Casino Trust

One of the hands that often confound blackjack players is when they are dealt a soft 17. Should I stand or hit? What about doubling down? What follows are the facts on how to play this hand accurately every time you playblackjack.

First, let me review some basics.A soft hand is any hand that contains an ace that is counted as 11. For example, an ace-6 is a soft 17; so is ace-3-3 and 2-2-ace-2. The basic playing strategy for, say, an ace-6 is much different than it is for a 10-7 (known as a hard 17 because It doesn’t contain an ace counted as 11). Yes, both hands total 17, but you play a soft 17 differently because you can never bust with a one-card draw (not so with a hard 17).

Regardless of whether you are playing blackjack in a land-based or online casino, when you are dealt a soft 17, if you are not counting cards, you should always follow the basic playing strategy, which is as follows.

WHEN YOU ARE DEALT A SOFT 17:

• Never stand
• Double down when the dealer’s upcard in 3 through 6 (2 through 6 in a single-deck game)
• Hit when the dealer shows a 2 or 7 though ace (for single-deck, double against a dealer 2 rather than hit)

STANDING ON SOFT 17

The basic blackjack strategy for standing on soft 17 is simple: never stand! That’s right; you should never stand on soft 17 regardless of what the dealer’s upcard is. That might seem odd since most players believe that 17 is a good enough hand on which to stand. In fact it’s not because you will lose more money standing than either hitting (or doubling).

“If you remember just one thing from this article it’s this: never stand on soft 17!”

If you are still not convinced that standing on soft 17 is a bad play, think about the dealer’s rule for soft 17. When the casino rules specify that dealer’s must hit their soft 17 (rather than stand), the house edge increases, meaning hitting a soft 17 is better for the dealer than standing. It’s the same for players … hitting soft 17 is always better than standing.

DOUBLING DOWN ON SOFT 17

Many players pass up the opportunity to double down because they don’t understand the logic for doing so. The reason you double on soft hands is not so much to outdraw the dealer as it is to get more money on the table when the dealer is vulnerable to busting. The latter occurs more often when the dealer shows a low-value upcard (e.g., 3 through 6).

The basic strategy for doubling a soft 17 is easy to remember.

• For double- and multi-deck games, double down when the dealer’s upcard is 3 through 6.
• For a single-deck game, double down when the dealer’s upcard is 2 through 6.

MULTI-CARD SOFT17

Sometimes you might hit your hand and after drawing one (or more cards) have a soft 17. For example, suppose you were dealt a 2-4 and the dealer’s upcard is a 6. You hit and draw an ace giving you a soft 17 (2-4-A). The playing rules in most land-based and online casinos prohibit you from doubling down on a hand once you draw a third card; therefore, if you hold a multi-card soft 17, you should hit.

Likewise, the rules in some land-based and online casinos allow players to double down only on hard hands (i.e., they are prohibited from doubling soft hands). In addition, the rules in most video blackjack games in land-based casinos don’t allow players to double down on soft hands. So, the bottom line is this:

• If you have a multi-card soft 17 or the rules don’t allow soft doubling, always hit soft 17.

HITTING SOFT 17

The basic strategy rules for hitting soft 17 are as follows:

• For double- and multi-deck games, hit when the dealer‘s upcard is a 2 or 7 through ace.
• For a single-deck game, hit when the dealer’s upcard is 7 through ace.

After you hit a soft 17, what you do next depends upon the total of your hand and the dealer’s upcard. (You need to refer to a basic strategy table for the rules on how to play your hand depending upon your total and the dealer’s upcard.)

BASIC STRATEGY TABLE FOR SOFT 17

The following color-coded blackjack strategy table summarizes the above rules for playing a soft 17.

Note:
Dh = Double down if permitted, otherwise hit.
H = Hit

QUIZ

To be sure you know when to hit or double-down on soft 17, decide how you would play each of the following hands against the dealer’s upcard.

1. A-6 vs. 3

2. A-6 vs. 9

3. A-2-4 vs. 4

4. 2-3-A-A vs. 2

5. A-6 vs. 2

6. A-6 vs. 5

7. A-6 vs. 6 (rules don’t allow doubling)

8. A-6 vs. 7

Answers:

1. Double down

2. Hit

3. Hit

4. Hit

5. Double down in single-deck; hit in double- and multi-deck.

6. Double down

7. Hit

8. Hit

CARD COUNTING AND SOFT 17

Card counters will sometimes vary their playing strategy depending upon the count; however, it’s rare when a card counter deviates with a soft 17 because there’s not much to be gained. The two times a card counter might consider doing so is as follows:

• If the count is positive, double down on soft 17 against dealer’s 2 upcard
• If the count is negative, hit against dealer’s 3 through 6 (rather than double down).

To be accurate, you should consult a table of index numbers for whatever counting system you are using for the specific index number for the above two plays.

Human beings love to gamble. We’ll put our money down on spinning reels, card games, tumbling cubes of ivory, horses, dogs, sporting contests, flips of a coin – even digital representations of any of the above.

But in an age when legal gambling is commonplace in many countries and online wagering – either legal or illegal — is just a click or two away, why do people continue to patronize risky underground casinos, bet on sports with neighborhood bookies or take a seat at a card game where the “House” is the guy with the big roll of $20s in his pocket?

Illegal gambling conjures up images of elaborate underground casinos capable of being folded up and whisked away in moments if the cops show up, popularized by countless old movies.

Some operations do try to live up to the Hollywood stereotype, such as the high-stakes celebrity poker ring that federal authorities busted in April 2013, which hosted A-listers like Yankees star Alex Rodriquez and movie idols like Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio at some of New York City’s ritziest hotels.

But the reality is usually more mundane: a few slot or electronic gambling machines in the backroom of a smoky bar, a row of “sweepstakes” machines in an Internet café or a poker game at folding card tables in a warehouse or office, with few of the perks that legitimate gambling operators offer their patrons.

The seedy atmosphere at an underground Texas casino chronicled last year by the New York Times is typical, with patrons sipping soft drinks and munching potato chips while rhythmically feeding 75 slot machines in a former tire store.

So why do gamblers continue to patronize such no-frills operations?

An analysis of recent illegal gambling busts in the U.S. and elsewhere by 888.com suggests that convenience, choice and conversation with one’s peers play a big role.

Ethnic or racial bonds often play a role in attracting gamblers to a location where they can play traditional games. That’s why Chinese immigrants flocked to three gambling dens in Boston’s Chinatown until they were busted in March 2013 and Vietnamese bettors kept video gaming machines humming at 11 cafes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But the Rev. Richard McGowan, a professor of finance at Boston College and expert on gambling, says that in the United States at least, the biggest reason is the shift of public attitudes about betting that has occurred in recent decades as the government has steadily legalized and taxed games that once were illegal.

“Most people simply don’t see anything wrong with gambling anymore,” said McGowan, author of three books on betting, including 2007’s “The Gambling Debate.”

That view is shared Rick Rhodes, who spent much of his 30-year police career on the vice squad, including numerous assignments working undercover. He says the gamblers he used to see when he was busting numbers rackets and backroom gambling dens in the 1970s and ‘80s were a different breed than those who bet illegally today.

“They were street people, hustlers, men who had prostitutes out on the street,” said Rhodes, who wrote the book “Gun, Badge & Cuffs” about his experiences on the Cincinnati, Ohio, police force. “… The ones who did have jobs were usually going there without the knowledge of their families.”

Changing tastes and limits on the legal availability of certain games of chance also help explain why people would risk making illegal bets.

“If you look at the lottery — the iconic game that appeals to the older crowd — for instance, the median age of players right now is 56,” said McGowan. “The millennials and that generation like to gamble but they like games involved.”

That’s why sports betting– currently legal in only four U.S. states: Delaware, Oregon, Montana and Nevada–is particularly in high demand.

“If you look at countries where sports betting and Internet gambling are allowed, 70 percent of the revenue is sports gambling, particularly among young males,” McGowan said. “That also explains why fantasy sports (which is carved out under federal U.S. law banning other types of sports betting)is doing so well.”

But who offers the illegal games, running the risk of jail, heavy fines and possibly the loss of a business?

To answer that question, you need to understand the possible rewards from an illegal gambling operation.

The National Gambling Impact Study of 1999, for example, estimated that illegal sports betting in the U.S. alone was a $150 billion-a-year business at that time.

And a 2014 study by the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) in partnership with Sarbonne University estimated the international sports-betting market at an estimated $280 billion to $680 billion annually.

The website Havoscope.com, which tracks black market activity around the world, also has assembled an impressive list of estimates of the revenue generated by illegal betting around the world, based on news reports.

With that kind of money on the table, even a small piece of the action can be extremely lucrative. And that can persuade speculators of all stripes to take big chances.

A 2015 report on federal busts of illegal gambling operations in the U.S. the previous year concluded that many were run by organized crime syndicates — outfits that “prey systematically upon our citizens and whose syndicatedoperations are so continuous and so substantial as to be of national concern.”

