It was always apparent since back in the caveman days that if there were two stones with different marks on all six sides, that as long as people wanted to bet money on those stones, some asshole caveman would come along and switch the stones with his own two fixed stones and cheat the game. It was also apparent that an independent caveman would have to be hired with a big club to make sure no one switched stones.

The Gaming Control Board was established at almost the same time as legalized gambling for the simple purpose of being an enforcement group who oversaw the casino games to see that no one was cheating either the players or the house. Their job isn't simple. They can enter the casino at any time, on any shift. The first thing they do is tape down several slot machines with their own yellow police-like tape, later to have those machines checked thoroughly. They check the reels to be sure the reels are balanced, that the number of pictures and spaces are where they're supposed to be. More importantly they check the computer chips including the R.G. (Random Generator) chip, the heart and brain of the slot machine world. Put simple, the R.G. chip is the one that is the most important; it locks in the random selection as soon as you put your coin into the machine.

You get the same outcome with one coin as you do with it filled to the max, the first coin locks the R.G. chip and that is the outcome no matter what happens in front of you. They come to the Roulette table and check the wheel head for balance; they check the ball to be sure there's no metal in it. They check the stops to be sure everything is tight and on to the Blackjack tables. They lock up several tables and seize the cards which are counted and checked for daubs or bends or any marks. The Crap table is held up while they check the dice along with several closed packs of dice. They put them on a millimeter gauge and check it within a hundredth of a millimeter to be within specs; to be sure there is no metal in the dice that would indicate loaded dice. They take several dealers and check that they have their sheriffs' cards that we must always carry on our person when on the job. They often send in plain-cloths agents to observe the games and the dealers.

Most cheating takes place on the players end, but just as often the dealers think they can beat the surveillance and either steal off the game or work with an agent to cheat the casino which is an easier way of stealing off the tables. A quick dealer can flash a hole card or the top card off a deck to a player, a dealer can past post a roulette game much easier than a player when they're putting the marker on the number that just hit by palming a players colored chips and dropping them on the number while dropping the plastic marker on the number. They watch for crap dealers handing off checks to a player by overpaying the payoff. There are more ways to cheat a casino from either end of a table or either end of a slot machine than I can name in this column. These guys really got out of control with the naming of a new manager of the Las Vegas Gaming Control Board some years ago. The story's only being revealed now that everyone that was tied into the debacle is gone.

Jim and his crew stepped out of the white Ford van and headed to the casino. When they entered the casino from different entrances, Jim headed to the Blackjack table. He had stopped off at the bar and ordered a shot of Bacardi Rum and swished the shot around in his mouth thoroughly then spit it back into the shot glass and dumped it into the trash, then bought another shot to carry to the table with him. Rum smelled more than any other alcohol from a distance, and he wanted it to reach exactly three and a half feet, the exact distance from the outside rail to the dealers' face on a Blackjack table. He approached the table, the cash in one hand, the drink and a cigarette in the other, and dropped five hundred in twenties onto the layout in a pile and the dealer looked and scrunched her nose from the smell of the rum and cigarettes. She knew she was probably in for something but she couldn't know this guy was about to unload on her table. He asked for the five hundred all in $25 checks and dumped them in a pile like he just won a sizeable poker pot and played with them as he looked at the dealers' name tag "Donna huh?" and immediately sprung into Ritchie Vallens' 1959 hit song, sung at the volume of a leaf blower "OH DONNA, OH DONNA…I HAD A GIRL, DONNA WAS HER NAME!!!" AH HAAAA" as the spit managed to make it about three of the three-and-a-half feet to her face. At the same time, the other male and female that stepped from the van with Jim walked into the casino from a different entrance only had to wait a couple of minutes until the three other players at the table got up and left. No one could sit at a table with this guy. They approached the table at different intervals not wanting to alert anyone that they were working together. The girl was 22, blonde and beautiful. Her low cut dress showed enough cleavage to distract the Pope, let alone some poor schmuck dealer that had a natural hard-on since he hit Las Vegas. I mean this girl could be used as a cure for a Viagra addict. Although she looked like a dumb blonde, she was the most important member of the crew since she was used as the distraction as the rest of the crew did their work.

The break came and the next dealer to the table was the one they were waiting for. Donna turned to the dealer coming on the game and said "Have fun" His name was Alex and the poor guy was in his early 20's and only in the business for less than two years…he didn't have a chance against these guys. Jim went into his act as the obnoxious drunk, and Sam and Tracy went into their acts as the beautiful but ditzy blonde and her jealous boyfriend and the test had started. Jim was playing $50-$100 a hand and so was given more leeway than say a $5 obnoxious drunk. He was losing and the casino wasn't about to disturb his buzz until he was broke, or worse, winning.

Jim had $500 in green in front of him and it was in a pile like he just raked it in from a poker pot. Jim leaned towards Tracy's breasts and said in his best Bourbon breath, "Shit baby, where did you get them? They're beautiful." Sam pushed him back to his seat and said "HEY! Sit down man." He pushed Jim back into his chair and Jim picked up his drink and asked if he could buy her a drink. As all this went on, Alex kept his mouth shut and kept dealing the single deck game. As the encounter between Jim and Sam went on, Tracy was scratching behind her ear where she kept the daub and started marking the cards, she didn't care what value the cards were, she was marking them all. When Jim sat back and started in on Alex, Sam started marking his cards, and when Alex was checking out Tracy's tits Jim started marking his cards and slipped one card into his palm then into his shirt. They sat there for another twenty minutes and nothing happened, they knew they were getting away with the cheat and it tempted them to keep it up.

