’re getting lured you into a Ponzi scheme. The scammer starts with a small amount and gets dozens of people involved. He'll gain your trust by sending the promised money back promptly the next day, chatting with you, and becoming buddies. But once he has many people involved, he starts asking for a little more cash while still promising high returns. He’ll pay the money back, but with other "investors" money. Then after he's your chat buddy he’ll make up some story, like having money tied up somewhere and needing $1,000 for a business venture. He’ll of course promise you a high return and you won’t have any reason not to trust him, because he’s always kept his word to you...Then you can kiss that grand goodbye! Beware of the old Ponzi scam.

Players often hover around sit-and-go tables offering to make private side-bets on the outcomes. For example, a scammer registers for a $100 sit-and-go and offers his opponent a $200 side-bet that he’ll win. If the opponent agrees and loses, he would pay the scammer $200. If the opponent wins, the scammer would just ignore the side-bet as though it never occurred. Sounds stupid but it happens often enough!

Many trusting and honest online players fall prey to various scams launched via chat boxes. In one scam, someone not currently seated at the table, known as a railbird, types a tempting message into the chat box that hypes a generous giveaway to the first one or two players at the table who visit a website whose URL will contain the name of an established online poker room to lend it credibility and authenticity, perhaps even with an "administrator's" name at the end of the message to make it more believable. DO NOT go to that web page. If you do, you will be notified that you are a winner and asked for your login name and password. The password is what the scammers are looking for. Once they have it, they gain access to your online poker account, login and remove your funds. 

Profitable? You bet--if you find enough multi-deck blackjack tables NOT using automatic card shufflers. The key is to spot a clump of ten-value cards and aces during the shffle and then bringing that clump to the top of the deck via your placement of the cut-card so that this clump will come out on the first hand of the new shoe. You are really looking for an ace. So if you know that one is coming out within the first three or four cards after whatever amount of cards are burned, you spread to four or five hands off the top of the new shoe. This way you know that one of your hands will receive that ace. Even better if you spot two aces next to each other. But be careful, if you mis-read the card positons, the dealer might end up with an ace in the hole (no insurance) and wipe out all your hands!

There are many forms of poker cheating in tournaments. However, one that is quite unknown to many players is the use of counterfeit chips at key times in a tournament. Many players think that since tournament chips have no redeemable value, there would be no reason to use counterfeits. But the 2005 WSOP at the Rio Suites in Vegas proved differently. If counterfeit chips are hidden in table stacks during changeover breaks when tournament officials replace those chips for chips with higher denominations as the betting levels increase, and the staff is not cautious, mis-counts can occur, giving counterfeit chips real value once the new tournament chips hit the table.

Do these claims that you can use perfectly programmed bots to cheat online casinos out of bonuses really work? I have done a study on this and found that in one isolated instance, by programming a blackjack bot to play 8,000 hands in a short period of time, the person behind the bot could make a small profit after netting out the downswing of losses from the sign-up bonus. However, that one particular casino will surely realize this if it finds players abusing that chink in its system. Overall, forget it! You're not going to make any real money scamming bonuses from online casinos.

Do any professional casino cheating teams specialize in moving losing bets to winners once the outcome is known? Yes. I have seen very skilled roulette cheating teams, mostly from Italy, actually move stacks of chips bet straight up on a losing number to a neighboring winning number BEFORE the dealer could mark that winning number with the dolly. Naturally, some distraction tactics were involved, but they were extremely professional. I will be blogging about that move in the coming days. Other effective forms of moving losing bets to winning bets occur in craps, but usually this is done before the actual outcome is decided. For instance, I've seen players bet on the pass line, then when the shooter rolls a point, that pass line bet becomes the underdog. At that point, the cheater subtly slides his bet from the pass line to the don't pass bar, and now that bet becomes the favorite. What makes that move opportunistic is that the bet-switcher has lots of time to make the move, as there are often many rolls between the come-out roll and the final disposition of the bet, either a winner or a seven-out.

It is very rare that you will be cheated in a legitimate gambling casino, but it does happen when crooked dealers go into business for themselves without the knowledge of their casino bosses. However, there is one table game where it would be very hard for them to cheat you at. That would be baccarat because the cheating dealer or dealers could not know in advance which side you will bet, whereas in blackjack you can only bet against the dealer. In baccarat, you can bet on the player or on the banker, which is the house.