Federal cases by their very nature involve betting operations that cross state lines – either physically or byusing communications technology like phone lines or the Internet to transmit wagering information– and often involve money-laundering aimed at disguising the source of the funds. These bigger operations are as complex as they are lucrative, so it makes sense that they would be most likely to attract organized crime groups.

Our unscientific review of more than 100 busts of illegal gambling in the U.S. and elsewhere, from January 2013 through March 2016, did find numerous big cases in which organized crime was allegedly involved. In keeping with the technological revolution, many of these operations involved use of gambling websites to launder funds, coupled with old-fashioned street operations and “muscle,” in case gamblers fall behind on paying up.

The April 2013 bust of 34 people and 23 entities in connection with the illegal “Legendz Sports” offshore betting operation by federal agents offers a window into this world. Prosecutors say that operators used a web of operatives in the U.S. to solicit and collect more than $1 billion in illegal bets and funneled the money to a Panama-based Internet sports book. The alleged ringleader, Bartice“Luke” King, 44, from Spring, Texas, was found guilty of conducting an illegal gambling business and engaging in a conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Other big operations allegedly have been intertwined with other illegal activities.

For example, a California-based sports betting ring busted in January, which authorities say was led by a former elite athlete at the University of Southern California, also allegedly was involved in distributing ecstasy and cocaine.

But our analysis also shows that the majority of illegal gambling operations – at least those that are busted — are mom-and-pop operations that involve a few illegal gaming machines, unsanctioned card games or maybe pools on sporting events.

In the U.S., 48percent of the busts we looked at involved illegal gaming machines – ranging from traditional slots to various electronic gambling machines. Sports betting was second, accounting for 25 percent of the cases, followed by illegal poker or other card games (13 percent); other types of gambling, such as cockfighting or mahjong, or unspecified or multiple types of gambling (8percent).

The mix was different outside the U.S., with sports betting accounting for 32 percent of the cases, followed by online gambling, which is often listed as the offense in news accounts, with no indication of the type of games being played (18 percent); slots or electronic machines (14 percent); unspecified or multiple types of gambling (14 percent); card games (11 percent); casino gaming (5 percent); and other – spider death matches! – (2 percent).

The biggest difference between the two breakdowns was the popularity of illegal gambling machines in the U.S. Most of those cases involve a relatively new type of device known as a “sweepstakes” machine. Such machines, usually placed in Internet cafés, were designed specifically to get around state laws against casino-style gambling.

Business owners that install them sell time on the Internet or phone to customers, who then play the games in hopes of winning prizes. The businesses argue that this makes the machines legal because the results are determined in advance by the computer software and therefore do not meet the legal definition of games of chance. But the California Supreme Court has ruled they are illegal, state legislatures have been passing laws expressly banning them and authorities in many states have been raiding businesses and seizing the machines.

But sweepstakes machines alone don’t account for all the action involving gambling devices. Many other types of machines are installed in bars or convenience stores to offer local patrons an added reason to drop by.

In 2013, for example, authorities in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, arrested 16 people – including a city councilman and police chief – on charges they were operating more than 300 illegal video gambling machines in 70 locations.

The popularity of such machines is counterintuitive, given that legal commercial or tribal casinos currently operate in 37 states, according to the American Gaming Association.

But McGowan, the expert on gambling, said the spread of casino gambling also has helped blur the line between legal and illegal gambling and prompts gamblers to question why they should have to travel beyond their neighborhoods.

“The bars are thinking they can pick up some extra money and keep customers from going to the casinos, and most people are probably saying, ‘Why shouldn’t my local bar have slot machines and why should I have to travel to the casino?’” he said.

The seizure of the machines also highlights an aspect of the illegal gambling cases that critics say helps explain law enforcement’s continuing appetite for busting them: Money from the operations, as well as property and other assets that can be traced back to them, can all be seized by prosecutors and often ends up getting plowed back into the budgets of the departments that employ them.

The Legendz sports book case shows just how rewarding that can be: Six law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and IRS, split $9.6 million in forfeitures resulting from the prosecution of the site’s operators.

Note in the title of this article that I put the word best in quotes (“best”) because despite my use of the word not one of these systems of play yields the player an advantage over the house. That’s the truth and smart roulette players are fully aware of the fact that other than playing a biased wheel (something almost impossible to find nowadays with our much more sophisticated wheels), betting strategies are the be-all and end-all of play.

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The underlying math of the game just doesn’t give us a betting method that can overcome the edge but I will give you some methods that can reduce the hit on your bankroll. Essentially these all fall into the category of “play fewer decisions and enjoy them as much or more than all those decisions of the past.” (Well, something like that.)

Still, the eight methods I will outline here have been used for a long time by roulette players. Roulette betting method #1 is slightly different as in no way, shape or form can I recommend it because of its ultimate destructive properties but it is probably the most common betting method casino gamblers use (to their dismay).

#1 – THE MARTINGALE

You might not know the name of this one but I am guessing that many of you have played this or some form of this roulette strategy, especially when you started your casino gambling career

The Martingale methodis a double your bet after a loss strategy. So if you lose your first bet (say five units), you then bet 10 units. Win that you make up for the five unit loss and you are now ahead five units.

This might sound good but a moderate losing streak of between seven to nine losses in a row will clobber you since you are doubling your bet after every loss: 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280. Think of it, you are betting 1280 units to win? Just five!

In the first week (or so) of my gambling career I played the Martingale and did just fine for two days and then…bam!

#2 – THE LABOUCHERE

You take a row of numbers, say 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 with each number representing betting units; the lowest being 10 units for our example. You add the first and last number which is 60 units. With each loss you add the bet to the end of the line so now the number line is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. If you win the next bet (10+60) for 70 units you are ahead 10 units.

You now subtract the 10 and the 60. If you lose that bet, you add a 70 to the end of the number string and try again.

Every time you win a bet, the first and last numbers are dropped. If you cancel all the numbers, you have won for that sequence. If you run out of money then…well you know what that means.

The Labouchere methodis similar to the Martingale but it moves along in a seemingly better fashion and that’s why many roulette players use it.

#3 – THE D’ALEMBERT

The D’Alembertmethod is also known as the Gambler’s Fallacy because its basis is an incorrect idea – that the universe evens things out. Sometimes this is thought of as the maturity of chances.

If the James Bond’s number 17 came up a lot in the last 100 spins then it is going to slow down so stop betting it because the universe wants the other numbers to catch up. I wish that were true. All studies show that it is an idea that sounds correct, feels correct and — is wrong.

#4 – THE FIBONACCI

Fibonacci is a number system that seems to be found throughout nature and many gamblers use itas a betting system. This is the Fibonaccisequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144… it goes on and on until well past your death.

You see the pattern, correct? If not look carefully: 1+1 =2; 1+2 = 3; 2+3 = 5; 3+5 = 8. The numbers are combinations of the two that came before.

So now you use this as a betting barometer: You bet 10 units. If you lose you bet another 10 units. If you lose you bet 10 units + 10 units for 20 units — and up you go if you keep losing.

#5 – THE PAROLI

Many of you have probably played this system but you used the word “parley” to describe it. Paroli is an increase your bet as you win method of play. You win a 10 unit bet and the next bet is 20 units. You win that bet and the next bet can be 40 units.

You can stop increasing your bet at any time or just increase with smaller units but up you go with the hope that your winning streak keeps going. You can be an aggressive “parolee” or a moderate one but no matter, up you go!

#6 – THE CHAOS

This system could be based on those dinosaurs running amok in Jurassic Park because chaos, the inability to accurately predict events will then cause events, such as dinosaurs devouring you, to occur.

I know it does sound a little nutty. But chaos is actually a branch of scientific study.

Now the roulette “chaosticians” say you must not think about what you are about to bet. Just jump into the game and throw bets all over the layout in no particular order or amount. I think you can also call this system “I am being eaten by a damn dinosaur!”

#7 – THE GRAND MARTINGALE

Simple logic here: If the Martingale is a horrible bet then is the Grand Martingale better? Yes! Just kidding. No, it isn’t. Here you increase your bet not by doubling after a loss but by tripling after a loss. This system should also be called “take my money, please.”

#8 – A TRULY GOOD ONE

All right I saved the best betting system for last but I have to tell you that you won’t find this option at most roulette games. That’s sad because it really helps the savvy player hang in the game.

On the even-money bets of red/black, odd/even, and high/low some casinos will only take half your bet on these should the 0 or 00 hits. (There are two types of roulette games, with wheels having a double-zero and wheels with only a single-zero — if possible only play the single-zero.)

If the casino returns half your bet, the house edge is reduced in half. That’s the best betting system at the game!

Ocean’s Eleven was one of the biggest grossing movies of the 21stcentury, and while most patrons went to watch George Clooney, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts, it left plenty of others wondering what security is really like in large casinos.