The floor men were watching the game and never noticed anything. Jim kept up the talk with Tracy and she was enjoying the attention, she leaned towards Jim, pushing her cleavage up to her chin, Alex couldn't resist and as his hands moved to keep the game going, his eyes were transfixed on Tracy's tits, so was Jim, as well as the floor man, and now we know, so was surveillance because as she gave them the shot, Sam's arms were crossed, the hand behind the elbow began sliding over to Jim's spewed about $25 checks and removed two of them. No one noticed, they did this twice to no one's attention. This was all they had to see, this was all they could stand. Jim stood up and asked to speak to the shift boss. Alex called the floor man over "This "gentleman" would like to speak to someone." "Hey, I didn't ask for the goddamn floor man, I want to speak to the shift boss." Jim was keeping the drunk act going so as not to raise suspicion "He's busy, whaddya want?" said the floor man.

Jim staggered to the other side of the pit followed by Sam and Tracy, the floor man and two security guards that were called a few seconds earlier by the floor man. Jim pulled his wallet out of his pocket and opened it to reveal a gold shield. On the shield were the words "Nevada Gaming Control Agent." Jim had immediately sobered up, as did Sam and Tracy who were now holding out their Gaming Control badges. "I asked for the shift boss, I suggest you get him right now." The floor man ran to the phone to page the shift boss. Jim went back to the table and told the dealer to bring the lid up on the table and hand him the deck of cards which he immediately put into a plastic bag and sealed the bag. He then took another plastic bag and put three cards that he had palmed off the game and sealed that bag and signed his name on both bags. Sam took the four $25 chips from his pocket and put them in a sealed bag.

Lenny Parks the shift boss came into the pit to see the lid closed on a blackjack table in the middle of a busy pit and knew something was wrong. His first thought was that the dealer must have gotten sick, although the floor man should have been dealing the game in his place until a dealer could be located in the break room. But when he saw the deck of cards and green $25 checks sealed in the bags on the table he knew there was trouble. "Let's go to surveillance." Jim said and the two security guards escorted the other five to the staircase that lead to the surveillance office. "Seize the tapes off B.J. 17" and Sam went to the appropriate VCR and removed the tape that was covering the game. Jim put the tape into another VCR and he rewound the tape to where they walked in the door. When they got to the part where the three of them were daubing the cards, it was so obvious to the two surveillance men as well as Lenny and the floor man, they were totally embarrassed as well as scared that so many moves were performed on one game in a 30 minute span, daubing twelve cards in the deck, stealing three cards without notice by anyone off the game altogether, and finally the theft of the four $25 checks from Jims' pile by Sam. Lenny knew they were all going to be fired when the casino manager saw the tape and read the charges in the brief that would reach him by the next morning. The least that would happen would be a stern warning written in a letter to the casino owners, and probably a large fine to make it sink in.

When the next morning came, Jim, Sam, and Tracy walked into the casino manager's office with the tape and the bags of evidence. Bob Carnes the casino manager was in shock. He called Alex as well as the floor man and the two surveillance men into his office. He couldn't understand how everyone was taken by the team of Nevada's Gaming Control Board's enforcement division. Surveillance didn't catch any of the moves, nor did the floor man or even the dealer, the closest casino employee to the three cheaters. When Jim raised his voice and leaned over, now they could see Jim snap up four of Jim's $25 checks. When Tracy squeezed her tits, now they could all see the obvious move of Jim to steal the three cards off the game. When the three of them were daubing the cards it was so obvious to everyone watching them constantly go to the back of their ears and then to the cards. There were a couple of times that Tracy held the cards in both hands to mark the cards, and one time she even put too much daub on one of the cards and had to scrape some off with her fingernail. It stood out like a sore thumb. How could everyone have been duped?

The answer was simple, people are human, and in this business that'll get you hit every time. Surveillance had zoomed in on Tracy's breasts as Sam removed the three cards. They zoomed in on Jim as he waved his hands around and made a scene as Tracy and Sam marked their cards. They zoomed in once again on Tracy's cleavage exactly when they were supposed to as the four chips were removed from Jim's pile by Sam. All Bob could say to Lenny Parks was to fire the surveillance team as well as the dealer that couldn't catch any of the moves himself and of course the floor man was history as well.

Then when all the firing was done and the carnage was out the door, Lenny was handed his walking papers by Bob himself. "You're ultimately responsible for my casino when you're here; if someone's cheating the games your job is to see that they're caught. You should have been watching this scene either on the camera or you should have been right there when the ruckus started."

All I can say is let this be a lesson. When everyone thought that the Gaming Control Board is supposed to catch the real cheaters, they turn out to be the cheaters themselves. The enforcement arm of the Board is supposed to deal with the lowlife scum that prey on the casinos as well as their players, but they're not supposed to BE the lowlife scum that prey on the casinos. If it was the police department operating a sting operation to catch a dishonest dealer by trying to trap him you might have a case of entrapment. But there is no such thing as entrapment to the Gaming Control Board, their thought is that if they can prove that improper surveillance is given to any game there must be cheating going on in its absence. Now there are five casino employees whose lives have been ruined thanks to three Gaming (out-of) Control Board enforcement officers which can give all of us dealers a new outlook on these guys. Now I know…don't trust anyone.

A lovely way to live…thanks guys.
Ken Pearlman