Ever notice those players, not really professionals, who seem to be winning at brick and mortar poker tables much more than their stacks of chips would indicate? These could be the guys or girls who have the annoying tendency to make some of their chips disappear, sometimes to the point where they're all-in in pots while actually significantly ahead at the table. Is this cheating? Absolutely! Any player moves that create deception outside the art of bluffing or other playing strategies related to hands are indeed a form of cheating. If you see someone going south with chips, you should make a comment to that person or the poker room's staff. And on the other hand, beware of players "going north" with chips. That's when they bring hidden chips back into play that were not on the table BEFORE they received pocket aces!

Should you worry? Not really. Just be patient. These problems and delays might be to "denial of service" attacks launched against online poker and casino websites. To read more on this, go to my current blog post.

What's the difference between these two cheating methods and which one is more effective? Bet-capping is adding chips to your bet once you know you're a heavy favorite, for example, when you have a blackjack hand of hard of twenty and the dealer has a seven showing. Pastposting, in my terms and cheating moves, is when you switch your bet for higher denomination chips AFTER you've already won the hand and been paid and THEN claim the dealer paid you wrong. Bet-capping is normally repetitive action where the cheater keeps doing it over the course of several hands. Pastposting is done ONLY ONCE at a table and for a large amount. No question that pastposting is the way to go if you have to cheat! Exposure is less and payoff is more.

They can be. Last week there was a triple murder at a Florida home poker game. The best advice I can give on this subject is to make sure you know with whom you're playing. The real danger lies when you find yourself in a game with hardcore criminals, especially drug dealers, which in places like Florida is more common than say in the Heartland. So, be careful, and if you feel uncomfortable with certain types in a home game, get up and leave--and go HOME!

Ever seen this type of promise on a Google tag line? Is it  true? Can you really make serious money cheating at online poker? Well, you certainly can, but NOT from anything you're gonna get from these bogus sites. They're all full of crap, so don't get hooked! 

DON'T! Any attempts at cheating today's ultra-sophisticated slot machines should be discarded immediately. Not only because of the high-tech random number generator contained in machines' software but more because if you get caught trying to tamper with slot machines, you go to prison! Slot cheating and corruption of casino employees are the two greatest casino crimes as far as gaming regulators are concerned. So those of you with the intelligence and know-how for this type of cheating would be that much more intelligent and knowledgable to ply those skills elsewhere.

Is there any truth that Russians are dominating the poker cheating world?  Well, I wouldn't say there's any truth to that in brick and mortar poker rooms, in spite of the rumors circulating about ex-Russian tennis players, but in the online cheating world I have heard that a lot of those conniving players behind bots and collusion rings do indeed come from Russia or the former Soviet Bloc, although I have no direct evidence of it.
 

While playing roulette in casinos, did you ever ask yourself if other players at the table might try to pilfer some of your roulette chips as you're spreading them all over the layout? If you did, you probably dismissed the idea thinking that since roulette chips have no redeemable value and are assigned solely to you, they would have no value to anyone else. Well, that's wrong. Believe it or not, there are many scams involving these "valueless" roulette chips and thieves at your table might be on the make to snatch some of yours. So keep track of your chips as you're betting them.

Absolutely. Don't think for a second that whenever you see blackjack being dealt from a card shoe you're in a legit game. Although finding a cheater's shoe in a legitimate casino is extremely rare, I have seen them on blackjack tables in many "semi" legitimate casinos.  Be careful when playing at so called "casino nights" or other chartiable events. Sometimes the people running these games are more in business for themselves than donating your losses to charity. Gaffed shoes allow the dealer to perform many tricks, including holding out the top card and dealing seconds just as skilled card mechanics do from handheld decks.

You will find the numbers of poker and casino cheats on docked riverboats to be about the same as in regular land-based casinos. However, the numbers of poker and casino cheats working sailing riverboats will be significantly less. Wondering why? Well, the reason is obvious: if cheaters get caught plying their trade while the boat is cruising, they have two choices: face the music or...jump overboard!

 

Beware of getting conned out of your money by a new scam thought up by some clever scam artists. Anyone offering you help with cashing out, avoiding the loss of bonus points or transferring funds from one online poker account to another may be looking to rip you off, all the while protecting himself in the anonymity in forumcyberworld. For more on this read my blog entries this week on the French Poker Forum scams.

This is a question of interpretation. Poker sites that use bots are not using them to cheat you in terms of manipulating the outcomes of particualr hands. What they are using them for is to create the appearance of popularity on the site when the site is in fact lacking players. The bots are represented as real human players, but as far as I know, those sites suspected of using bots are not using the super artificial intelligence type that would beat decent players. But at the end of the day, this can still be regarded as cheating. It is certainly deception.

Do those cheating at poker expose what they're doing through body language? Well, if you watched Roger Clemens testify on Capitol Hill yesterday, you might have noticed that some of his body language was a tell for lying, but as far as good poker cheaters go...forget it! Their body language at the table won't differ from other players at the table, whether its uptight, nervous, cool or calm.