Is it really possible to rob a casino? A very small number of heisters have gotten away with it, but casino robberies are much harder to pull off these days. Since casinos have such a huge amount of money on hand, they – naturally – have very strict security protocols to make it very difficult for crooks to rob them.

CASINOS HAVE DEVELOPED SOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST SECURITY TECHNOLOGY

Unsurprisingly, casino vaults have some of the most advanced security systemsin the world. Exceptional security is critical since they have to store millions upon millions of dollars.

In fact, the technology modern casinos have developed to improve security is so advanced that it’s often used by other institutions. Dave Shepherd, former executive director of a major casino, has stated that casino technology is often adopted by everything from banks to governments around the world. One compelling example is the Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) software that casinos developed to identify cheaters. Banks and government agencies are currently using the same software to reduce security threats.

The precautions they’ve taken have prevented many casino heists. However, some crooks have still successfully made off with massive amounts of money, such as a daring hacker at the Melbourne Crown Casino in 2013. These few successful heists – as well as the inventive new attempts mounted every year – have forced casinos to continually invest in improving their security.

HOW DO CASINOS THWART WOULD-BE HEISTERS?

Certainly, criminals have tried tons of different strategies for stealing money from the world’s largest casinos. A handful of these heists have worked, because they identified the weakest security links in otherwise extremely well-guarded casinos.

Shrewd security directors recognize the need to protect every aspect of the security system carefully. Here are some of the different ways they ensure the casino is highly secure:

Creating a Deterrence with Armed Security

Security guards remain the first line of defense in any casino. They may not be high-tech, but their presence reminds guests and aspiring robbers that they’re being carefully watched. Who knows, some criminals may have even chickened out after making eye contact with one of them. The truth is that most robbers aren’t fearless psychopaths, and will be scared off by the thought of exchanging fire with a guard.

Casinos have over 20 different dispatch codes that their security officers need to be aware of. They are also taught how to use sophisticated tools needed to identify and resolve security threats.

Having a Crisis Plan for Robberies

Educating employees on preventing robberies is just as important as using the most up-to-date security technology. Craig Morton, a security director at a cruise ship that hosts a casino, said that employees must be instructed on how to use the technology.

“They are fundamentally intelligence gathering tools which then provide the Surveillance Team with additional information on suspected play or persons. The real benefit of these systems is when proper procedures are in place to gather, analyze, manage and process the relevant data in a meaningful and productive way. If not, then the Surveillance Team finds itself overwhelmed with intelligence and data which they cannot handle.”

Casinos train their employees to deal with any crisis that can occur. Since a robbery is a real possibility that they’ll have to face at some point in their job, they must know how to act. For this reason, they’re trained to report any suspicious activity to security and to work with their colleagues to stop a robbery in progress. As the Vee Quiva Casino case below illustrates, employees can play a crucial role in stopping robberies – but only if they know how to respond.

According to one security guard answering questions on Reddit, everything in their casino is within a 120-second running distance. As a result, security can easily respond to a robbery taking place, giving the robbers little time to react after the guards have been alerted.

Monitor the Entire Premises

Casinos have learned the hard way not to focus all of their attention on the cashier cages. Red flags of a potential robbery can often be seen on other parts of the casino grounds, making it essential to carefully monitor the entire premises for warning signs that a robbery could take place.

In 2005, Wynn Las Vegas developed one of the most sophisticated security systems in the world. They hired North American Video (NAV) to develop and install the new technology, which was later used to secure every part of the casino grounds from the parking lots to the guest rooms.

“This is by far the largest single installation we as a company have ever performed, or even are aware of around the world,” said NAV President Cynthia Freschi. “Since we were awarded the system contract last year, our staff has been working literally around the clock to assure we lived up to our commitments.”

Many other casinos have followed suit and are careful to monitor every part of their establishment. Consequently, employees in the hotel can report any suspicions to security before security breaches can even take place.

Standardized Security Systems

Though the gaming industry has become highly globalized in recent years, many casinos have not yet implemented uniform security protocols in each of their establishments. This has resulted in the opportunity to identify the effectiveness of certain security measures and to recognize the need to create a standardized approach to security.

Wynn Casino had to learn this lesson last year after one of their junkets in China was robbed. The robbers made off with $258 million, forcing Wynn to learn a couple of lessons:

• The need to make sure that a high level of security is implemented in every property.
• The need to adapt to local challenges, such as a less responsive police force.

Casinos have learned from this robbery that they need to let their own security strategies guide many of their practices, rather than relying too heavily on the guidance of local gaming regulators.

During the 1990s, few casinos had very sophisticated surveillance systems. However, owners quickly realized the need to get with the times after a few well-publicized heists. An employee at Treasure Island, for instance, stole $10,000 from a vault in 1991, which prompted the casino to install high powered cameras honing in on this and other high priority access points.

The first cameras relied on analog signals, though casinos started making the transition to digital cameras about a decade ago. The original appeal of digital cameras was their higher precision and ability to save more data. However, digital surveillance systems have also been able to incorporate more advanced software, making casinos more secure than ever.

Modern security systems are equipped with facial recognition and license plate reading software, which allow them to keep tabs on frequent patrons that seem suspicious. The images are compared against a database of suspicious people or anyone that has tried defrauding the casino in the past.

However, these systems aren’t entirely foolproof. Ted Whiting, director of surveillance for Aria Resort and Casino, has stated that current facial recognition technology hasn’t been very effective, since most people are moving too quickly for the software to get a good read on their faces. The technology may play a greater role in the future, but today, casinos must still rely extensively on traditional surveillance techniques.

Further, Jeff Jonas, founder and chief scientist of Systems Research & Development, argues that limitations in casino security systems may not be related to technology, but casinos’ desire for profitability.

“They spend the minimum amount of money on security and surveillance. They’d rather buy three more slot machines and make money. They only mess with you if you’re really, really cheating.”

Jonas estimates that a casino like the Bellagio may have 2,000 cameras connected to 50 monitors, but only a few people watching the live surveillance footage. While it’s there for review should suspicious behavior take place, surveillance systems clearly aren’t the casinos’ only line of defense against security threats.

Monitoring Employees

Casinos also have to carefully monitor their own employees, as they can collaborate with patrons to cheat or plan robberies on their own. According to a white paper from Cisco, about 50% of all losses that casinos incur are attributed to employee theft. The Nevada Gaming Commission issued similar findings, showing that about 34% of suspects arrested for robbing or cheating casinos were employees.

One way that they can do so is by equipping players with empty chip stacks that look like they contain $5 chips. Dealers can then subtly hand the players their chips, which are then hidden inside the compartments.

Surveillance systems carefully monitor all tables to try to catch this type of activity. They also pay close attention to losses at individual tables, so that they can catch on if employees are conspiring with players. Employees are aware how closely they’re being scrutinized these days, so few of them are willing to collude with players to cheat the house.

Background Checks of Employees

It isn’t always the patrons that casinos must contend with; some of the biggest attempted casino robberies over the past century have been orchestrated by casino employees. Casinos need to be wary about anyone they hire, which means that they’re required to conduct thorough background checks. Many jurisdictions even require employees to license and register their employees with the gaming regulator.

SSL Protection

When it comes to casino heists, hackers have traditionally had a better track record than crooks relying on brute force. As an example, some of them have used the casino’s wireless networks to access the cams to see what cards other players had and relayed that information to an accomplice on the casino floor. Consequently, casinos have had to adopt 128-bit encryption to make it more difficult for them, in addition to carefully monitoring suspicious connections and terminating them.

Silent Alarms

Obviously, casinos need to work closely with local law enforcement, though they ways they go about doing so must be subtle. In the event of a robbery, they often use silent alarms to warn the police and get assistance. Silent alarms allow casino employees to notify the authorities about a robbery without the robber knowing.

Silent alarms are also used in the vaults so that crooks will take their time, without knowing the cops are on their way.

NORA Public Records Search

Casinos want to be very cautious with guests that have criminal records, and they can use new technology such as NORA (Non-Obvious Relationship Analysis) to do background checks on anyone that looks suspicious. NORA is usually used to identify relationships between known cheaters and possible accomplices, but it can also be used to determine if any guest has a criminal record.

The NORA system allows casinos to remove anyone that is known to have been convicted of robbery or theft by deception, along with anyone that is suspected of colluding with them.

Highly Sophisticated Vault Security

The UK Gambling Commission requires that casinos have a reserve of cash to back up every single chip in play, as do many other regulatory bodies. Since this is such an extremely large amount of money, regulations also require that the vault be extraordinarily secure. There are a number of security features that casinos use to thwart robberies, such as:

• Time delayed locks
• Limited access codes trusted to a few select employees
• Thick steel walls and floors

A robber was able to drill into a vault at the Cloud’s Cal-Neva in 1982, but the vaults have become much more secure since then. In 2015, drilling through a vault in the same manner would take days to do. Criminals are more likely to try beating the slot machines or cheating at the blackjack table, as they have a much better chance of walking away with their winnings (even though these are still slim).

