Stories of casino cheating certainly isn't new, although the Gaming Control Board usually manages to keep most of the stories from hitting the news, the cheaters that have just been caught are part of a far reaching network of scams and scamers that reaches from Las Vegas to New Jersey from California to Hong Kong, touching everyone from large casinos to Indian reservations, from Black Jack to Craps to Slot machines. These guys thought they could do it all and just when they thought they had it made, the Gaming Comission stepped in with the FBI and showed them just why they hired the cheats to watch the cheaters. Why surveillence is called the EYE IN THE SKY.

The story starts in Hong Kong, home of the single largest contributor to Las Vegas casino's income. One Hong Kong gambler can make or break a casino's bottom line. An example is the Sands Casino which took individual hits from Hong Kong Baccarat players that single handedly broke the casino and forced it's demise. In June '97, at the Orleans casino, Rodger McElfresh, a Sands exective (who was almost single handedly responsible for the building and design of the Venitian), was charged with 10 counts of cheating and conspiracy to cheat casinos along with Orleans dealer Laura Hernandez, who would intentionally expose her hole card to McElfresh. The dealers and players recruited for the Baccarat scam in Hong Kong were ready by 1996 and the scam was working for a while until July 20,1996 when 12 were arrested in a 42 count indictment, including three dealers and nine high-rollers including Hong Kong citizens and California residents, at the Las Vegas Hilton, Desert Inn and MGM. They combined to cheat the three casinos out of over $700,000. The Baccarat scam began in May '95 when dealer Cindy Wen was caught performing a false shuffle (A false shuffle enables the players to memorize the order of cards) she intentionally failed to shuffle 30 cards (called slugs) and the player was recording the order of the cards on a piece of paper that's provided to the Baccarat players as a regular practice by the house. When the slug re-appears in the same order, the player would alert the other players to place large bets for or against the house (in Bacarrat you can bet the player or the house (banker). The players won the next 5 hands in a row for over $165,000. The scam was repeated at least twice in '95 for a total of $763,000. But surveillence was on to them the first time and started the cameras rolling. When the smoke cleared, 2 former Hilton dealers and a Desert Inn dealer along with 9 players were caught with the Baccarat note pads being the irrefutable evidence and althought they tried it at the Monte Carlo also, it backfired on them when they were one card off and lost $125,000 for the error.

In March of '97, the two Hong Kong ring leaders were sentenced to 8 years in prison for grand larceny, conspiracy, money laundering, interstate and foreign travel to commit racketeering. The dealers were sentenced to 87 months for conspiracy to commit fraud and cheating and ordered to help repay the 3 casinos for the $763,000. The prison terms were the minimum amount of time allowed for these offenses (maybe now you'll think twice of even thinking once!)

THE BLACKJACK SCAM - This was one of the more difficult scams that took alot of practice time. The idea was to send 2 players into a game at the beginning of a shift when the cards had just been changed, knowing that the cards wouldn't be changed for 8 hours. One of the players would have a small razor bade superglued to the palm of his hand when he received a 10-K, he would skim(shave) the edge of one side (long side) while the other player was loud and distracting, they would do this for a long period of time until both sides of the cards were shaved (I've seen shaved cards and it's almost impossible to see when you're standing over the shoe (the dealers vantage point) but from an angle, where the players sit, it's barely visible. The cards were than returned to the shoe and after a couple of hours, the two would leave the game and the big players were brought in. No matter how the cards were shuffled, the player could see if the next card was a 10+ and would always know when to double down or not to hit (this could only be done on shoes without sliding doors (next time you go to Ceasar's Palace you'll notice all the shoes have sliding doors).

On February 8, 1999 - 6 were arrested at Harrah's casino in Las Vegas by FBI and Gaming Control for Grand Larceny, cheating at gambling and conspiracy charges. The evidence against the 6 included 90 marked cards and more than $27,000 in cash and stolen chips in their apartment. Two of the men were wanted on warrants for passing bad checks in 1986 that drained over $40,000 from 4 Las Vegas casinos including the Rio and Harrahs. Gary Orton, Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Division declined to comment on the next step in the investigation for fear of jeopardizing the case, but confirmed there were several different casino chips found in the seizure. One of the men arrested was one of the 12 named in the Bacarrat scam in '97 that were sought by the FBI, he gave information on another scam in a deal with the Justice Dept. who after gathering surveillence tapes arrested 2 crap dealers and 2 players at Buffalo Bill's casino in Primm Nevada, the four were handcuffed on the game and it was found one of the players was another sought by FBI in the Baccarat scam.

The craps scam was simple. The players would make a multi-colored bet ($25 green chip, $5 red and $1 white) when the payoffs were made, the dealers would add an extra one or two green chips and the players would immediately pick up the payoffs as soon as the dealer paid it and placed it in the rack on the table along with their other chips which were mixed in colors so no one could check what they had just won.

Along with these arrests, information led FBI to an apartment in New Jersey where slot cheating devices were found, including mini-strobe lights used to "jump" slot machines and blank keys and key making machines used to copy slot machine keys, chips and dollar tokens from various casinos including 2 Indian casinos in California.

All this was only possible due to the basis of all surveillence. The cons turned pros watching the cons. Most of the larger high-end casinos hired ex-cheaters to join them, for two reasons.

1) They know who and what to watch for, they've been doing it to the casinos for years and these guys don't miss a trick.

2) If the crossroaders are working for the casino,it's highly improbable they would be cheating the people who are paying them. In other words, if they're busy working, they won't have time to "go to work" against them. There is such a thing as loyalty, even amongst the bad guys. It also goes without saying, these cheaters have just made the "List of Excluded Persons" also known as the BLACK BOOK.