What are they? In three words "counterfeit tournament chips." Remember the scandal at the 2005 World Series of Poker where there were two incidents of players being found with counterfeit chips in their stacks? Well, despite what poker tournament officials say, this happens more than you might think. Even a single counterfeit chip can, at the right time, pave a crooked player's road to the final table. So when you're playing in tournaments, big and small alike, make sure that the chip inventories and counts are well-performed during the breaks and when chip-denomination exchanges are made.

Yes and no. The actual action is of course real, as we see hands played and piles of chips and cash being pushed across the table. But is this play for keeps? Do Negreanu and the rest of them actually risk losing hundreds of thousands on the air, or is this really "Indian Giving" poker where everyone gets their money back at the end? I'll leave that up to you, but you know what I think.

Obviously, the main concern is that these devices could be used to transmit illegal information to and from players at the tables. One scenario would be someone stationed in a strategic position in a poker room to see players' hole cards and then use a cell phone or transmitter to relay that info to a cohort player at the table. Yes, this does happen, but not very often. The vast majority of players use headphones to listen to music, sporting events and relaxation melodies. However, some poker rooms have banned both headphones and cell phones.

Due to the nature of tournaments being online, it is allowed for one person to take over for another player in the middle of the tournament when one person’s connection goes down. But the contradiction is that there is really no way for the online poker sites to know if someone bought an account or if the person is taking over because of connectivity issues. When well-known online player Sorel Mizzi was banned from Full Tilt Poker for purchasing an account, he really only got caught because he tried to cover it up. The original winner, Chris Vaughn, took full credit for the win, but if he had from the beginning said his connection went down and then called Mizzi, who took over for him while relaying information over the phone, he probably would never have been banned. This is a difficult problem to solve.

Only in relatively few cases. Casino cheating has very little to do with magic. Many people assume that I am a magician or sleight of hand artist, but that is simply not the case. The actual physical execution of my casino moves is quite easy and can be done by any child. What casino cheating moves are about is timing, not magic. However, magicians' sleight of hand skill is somewhat valuable in poker games as they can perform distractions while switching cards with other players or holding out cards and bringing them back into play.

What is it? It's when someone claims a flush and actually only has four to the suit. This happens a lot in home games, especially when potential victims had a bit too much to drink and sometimes even in public cardrooms. And which combination of cards is the easiest to fool people into thinking you have a flush when you don't? Is is 4 hearts and a diamond, four diamonds and a heart, four spades and a club, or four clubs and a spade? Heck, my guess is as good as yours! Just make sure you check those flushes to see that they're really flushes.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, an off-set comp scam is when people try to show fake big action in order to get room and food comps from the casino. This is done on games where two or more players can off-set each other's bets, such as craps and baccarat. For example, one player bets $100 on the Pass Line and his co-conspirator bets $100 on the Don't Pass Line. These bets wash unless double-sixes come out on the come-out roll. Same thing in baccarat with the player and the bank bets...Casinos will not catch on to this trick when it's done skillfully and not too long at any given table. Also, make sure there is plenty of action on the table if you do this at. Baccarat is best for this duplicitous action as there is usually close to a 50/50 split of player and baccarat bets. This offset fashion is how my team used to obtain the chips we needed for our cheating moves. The key: don't be obvious. Don't always make your opposing bets match exactly.

Do not screw around with credit-card and identity-theft scams with online gaming deposits! It is dangerous and you WILL get screwed. International police and investigative agencies are paying more and more attention to money laundering and other financial crimes cloaked inside online gaming accounts.

The best way to answer that question is to invoke the old adage "Nothing is foolproof and can't be cracked." However, cheating slot machines and rigging jackpots is getting more and more difficult. In ranking that difficulty, I would put it just below cracking source codes and hacking one's way into online poker sites to see players' hole cards. It's the same theory.

Only if that Sunday falls on New Year's Day. That's because New Year's Eve is by far the biggest night of the year for casino-cheating teams and most of the cheating action happens after midnight. So as far as this Super Sunday goes, go Giants!

It's difficult but can be done. One way I've seen it is when a player touches his face-up cards with a chip that he then gives the dealer as a tip. While doing so he'll say something like, "Keep the good cards coming," which is a psychological ploy to remove the dealer's attention to the fact that he touched a card. The result is that a tiny nick is left on the card that the player can see when the card is later in top position inside the shoe ready to be dealt.