RFID Chips

When most people picture a casino heist, they think about a crook trying to steal money. However, many crooks actually try to steal the chips instead. Their plan is to either return to the casino to try to sell them for cash or sell them on the streets. Either way, it’s up to the casinos to make sure that the stolen chips can’t be cashed in.

One way that they do this is by using RFID technology. Higher denomination chips are often marked with RFID chips, so the chips need to be scanned before they can be traded back for cash.

The original intent of these chips was to catch counterfeiters, but they’ve shown to be a very effective solution for stopping robbers as well. If a crook steals chips in a holdup, the casino can turn off the RFID tracking so that they’ll be, effectively, worthless.

Reputation Management Software

Reputation management technology is also vital to improving casino security. Casinos utilize tools such as Iovation’s ReputationManager 360, which allow them to collect data on all of their guests. This includes information they post on public forums and other sources:

“Over 2,000 fraud professionals and hundreds of online brands contribute 50,000 details of fraud each day,” claims Iovation.

Ultimately, this kind of detailed information can help profile guests and target potential crooks.

Keeping Close Track of Cash Reserves

Casinos need to keep close records of all of their cash reserves in case of a security breach. If any cash isn’t accounted for, then they need to conduct an investigation.

According to the security officer posting on Reddit, his employer has between $5 and $20 million in their vault at any given time. The money that casinos are required to have on hand varies by jurisdiction, though they need strict controls to monitor these reserves, often necessitating frequent audits.

Armored Vehicles for Transport

Savvy robbers will always try to target the weakest link in the security system – often the vehicle that’s used to transport cash to and from the casino (remember Ocean’s Eleven?). Cash is almost always transported in armored vehicles these days, because casinos want to make it as difficult as possible for potential robbers.

These vehicles are extremely secure and guards are typically heavily armed. The money isn’t kept in the open for very long, which makes it very difficult for robbers to pull off a heist.

HOW ONLINE CASINOS APPROACH SECURITY

Security is also a major concern for online casinos, with many now adopting the same technologies and systems used by the world’s largest financial institutions and banks. At a basic level, all online casinos deploy a Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. This protects player data and all financial transactions from the risk of fraud and hacking.

But some operators have looked to take this to the next level. 888casino.com, for example, uses a type of encryption known as RSA – it is an algorithm used by modern computer systems to encrypt and decrypt messages. It is popular with companies that need to transfer a large amount of confidential information over the Internet (such as online casinos), which is seen as an insecure network.

Here is how it works:
RSA encryption is a protected cryptosystem, which is built on asymmetric cryptography. This means that the security has two components that are both mathematical (two large prime numbers along with an auxiliary value), which take the form of a public and a private key. The public key may be shared with others but the private key (the prime numbers) needs to be kept secret.

The public key is to identify the transaction and the private key is normally to complete the transaction. Either of the keys can be used to encrypt the transaction and the other to decrypt it. Both combinations have a similar modulus that completes the algorithm, which is further protected by updated firewall systems. It takes the protections offered by SSL Encryptions to the next level.

Online casinos also deploy state-of-the-art know your customer (KYC) technology to ensure that only the account holder can log into, deposit, play and withdraw from the site. This is to stop underage players being able to access games, and also to further reduce the risk of fraud and anti-money laundering. All told, online casinos are among the most secure ecommerce sites in the world.

CASE STUDIES ABOUT CASINO SECURITY

As security at major casinos is among the toughest in the world, very few robberies are successful these days. And due to the amount of security footage most casinos have on file, the few crooks that are able to pull off a heist will rarely get to enjoy their spoils before finding the cops knocking on their doors.

But even if robberies aren’t successful, they’re still fun to read about (and to learn from, if you’re involved in casino security professionally). Here are some examples of attempted casino robberies that failed that should help discourage sensible crooks from trying to pull off a similar stunt:

Reginald Johnson – The Guy that Kept Coming Back

Reginald Johnson was a thief that tried to rob Treasure Island in Las Vegas in 2000 – three times. Johnson failed to steal anything and proved to be one of the most incompetent crooks ever. He was eventually apprehended and sentenced to over 130 yearsin prison.

There are a couple of reasons that Johnson failed and was subsequently prosecuted:

• The casino was recording all activity on the floor, so they had very clear footage of the crime. This helped police eventually identify Johnson and the prosecution used the video against him in court.
• Johnson struggled to deal with the security at Treasure Island. He ran into a security guard and tried firing at him. While the guard was wounded, Johnson clearly knew that the shot would be called in. After failing to convince the cashier to hand over the money, Johnson fled and eventually ran into a cop on the street.

Clearly, the presence of security in a casino can make a big difference. If the bandit exchanges shots with the guard, the odds that they’ll be able to carry out the heist successfully before the police show up are pretty slim.

Eric Alan Aguilera and Roland Luda Ramos

Eric Alan Aguilera and Roland Luda Ramos were a couple of crooks that tried to rob the Soboba

Casino back in 2005. They tried the tired old routine you’ve probably seen in cops and robbers movies from the 60s: they donned a couple of masks, burst into the casino and held the employees hostage. Being heavily armed, they were able to get away with one and a half million dollars – before they were caught by the police down the road.

One of the odd things about this case was that Ramos was actually an employee of the casino. He had detailed insider knowledge of the facilities and the routines of his coworkers, but even that didn’t help him or his accomplice pull off this brazen robbery.

Darvon Hibbler and Corey Wright

Last year, Darvon Hibbler and Corey Wright tried to rob the Vee Quiva Casino in Arizona. Hibbler made a motion as if he was about to pull a gun out while facing one of the tellers, prompting another cashier to notice and call for security, demonstrating that robberies can be prevented if employees are trained to act appropriately.

Hibbler and Wright left the casino without getting any money. They had a couple of friends help with their getaway, but all four were eventually charged for their participation in the botched heist.

Anthony Carleo

The case of Anthony Carleo demonstrates the effectiveness of RFID technology in preventing casino robberies. While Mr. Carleo was able to steal $1.5 million worth of chips during a holdup, the Bellagio was able to turn off their RFID trackers so that he couldn’t cash them in. Carleo was later arrested after trying to sell the stolen chips to undercover police officers.

NEW APPLICATIONS MAKE CASINO SECURITY TECHNOLOGY MORE COST EFFECTIVE

Clearly, casinos have invested considerable amounts of money into developing and releasing security technology. But since they, of course, want to generate as much of a return on their investment as possible, they’ll typically expand the use of their technology to other applications as well.

For example:

• Many casinos use their surveillance systems to identify guests in need of any type of assistance, including those who are lost or who are experiencing medical emergencies.
• They’ll use surveillance to monitor guests at slot machines – not just to catch people cheating, but also to monitor their frustration levels. This allows them to make improvements to provide a better user experience.

Casinos have been at the forefront of developing security technology that’s later used by other organizations. However, as hospitality companies, they’re primarily developing new technology to provide a better experience for their guests. In many instances, however, these developments just so happen to overlap.

ODDS OF ROBBING A CASINO ARE VERY LOW

As you might expect, casinos are more worried about dealing with cheating than robberies these days. After decades of continuing investment and development, their security programs are so sophisticated that few people are able to get away with pulling off an old-fashioned heist.

And they aren’t through yet. Casinos are still improving their technology, making future robbery attempts even more difficult. As exciting as the Ocean’s Eleven series was, today’s crooks simply shouldn’t expect to be able to pull off a robbery successfully.

There have now been three court decisions (and two appeals) in three distinct jurisdictions regarding the question of whether edge sorting at mini-baccarat is advantage play. In every case the decision came down on the side of the casino without a determination of criminal cheating. As Phil Ivey’s expert in the Crockford’s case, I obviously fall into the “edge sorting is advantage play” camp. However, after these decisions, it’s a matter of making sense of the verdicts and working outward from there.

As a reminder, there are two versions of baccarat. In one, the players can touch the cards. In this case the cards are “one use.” That is, the cards are thrown out after each shoe and fresh cards are brought in for the next shoe. It is obvious that no edge sorting can take place if the game is dealt in this fashion. This version is often referred to as “midi-baccarat” or “big baccarat” depending on the size of the table.

In the other version, played on a blackjack-sized table, the cards are only handled by the dealer and they are shuffled and reused after each shoe. This version is often referred to as “mini-baccarat”. Other than the size of the table and re-use of the cards, there is no difference in rules between these versions. In mini-baccarat, edge sorting is possible. However, because the players can’t touch the cards, they will need the assistance of the house to achieve their ambition.

The specific method that Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun (Ivey’s cohort) used to beat mini-baccarat involved, in every case, employing the unwitting assistance of casino management and the dealer. To begin with, Ivey and Sun needed to get the cards sorted. But they also need to insure that the shuffle had no turn, that the cards were re-used, that the shoe had no faceplate and that asymmetric cards were in use. This package of conditions required substantial social engineering on the part of Ivey and Sun. That they achieved their aim even once, let alone multiple times, still astounds me.

A quick review is in order:

FOXWOODS CASINO

In 2012, Cheung Yin Sun brought a lawsuit against the Mashantucket Pequot Gaming Enterprise to recoup $1.15 million in winnings confiscated by Foxwoods Casino in December of 2011. The tribal commission chairman Georege Henningsen ruled against Sun in August, 2012, stating,

“The Commission’s authority to address the Claimant’s conduct is clearly not restricted to an analysis to determine whether they engaged in criminal conduct, but simply whether we find they engaged in, ‘… improper or unlawful conduct …’ in the course of their ‘gaming activities’. As noted above, a finding of ‘improper or unlawful conduct’ is inescapable under the facts before us.”

Sun’s appeal (in 2015) was denied by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall, who ruled that Sun,

“… couldn’t sue Foxwoods because the casino’s owner, the Mashantucket Pequots, has sovereign immunity as an American Indian tribe.”

CROCKFORD’S CASINO

In October, 2014, Sun and Ivey lost their now infamous lawsuit against Crockford’s Casino. In 2012, the pair won about $12 million by edge sorting over two days of play. In this case, Mr. Justice Mitting ruled that Ivey and Sun,

“… converted a game in which the knowledge of both sides as to the likelihood that Player or Banker will win – in principle nil, – was equal to a game in which his knowledge is greater than that of the croupier … This in my view is cheating for the purpose of civil law.”

Ivey and Sun appealed. In a 2-to-1 split decision handed down in November, 2012, the court denied their appeal. One of the judges, Lady Justice Arden, stated,

“In my judgment, this section [of gaming law] provides that a party may cheat within the meaning of this section without dishonesty or intention to deceive … on that basis, the fact that the appellant did not regard himself as cheating is not determinative.”

BORGATA

And finally, there is the Borgata case. Ivey and Sun successfully edge sorted at Borgata on four occasions in 2012, winning about $9.6 million. In late 2012, after learning about the Crockford’s situation, Borgata put a halt to their action. Borgata subsequently sued the pair to recoup their losses. In October, 2016, U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman issued summary judgment, ruling that,

“By using cards they caused to be maneuvered in order to identify their value only to them, Ivey and Sun adjusted the odds of Baccarat in their favor. This is in complete contravention of the fundamental purpose of legalized gambling, as set forth by the CCA [New Jersey Casino Control Act].”

After the verdict, judge Hillman gave Borgata time to make a claim for damages. On November 10, 2016, Borgata stated that they would be seeking $15.5 million from Ivey.

According to each of these judges, edge sorting is not advantage play and edge sorting is not criminal cheating. I always thought that those were the only two possible outcomes.

You either pay the players or you put them in jail. My binary thinking shows my ignorance of the nuances of jurisdictional gaming law. Apparently, one can cheat for the purpose of civil law, or engage in improper or unlawful conduct, or act in complete contravention of the fundamental purpose of legalized gaming, without being a cheater.

Using card asymmetries to beat casino games is as old as cards themselves. I know for a fact that edge sorting blackjack has been going on for over 40 years. I have a reference dating back to 1890 indicating that card asymmetries were used to beat the player-banked version of baccarat known as Chemin de Fer. It is simply incomprehensible to me that any casino, anywhere, would not understand the basic game protection imperatives that follow from using asymmetric cards. That’s why cards are designed with a symmetric backside to begin with. Yet, in these three adjudicated cases the casino was given a pass on its wholesale ignorance.

I have devoted considerable time and effort to analyzing edge sorting in my research. Fortunately for the would-be advantage player, edge sorting as it is usually employed against proprietary games is a different beast. The players are not making any special requests tothe casino. They are seeking out game conditions that already exist. They are beating the game as it is offered. In recent instances of edge sorting that have taken place against Caribbean Stud and Three Card Poker, I have not heard the slightest murmur that the impacted casinos were considering taking legal action against the players.

Perhaps the full breadth of social engineering that Ivey and Sun employed at baccarat was enough to tip the scales of justice against them. Maybe those who take advantage of what’s available against proprietary games, without engaging in any social engineering, will find themselves on the winning end of some future civil judgment. However, until a case is decided in court that involves the specific parameters by which proprietary games are being beaten, I can no longer say with confidence that edge sorting any casino game is advantage play.

As of now, edge sorting is in the legal twilight zone, residing somewhere between advantage play and cheating. Caveat emptor.

Next time you find yourself at a live blackjack table, adding and subtracting ones as you count your way through a shoe of cards, and, hopefully make a bit of money in the process, take a moment between hands to thank Edward O. Thorp. He is the university math professor turned stock-market genius who invented card counting, wrote a bestselling book called “Beat The Dealer” and can be considered the father of modern advantage play.

Four years before the 1962 publication of Thorp’s book, he was contemplating ways of beating roulette and had already created the world’s first basic-strategy card – those pocket-sized laminated rectangles that tell players each correct play to make in blackjack. As related in his new book, “A Man For All Markets,” in 1958 Thorp and his wife decided to spend their Christmas holiday in Las Vegas, playing a bit of blackjack.

At the time, blackjack was a pursuit in which players had no shot at winning money over the long run. In fact, they were likely to lose lots of cash as a result of random, shoot-from-the-hip play. Enmeshed in the world of games and math, though, Thorp had been made privy to an approach for playing blackjack – which later became known as “basic strategy” – that had been devised by four men in the US armed forces. It reduced the house edge to .62-percent.

Thorp sat down with a bankroll of $10 and his homemade card that told him what to do with all possible hands against every dealer up-card. He had $8.50 left before quitting – and becoming optimistic about conquering the game by learning in his own way how to play it. Dealers and fellow players laughed at him for consulting his card and making plays – hitting with a soft 18 against the dealer’s 9, for example – that seemed silly then but is the norm now. “The atmosphere of ignorance and superstition surrounding the blackjack table that night had convinced me that even good players didn’t understand the mathematics underlying the game,” he writes in his book. “I returned home intending to find a way to win”.

In the library of UCLA, where he toiled in the math department, Thorp worked numbers and reached the breakthrough conclusion that the game of blackjack changes based on cards remaining to be dealt. In 1959, Thorp snagged a professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After learning to program on the school’s mainframe computer, he created a system for keeping track of cards that had already been dealt, betting higher when the remaining cards presented advantages for players, betting lower otherwise and deviating from basic strategy when the math deemed that such a move would be correct.

In short, he came up with the system that card counters still use today. By 1961, after Thorp went public with his findings, he teamed up with a pair of New York businessmen who were eager to back a test-run in Reno, NV. They put up a total of $10,000 (equal to 80,000 in 2016 dollars). In short order, Thorp was spreading from $50 to $500 in a single-deck game that was dealt to the bottom. Uncomfortable with his winning ways, casino owners demanded that their dealers shuffle as often as necessary to prevent the mathematician from consistently winning. Clearly, Thorp’s system worked.

After a few days, though, he experienced the bane of every card counter who’d go on to follow him. “The casino had barred us from play,” he writes. “I asked the floor manager what this was all about. He explained, in a friendly and courteous manner, that they had seen me playing the day before and were puzzled at my steady winning at a rate that was large for my bet sizes. He said that they decided that a system was involved.”

They were right. In the end, it yielded $11,000 of profit via just 30 hours of play (this would be today’s equivalent of an $88,000 profit, nearly $3,000 per hour). By the summer of 1961, Thorp was writing “Beat The Dealer,” a book that would introduce the world to his breakthrough strategy for playing blackjack with a mathematical edge that turned the tables on the casinos. The book became a bestseller. Legions of blackjack fanatics followed its concepts and earned fortunes.

But the casinos did not take well to losing and Thorp, who began teaching at University of New Mexico, took to wearing disguises in order to thwart eagle-eyed pit-bosses and security personnel. He and his book got written up in Sports Illustrated and Life magazine. Bookstore owners couldn’t keep it on their shelves. Freaked-out casino magnates held a secret meeting at the Desert Inn to try figuring out what to do about Thorp and those who had been inspired by him. Sin City’s local newspaper, The Las Vegas Sun, retaliated with a story attempting to debunk card counting.

Obviously, the reporter was wrong. In the wake of Thorp’s book, blackjack teams – like the famous MIT Team, immortalized in the movie “21” – formed and flourished. Advanced gambits, such as the Big Player strategy (in which someone slips onto the table, betting only when the count is positive), made profits soar and left maneuvers difficult to detect. As Thorp writes, “I found myself barred, cheated, betrayed by a representative of the gaming control board and generally persona non grata at the tables. I felt satisfaction and vindication when the great beast panicked. It felt good to know that, just by sitting in a room and using pure math, I could change the world around me”.

By 1964, as advantage play spiked, Thorp forsook blackjack for a bigger challenge: the casino known as Wall Street. Having recognized that “gambling is investing simplified,” he went on to beat that larger, more challenging game, reaping sums of money that capitalize on inefficiencies and make advantage-playing profits look like chump change. Clearly, as he has proven via successful runs against blackjack and the stock market, “Great investors are often good at both”.