If you're asking yourself why they would do that, the answer is simply to catch people talking about scams and how they're going to rip off the casino, with or without the dealer's help. In my 25 years of cheating casinos, I never actually spotted anything on a table I thought was a bug, but I have heard rumors that casinos in London employed the practice. I never heard about this in any other gambling venue. So, don't worry much about bugs in casinos, but don't make it obvious your scheming in them either!

No! When you're playing in a legal public cardroom, then you certainly should complain to the supervisors if you suspect someone is cheating. But in other venues where you are not protected by a security force, you must be very careful about who you accuse of cheating, whether or not they are guilty. In home games, accusing someone of cheating can be very dangerous, especially if you don't know whom you are dealing with. Things in this fashion can get out of hand and become violent, as it recently did in a home game in the Philippines when poker cheating accusations turned very bad and led to murder. Read about that ugly incident on my blog.

I bet you think Las Vegas is the riskiest place for cheaters to cheat and that the "green" Indian Reservation casinos are the easiest, right? WRONG! In fact, it's the opposite. Vegas surveillance people think they know everything and they really don't. I have always made more money with the least problems in Vegas than anywhere else. People who work at the Reservation casinos are much more conscious about their jobs and do them better. So if you're a new cheating team starting out, why not start out in Vegas?

Depends on the city. Many people think Las Vegas has the best intercasino surveillance and that if a cheating team hits one casino, the rest of the casinos on the Strip will know about it within minutes. Not true! In fact, Las Vegas lags behind most of the world's casino areas not only in intercasino surveillance communication but in basic surveillance efficiency as well. I have seen much better surveillance operations in Reservation casinos than in Las Vegas. But the absolute best intercasino surveillance communication is in London. The Brits running casino surveillance over there alert all the city's casinos so fast when something goes down it will make your head spin!  They're also the best at most surveillance operations.

It's when someone says to you, "I bet you even-money that I can roll double sixes (box cars) at least once in 25 rolls." Most people automatically think that you need 36 rolls to do this because 6x6 is 36, and others think you need 30 rolls because that's what a casino will pay you for one roll. Therefore, they take the bet thinking the person proposing the bet is a sucker. But when the proposition is over the course of multiple rolls, cumulative probability takes over, and the break-even point for rolling double sixes is around 23 rolls. So if you take the bet, you're the sucker!

Yes, but only moves that do not get dealers or floor personnel involved. For example, my classic blackjack move where I bet a small amount, then switched in larger chips after getting paid and claiming the dealer paid me wrong, could not be repeated at the same table simply because you can't claim the dealer made the same mistake a second time on paying the same person. But moves where bet sizes are altered before the payoff or where bets are moved from a losing number to a winning number at roulette before the dealer marks the winning number can be repeated until they take heat.

Yes, unless the dealer's in on it!...No, I'm not kidding. Crooked dealers can shut off, disable or not properly use the shufflers, although it very rarely happens.

If you ever notice someone in your poker game constantly rubbing or feeling his arms, especially when wearing a long sleeve shirt or jacket, it may not be an itch he's tending to but rather an adustment to his holdout device. Although rare in public cardrooms, cheaters often employ holdout devices in their sleeves in which they hide a card they'd earlier removed from play and then snatch it back out when they need it. Often cheaters wearing these devices have to adjust the fit, or are just unconsciously touching it due to nervousness.

Absolutely. Just like in any other field, legit or illegit, what you wear has an immediate effect on those observing you. For instance, when I cheated casinos I never wore leather, not just black leather, ANY leather. Why? Because even though quality leather is classy, it is often perceived as slick. You don't want pit bosses observing you and thinking you're slick. Now on the other hand, provocative dress can often help your cheating cause. Especially if you're decking out a hot babe who's part of your cheating team for the purpose of creating a distraction. Get what I mean? But most of the time, the credo "low key is low risk" is a good one to follow.

Not unless he's a bad one! Cheating dealers who are good at dealing second cards will not leave you a telling sound as he slides that card out of the deck. So those who say "you can always hear a faint rasping or snapping sound when a second card is pulled out of the deck" are only pulling  your leg. In fact, the best way to catch on to a "second-carder" is to watch his eyes when he peeks at the top card. Honest dealers have no reason to look at the deck as dealing is a robotical function, so if you see a dealer's eyes repeatedly going to the deck just before the deal, watch out! Also, a dealer wearing sunglasses that shade his eyes is another sign of a cheater.

Only people who know how to do the trick. But the problem is that when the con man running the game spots a potential winner, he will immediately close up shop to prevent him from betting. "All of a sudden," the cops will be coming down the street and he's got to go.

What I mean is of course you can keep lying away while playing poker, but you can't take any drugs to enhance your play.