When you are at the casino, there is only one sure fire way to win every time you play, and that is to cheat. And Dustin Marks is arguably the most successful casino cheat in the history of casino gaming. Even though Marks cheating career only lasted a little over 4 years, he and his confederates were able to take casinos for tens of millions of dollars over this short period of time. His schemes were carried out daily and his scores reached as high as $150,000 dollars a night. This 4 year span took place approximately 25 years ago during the age of greed known as the 1980s. Gordon Gecko would be very proud.

If there is a series of criteria to being classified as a world class cheat among those near the top of the list are having huge wins over an extended period of time, and not being caught. In both instances Dustin Marks succeeded in both. Marks after great financial success, decided to hang up his spurs and ride off into the sunset. Most people who worked with him are confident in the assertion that he was the very best to ever swindle the casinos. So how did he do it?

Dustin got his start in the same way most casino cheats get their start – in magic. The two foundations for any magician are card manipulation and misdirection. Two key components of the casino cheats arsenal. Being involved in magic from a young age Marks took his skill set to Las Vegas shortly after graduating college, in hopes of becoming a great magician. But as things often do, a new and more lucrative opportunity presented itself.

When people think of cheating a casino, they think of a player cheating by themselves. This is a huge misconception. An inside man is often needed. In this case the inside man is the dealer, or in cheater jargon; a cross-roader. Dustin Marks was this man. In lay mans terms this is a person who is highly skilled at casino games, blackjack above all. Most all successful cheating moves require a crew of at least 2 people; the dealer and the player. Dustin writes down many of his trade secrets, most of which are no longer applicable, in his updated re-released version of his book Cheating at Blackjack. I will lightly touch on the topics from the book, but it is well worth it to read the book in its entirety.

At Max Rubin’s 21st Blackjack Ball that took place in late January of 2017, Dustin, a regular attendee provided a demonstration of his techniques. Reading about them gives a good foundation of how the techniques work. But seeing them live, demonstrates just how powerful and valuable they are.

Dustin Marks cheating Methods were the following:

1. Card stacking
2. The Cooler
3. Chip Stack
4. Card Mucking

CARD STACKING

Dustin’s favorite move is the one that takes the most skill. It is the card stacking method. Here the dealer evaluates the cards as they are being dealt to the player. Because the protocol of a casino dictates that cards are to be picked up and placed in the discard tray in a specific order the dealer is able to determine what the dealing order would be if the cards were just dealt from the tray without shuffling them. The dealer then keeps an eye out for a strong hand that would be dealt to the player. A 20 or Blackjack is good, a double down is even better. The cross-roader then performs a false shuffle on the deck and signals to their agent to bet big. This move is usually done on a single deck game and can be done dozens of times an hour yielding fantastic results.

This move takes substantial practice, usually months if not years to perfect. In order to pull off this move you need to be proficient in identifying the order that the cards are placed into the discard trade and equally what order the cards will fall when they are dealt. Also, the false shuffle must be perfected and be undetectable. Marks would often practice the shuffle and stacking method for hours at a time while video-taping himself. Some time the move would be executed and sometimes it wouldn’t. Marks would deem himself “ready” to execute the move live when he couldn’t determine when the move was and wasn’t performed.

THE COOLER

The most profitable move a cheater can employ also carries the most risk. It is called the cooler. A cooler is a full 6 deck shoe of cards that are prearranged to give the player a maximum advantage. It can be easily seen that a prearranged shoe of cards can easily be worth $100,000. More if the agent’s bets are exceptionally large. Marks notes that to pull of this move it takes several people, and lots of coordination. Everything has done perfectly and I do mean perfectly. This takes lots of practice; anything less than perfection, and the crew risks jail time.

The two previous methods were focused on dealer and player collusion to get the money from the casino. There are two other methods that can be executed by a player alone or two players working together.

CHIP STACK

The first method is chip stack alteration after the player’s first two cards are known. If the player has a strong hand then the wager is added too, while conversely if the player has a weak hand the player takes chips away from the bet stack. The methods described in the book and demonstrated at the Blackjack Ball rely on a combination of palming chips and using the cards to shield the eye in sky. Practicing, like in the previously discussed methods is vital. Equally important is viewing ones-self from camera angles similar to what surveillance would see.

CARD MUCKING

The last technique is card mucking. Simply stated card mucking is the introduction or changing of a card to improve a hand. The mucking relies heavily on slide of hand and has its roots in a magicians training. There are two ways mucking can be achieved. The first is for the player to independently remove a high value card (like an Ace) and reintroduce it at a later time for maximum profit. The second way is for two players to swap cards so that the player with the large bet has a strong hand. Timing is critical for these types of moves, and need to be done when dealer is on auto pilot and the pit is only half paying attention.

This occurs a lot more than one might think. Think about it for a second. Most dealers deal for 6 hours a day and are pretty bored by this after about 20 minutes. Repetition is a tedious task, particularly one as simplistic as dealing cards. Even a more boring job is the job of the pit boss. They basically stand there trying to look important. But the gaming board requires that they be there. If you doubt this try to watch TV for an hour without any sound. Overt boredom is why casino turnover tends to be so high. And more relevant to our discussion is why casinos are so susceptible to cheaters.

A large part of pulling of these techniques is misdirection. Luring a casino pit personals attention away from the action is necessary when attempting to pull one off the higher risk moves. The distraction must draw enough attention to cause the pit to notice what’s going on but not so much that they become suspicious that something is up. It’s a tight rope to walk but the profits can be substantial when this tension is attained.

Dustin Marks is perhaps the most successful casino cheat in the history of casino gaming. His active period may seem short when compared to other career lengths, but in terms of the high pressure situation of a casino cheat where every play has the potential to put the cheater in jail for several years, it is several lifetimes. You see, Dustin Marks was not only gambling with money but he was gambling with his freedom. And the only way he would ever assume that magnitude of risk is if he took every precaution he could. He practiced endlessly and checked and rechecked his abilities. He was highly critical of himself. Brutal honesty was needed to ensure that he was able to get away with conning the casino out of tens of millions of dollars. He was doing these plays almost every day of his four years in the gaming industry. And his actions never so much as raised an eyebrow. If there was a hall of fame for cheating he would without a doubt be a first time inductee.

It’s one thing to playblackjack at an advantage. It’s quite another to indulge in the game when sitting alongside James Grosjean.

A Harvard graduate with a specialty in applied math, adeptness at computer programming and the kind of astute mind that makes him into every casino’s worst nightmare, Grosjean ranks among the world’s most successful gamblers and a living blackjack legend. He always plays with a considerable advantage, laughs at card counters who are thrilled by garnering measly two-percent edges: “They are the equivalent of salamanders and I am a fully formed human”, he once told me, getting evolutionary and a little cocky – and thrills at the act of reverse engineering seemingly unbeatable casino promotions. Employing proprietary software, he writes computer programs that play the games and aid him in figuring out how to beat them. Ultimately, Grosjean crushes gambling dens in ways that few others imagine to be possible.

For all of that, though, his bread-and-butter gambits typically involve advanced forms of hole-carding. That is, finding weak dealers who are accidentally exposing corners of their hole cards. He snags his peeks through a combination of excellent eyesight and crafty social engineering. Then he makes the most of his exploitations by understanding what to do with the gleaned information (often partial, as he is not always afforded full views of cards).

Unlike card-counting, which is easily recognized, says Grosjean, “Hole-carding is difficult for casino personnel to police. For that reason they tend to be reactive”, rather than actively looking for people who may be doing it, “and there are plenty of times in which I am spotting the dealer’s cards and the casino has no clue as to what is going on. That’s allowed my team and I to win $225,000 in a single night, spending hours playing blackjack. Some games out there have been worth $100,000 per hour to us.”

On a Sunday afternoon in Atlantic City, I have an opportunity to watch the slender, forty-something, understated Grosjean in action. He’s about to exploit a dealer that he characterizes as a “superstar,” meaning that the guy is particularly terrible at handling cards and unwittingly exposes them. Sitting at third-base, the seat closest to the dealer’s right hand, Grosjean spots every hole card and announces it to the table – so long as you are familiar with the verbal code he uses. Incorporating words like Egg (to denote the dealer having an 8), Top (ace) and Girlfriend (queen) into a rambling monologue, Grosjean communicates down-card information to partners who bet close to table maximum (and leave with five-figure scores) while Grosjean gingerly puts up $5 per hand and looks like the consummate low-roller.

His eagle-eyes turn blackjack into an easily beatable game, but he’s far from limited to just one avenue for profiting from casinos. Grosjean has hastened the deaths some games (including off-beat gambles such as Bacalette, a card game that felt a bit like roulette) and capitalized on others intensely. He most enjoys destroying so-called carnival games, which are designed to be total sucker bets. These would include Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mississippi Stud and paigow poker. Not long ago, I watched him and his crew decimate a cards-based craps game (in a jurisdiction where dice are illegal for casino-play and cards stand-in for the six sides of each die) so subtly that casino managers never knew quite what happened or who did it. But they still revamped the dealing procedure in order to thwart whatever was going on. Grosjean expresses confidence about outsmarting the recently installed fix.

“Casinos feel that anyone who plays carnival games is an idiot,” Grosjean tells me, making it clear that this works in his favor. “Those games have high house-edges, people rarely win big on them; and when they do win big, they dump the money right back. Casinos did not take those games seriously” – until Grosjean began using math and computer programming to divine strategies and turn seeming sucker-bets into his personal ATMs. “If you see all the hole-cards at 3 Card Poker, you are playing at a 30-percent advantage. If you see all four hole cards at Caribbean Stud, your edge is more than 60-percent. There was a game called Match The Dealer. I ran the numbers on that one and realized that I could play it at a 150-percent advantage – but it disappeared before I had the opportunity.”

While most of us consider casinos to be high-risk places where you’re more likely to enjoy action than profits, Grosjean does not ante up in search of thrills. “There may be a way to beat any game in the house”, he says, leaving the impression that the word any could easily be replaced with every. “It may require a dealer screw up, but you need to know the strategy to deploy and how to get the money. Many shuffling machines have vulnerabilities. If you can bet $10,000 on that vulnerability – even if doesn’t happen every time – profitability looks pretty good. If you have a huge bankroll, a mini-baccarat play that takes place once per shoe is pretty good. You have a 9 percent edge there; so if you bet $20,000 a hand, you make $1,800 per shoe. That’s not bad.”

Grosjean began his hole-carding career while attending grad-school in Chicago. Initially, as a struggling student with mounting debt, he made extra cash by card-counting blackjack games on river-boat casinos there. Then, one night, he spotted a dealer who was accidentally revealing her hole cards. He recognized this as a much better advantage-playing technique than simple card-counting, devised mathematically sound techniques for winning when he has partial information on a card’s denomination and, before long, forsook a desired career on Wall Street for one in casinos.

The move proved to be a smart one. Grosjean makes loads of money, loves his work, has no boss and just the right amount of notoriety – including a book called “Beyond Counting” and an online column, of the same name – yet recent photographs of him are scant and he plays in a style that draws little heat until he’s already enjoy a sizable windfall. Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to believe that he does not work hard for what he has achieved. “People have the mistaken impression that living this life means you are on permanent vacation,” says Grosjean. “But in some sense it is the opposite.”

He emphasizes that most casinos remain open 24/7 and that opportunities can be fleeting. “I’m never off!” he continues, explaining that he’s either on the road – playing and scouting games – or else occupying himself by doing analysis on potential opportunities. “The most successful people in this business are the ones who work hardest. If someone called me now and said there is a great game somewhere, I could very likely be on a plane, heading there, in three hours. If there is a good game on at 5:00 in the morning, you better get there. The best games may not conform to your schedule, they may not be in places where you want to go and you may need to make sacrifices. I make those sacrifices and am always on call”.

Considering it all and sounding perfectly content with the way in which things have shaken out, Grosjean happily concludes, “There is a degree to which I am a slave to the game.”

• In casino gaming there are a variety of mathematical based systems that are touted as a sure fire way to beat the casino.
• This is especially true for roulette. While some systems can be applied under a very specific set of circumstances, most can’t be applied over an extended period of time.
• When they are, the roulettesystem fails and the player usually lose the game.
• There is however one method of attacking roulette that can be applied over an extended period of time, when done correctly, gives the player a positive outcome. That system is the Kesselgucken roulette system.

Kesselgucken is a German word which most closely translates to the English word observational. It is appropriate because what the player is doing is observing influencing factors of where the ball will land, and using the laws of physics to predict where that will be. Usually within a sector range of octants, (1/8th of a pie like section of the wheel). This approach was pioneered by Ed Thorp, when he and Noble Laureate Claude Shannon, developed the world’s first wearable computer, that was designed to predict where the roulette ball would land.

Roulette physics has many factors go into the classical mechanics calculations. Some of these factors include:

1. Release point
2. Initial Speed of the Ball
3. Gravity
4. Initial Speed of the Wheel
5. Bounce coefficient –how many times the ball would bounce before resting in a basket

By using a computer program that accounted for all these factors, all Thorp and Shannon had to do was input the initial velocity of the ball after one revolution and the computer would take care of the rest. The series of equations used required a computer to complete before the croupier would call “no more bets”. It’s worth noting that when the two MIT Professors did this the use of computers in casinos was allowed. We are not that lucky any more. The two made vast amounts of money using the roulette physics computer, and their success ultimately led to the ban of computer devices in casinos.

When the casinos successfully banned the use of computers, the player had to come up with ways to attack the wheel without the assistance of any device. The result was the Kesselgucken approach. The methodology wasn’t as accurate as the system that used the computer but it was still good enough to gain a healthy advantage over the house.

Using the computer the where the ball would land could be predicted to a range of 5 numbers or 1/8th of the wheel. If a player were to bet $1 dollar on 5 different numbers, with 100% accuracy you would earn a staggering profit of $33 per spin. And the numbers just get bigger as the wager amount increases.The profit levels are not that high when using a non computer approach but are still very good. Instead of 5 numbers a player increase the number of dollar inputs to $15, and at a payout of 36:1 a net profit of $20 per spin is possible on 100% hit rate.A profit can be made with a hit rate as low as 35%, so this is a very powerful system when properly executed. Let’s go over a couple of things you need to execute the system.

STEP 1: RELEASE POINT

Every roulette croupier has a signature. A croupier signature is few physical components of how the croupier releases the ball into the wheel. The first part of the croupier signature is where on the outer rim the dealer releases the ball onto the track. A croupier will usually release the ball from the same position for every spin. Starting position is very important.

STEP 2: INITIAL SPEED OF THE BALL

The next thing to consider is the initial velocity at which the ball is released on to the track. When Thorp and Shannon developed their roulette physicscomputer the player would click a button once to measure starting point and a second time when the ball made one complete revolution. The initial angular velocity was then used to run through all of the calculations to predict the landing point. Without a computer the player observes the croupier for a few hours before playinglive roulette against the dealer and uses a stop watch to time the length of one revolution. The times are then averaged to get a mean time for the distance traveled.Approximately 100 spins should suffice for an average. The distance traveled for one revolution is approximately 2 πr, where π = 3.14 and r is the radius of the wheel. Then using the simple equation:

Velocity=2πr/time

What the player will find after 100 trials and 100 calculations is that the velocity is very consistent for each individual croupier.

STEP 3: GRAVITY

By knowing where the ball is released and what the initial velocity is the player can determine where the ball will enter the area of the wheel where number baskets are.The ball separates from the outer track at the same velocity every time. Then gravity takes over and the ball slides down the angled track until it hit enters the area with the numbered basket slots in it.

STEP 4: INITIAL SPEED OF THE WHEEL

Determining where the ball will enter the basket area is accounting for the ball aspect of the roulette game. The other half is the roulette wheel itself.The wheel remains in motion (under almost zero friction) and spins the direction opposite of the way the ball is spun. The velocity of the wheel, like that of the ball, is fairly consistent between dealers. It should be measured over the same100 spins as dealer’s initial velocity measurements. And like the velocity calculations, the average should be taken and applied.

STEP 5: BOUNCE COEFFICIENT

The final component is the bounce coefficient. This refers to how many spaces the ball travels past before it comes to rest.It is the part of the calculation with the most variance involved. Determining the bounce coefficient is more of a technical art than hard calculation.Like before it depends heavily on the croupiers signatures and requires several observations, recording and averaging.

SUMMARY

Using Physics to beat a roulette wheel is possible, butas seen here is very complex. It takes lots of preparation and work.The first mistake most players who try this method, is that they jump right into taking measurements at a casino and often become frustrated and give up. The player has to make an investment in the game, so that he can practice roulette.By working out the methodology at home under controlled conditions they can perfect there methodology at home and then take the approach into real world, under real world conditions.

The roulette physics approach is a challenging way to attack the game of roulette.When exact calculations are used (the ones that require computers) you can predict where the ball will land within approximately 5 spaces. This is an overwhelming edge. The estimation method is far less accurate and the player needs expand the range of numbers from 5 to 15. And the hit ratio will be less than that of the computer aided approach. The take away is that it can be done but requires a lot of practice to be competent in this method. Before executing this method with real money the player can engage in simulation to make sure they have the ability to execute the Physics based approach. It’s hard, and like anything worthwhile it takes a lot of effort, but well worth it.

• In this article I will explain a couple of interesting “roulette tricks” to use at the game ofroulette. Mind you, these cannot give you a mathematical edge but they are fun to play and using my money management advice they might reduce the overall negative expectation of the game.

Roulette and craps are probably the two oldest games that are now found in our modern casinos and on anyonline casino. Actually, dice games were played all the way back to Caesar’s time – and perhaps even further into the past than that.

Those bones people rolled were from sheep and (wait for it) sometimes from humans – and roulette of a type goes just as far into the past. Heck, shields could be used for more than just shielding oneself. Soldiers needed their games to play and those spinning shields could give a lot of enjoyment without worrying about being killed by an enemy.

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ROULETTE TRICKS AND SYSTEMS

First things first: What is the difference between a gambling system and a gambling trick? Actually not much. I look at gambling systems as a more complicated type of approach to a game such as roulette. I think of a roulette trick as a shorter, simpler method of approaching a game. One requires a certain type of discipline to follow; the other is short and sweet and not very taxing.

One of the most enjoyable of my roulette tricks is the utilization of a Big Number strategy.This is a straight number strategy where you bet directly on the chosen number or numbers.

Take a look at any roulette scoreboard, those that usually show the last 20 numbers that hit, and what do you almost always see? That’s right; some number or numbers have repeated. Don’t get too excited; this is not unusual; in fact, it is usual in any random game of which roulette is one. Numbers do tend to repeat even in such short lengths as 20 spins.

The Big Number roulette trick is to take whichever number has been a repeater and bet that number. If there is more than one number you then bet on each of those numbers.

HOW MUCH TO BET?

Whatever your normal bet is then that is the bet you make on that one number. If there is more than one number than you bet your minimum bet on all the repeaters.

It is rare indeed that there will be three repeating numbers. Still, although I haven’t seen that a profound number of times, it does happen.

Please Note: If you are a player who knows how to play roulette and bets more than the table minimum, then try to apportion your betting amounts so that you are not betting more than what is usually a single bet if you are betting multiple Big Numbers. A $50 player might want to break up his bet $25/$25 on two Big Numbers.

HOW LONG DO YOU BET A BIG NUMBER?

In the Big Number roulette strategy trick you are betting with the scoreboard. Once a number disappears from the scoreboard you stop betting on that number. If no number repeats you do not bet until a repeater shows. Not betting does take a modicum of discipline on the part of players but not betting on certain rounds does save you some money. That is not something to be dismissed. No bet is not susceptible to the house edge – naturally.

BETTING THE NEGATIVE ON BIG NUMBERS

What about roulette players who prefer to bet against numbers that have hit? Or what if they want to bet numbers that have not shown up as yet on the scoreboard?

These negative betting methods are just as valid as the one I am proposing but they are in a different category. The Big Number is a positive betting trick, going with the scoreboard’s numbers and not against them, and it is far simpler than the negative category which requires the player to keep track of the numbers that have not hit (if they are not on the scoreboard) which might require a notebook and pen. And how many of these numbers that have not hit or repeated do you wager on? Those can be tough questions to answer.

WHAT IF SEVERAL NUMBERS APPEAR WITH A DIFFERENT FREQUENCY?

Let us say that a certain number repeated once but another repeated twice? Do you treat them differently? Some players might want to bet more on the number that repeated more than once. I wouldn’t recommend that as such larger bets can be dangerous to your bankroll. Just go with one bet on the repeating numbers.

You are not enhancing your chances of winning when you bet more money. You are merely increasing the overall amount you are expected to lose over time. True, if a number with more money on it hits, you certainly make more money but that does not mean the house will win less over time when you wager this way. The more money you wager the more money the house edge will grind away at.

Please Note: You must always keep in mind that whatever betting trick or system you are using cannot change the fundamental mathematics of roulette. In the American double-zero wheel you have a one in 38 chance of your number hitting and in the European single-zero wheel you have a one in 37 chance. Those probabilities do not change based on your betting methods.

MORE BIG NUMBER ROULETTE TRICKS

Players do not have to bet straight up on the numbers. After all, with a one in 38 chance of winning on the American double-zero wheels, there can be long waits for a number to hit (yes, true, the number could hit right away) and this could be discouraging to many players.

If we use the American double-zero wheels as our guide, we can postulate other ways to play the Big Number. You can use the same exact technique for the European wheel so those of you lucky enough to play the European single-zero wheel, I envy you!

Please Note: The European single-zero wheel is almost twice as good as the American double-zero wheel. The house edge is 2.7 percent while on the American double-zero wheel the house edge is 5.26 percent. So whenever given the option think in terms of playing the single-zero wheels.

If you wish to avoid straight-up bets, then you could make outside bets on one, two or a few of the outside proposition bets such as the red/black, odd/even, high/low, 1st Dozen, 2nd Dozen, or 3rd Dozen. By doing this you reduce possibly long waiting times between decisions. Many players prefer more frequent hits; to them this makes the game more enjoyable. I tend to be one of those players!There are many combinations of these bets that can be made. I’ll cover a few here and you can, I am sure, come up with more. You might even want to wager straight-up bets and outside bets!

THE “THIS AND “THAT” BIG NUMBER BET

We look at the scoreboard and we see that 10 has repeated. That number is a black one, it is an even number, and it is also a low number (low numbers are 1-18, high numbers are 19-36). Also 10 is one of the inside dozen numbers.

Please Note: On all the outside bets a hit on the 0 or 00 loses the bet. Yes, the 0 and 00 can also be the Big Number but that would mean a straight up bet on that number. Avoid making the five-number bet at the top of the layout as the house edge is 7.89 percent.

Now you have some choices to make if 10 is the repeater. Here they are:

• Make a black bet which has a one-to-one payout
• Make an even bet which has a one-to-one payout
• Make a low-number bet which has a one-to-one payout
• Make an inside dozen bet which has a two-to-one payout

You can also make any combination of the above bets, or all of them! The truly aggressive player might decide to also plop down a straight-up bet on the number. Such an aggressive player would be making five bets.

I think five bets are somewhat overboard as you are betting a lot of money. I would go with one or two of the propositions. You don’t want to throw too much money into the game at once because a losing streak could wipe you out. However, if you are breaking up a single bet into five units – say a $50 wager into $10 each – then that would be fine, as long as your minimum bet is really that $50.

WORDS OF CAUTION

Let me go over some of the obvious problems with betting these outside propositions.

• If you have two Big Numbers of different colors then you obviously do not bet red or black.
• If you have two Big Numbers and one is high and one is low, you do not bet that proposition.
• If you have two Big Numbers and they are on two different dozen lines you bet one or the other.
• There are other combinations on the inside numbers to spread out your betting. These you can create for yourself.

THE BIG CAUTION ON THE BIG NUMBER ROULETTE TRICK

I am a very conservative player. I try to protect my money even as I am betting my money. To me gambling is a combination of fear and fun. I find it fun to play the games but I do not find it too much fun when I get clobbered and I have been clobbered at times in my almost 30 years of casino play. I am sure that many of my readers have been clobbered at times and I am guessing that it was a miserable experience for them as well.

So my fear can also be my protection against foolish play. Such fear has helped me study the games for the best possible ways to play them. I think all players should incorporate fear within themselves. How can that fear manifest itself? Here are the good products of fear:

• Do not make too many bets at once. The more money you bet the greater the chance that bad luck can knock you out. Go slow. You worked hard to earn your money.
• Do not increase your bets to make up for previous losses. This is often called “going on tilt” and it has hurt many a player. Going on tilt is a sure way to get destroyed on bad sessions. If you are feeling rotten, quit for that session and do something else. The games will always be there. In fact, there are probably more casinos in the world today than there were yesterday.
• Make sure you have enough money in your bankroll not to get upset should you lose. Use the large bankroll to small bet equation. The larger your bankroll, the less a loss will hurt you.
• Have a separate bank account for your gambling money. Never mix your daily-living money with your play money. You can make deposits in your gambling account so that it grows. Put your wins in it too!
• Recognize that all casino games have a built-in advantage for the casinos. Casinos are in the business of making money. They have structured their games mathematically to beat the players. The casino’s math will defeat the player’s luck over time. Players ultimately need good luck to win; casinos just need the math; luck does not play a part on the casino end of things.

Please Note: Although the betting advice I am giving cannot overcome the math of the game, using such roulette tricks can be fun and give you a satisfying strategy for the playing of roulette. Just be cautious. Play with discipline and enjoy the thrills of the games.

Question 1:What is the house edge on roulette?

The European wheels’ edge is 2.70%.The American wheels’ edge is 5.26%.

Question 2: What is the Fibonacci system?

The Fibonacci system using the following number sequence to establish one’s betting levels.If you are a 10-unit bettor, the sequence would go like this: 10 units, 20 units, 30 units (on up).

Question 3: What is the difference between the American wheel to the European/French wheel?

The American wheel has two green (or blue) zeros (0 and 00).The French or European wheel has only one green (or blue) zero.

Question 4:Should the odds be the same on an RNG game?

Yes, the odds on an RNGgame (such as online roulette) and the payouts should be the same (or better than) the odds and payouts on a regular roulette game.

Question 5: What is the RNG?

The RNG is the random number generator. It is a computer program that randomly selects number sequences that will correspond to symbols or elements of a casino game or slot machine.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

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