It’s about how this guy ripped off casinos around the world by past-posting bets on blackjack and roulette. In the book he and his team spend most of their time in Vegas, seemingly in the same casinos over and over again. He says that despite the casinos occasionally suspecting him, even banning him, he just carried on. He says he’d recognise the dealers, who was easy, who wasn’t, but they seemingly didn’t think “hey this was the guy who won a big bet I didn’t spot last time, wow he’s just done it again!”.
Is it really possible to keep getting away doing this at the same casinos over and over for 25 years? Being a Brit he does arouse my suspicion a little by claiming to have used a £100 note when in London (these are incredibly rare).
It’s possible. People get busted for past-posting and go to jail for it all the time. It stands to reason that some minority are getting away with it.
CSB: I actually spotted a past-poster at a $5 blackjack table once. He would always bet a tall but odd number of chips, anywhere from five-ten, always a different amount every hand. So it was hard to tell at a glance how much he had out. If he got a good initial deal, he’d do this not-very-slick move where he’d palm another chip and clap and cheer, subtly dropping the extra chip on his stack. He was sitting at first base so the dealer was always looking at the other end of the table (where I was) when he did it. I saw him because I was facing him.
He was escorted out by security. I imagine someone with better sleight-of-hand skills (and better judgment) might have gotten away with something similar.
With perfect strategy and occasional past-posting I could see how you could increase you return a few percentage points in the positive. But then you run into the same problem as a card-counter with way more risk. You need to play thousands and thousands of hands, and cheat thousands of times, to make the small percentage pay more than minimum wage and past-posting is an actual criminal offence vs. counting.
More to the point, they’re Scottish. I’ve had shops in London look at me askance for proffering a £5 Scottish note. And British shops will often refuse to accept £50 notes.
I’ve read that book - although it’s been a while - his story makes sense - I originally saw it on the discovery channel or something (one of those true crime shows). At least some of it is true.
He wasn’t just past-posting - the way he was doing it was unique - and very clever. It is probably the most clever - easy to understand moves - that I have ever seen.
He was really reverse past posting.
He would put up what looked like $10. It was actually a $5.00 chip on top of a $5,000 chip with the top chip slightly pushed towards the dealer so you couldn’t see the bottom chip clearly.
The brilliant part was - he bet on red/black - which is just under 50/50 odds - he’d win $5,005 if his bet cam up - and lose $5,005 if it didn’t. If he WON - he didn’t do shit. He just stood their and the dealer would pay $10.00. He would point out the dealers mistake. He never would get even near the chips. The dealers would get suspicious - they’d even review the video tapes, but it was all legit. He’d get the $5,005 profit. Then leave for the day.
If he lost - he’d make a move to swap out the bottom chip with a red $5.00 chip. If he was caught - he’d say - oh my bad - and replace it with $10.00. Worse case scenario he’d be out the $5,005 - but he’d know if they thought it was a big money bet - as they’d announce it before. Most people don’t try and cheat for $10 - so he didn’t attract much suspicion.
The $5 chip and $5,000 chip were close in color - at least at Ceasers - which if memory serves was his favorite place to pull the scam.
If you look down at a stack of two casino chips - you can see how you could hide the bottom one from view by pushing the top chip slightly forward.
Loaded Dice: The True Story of a Casino Cheat by John Soares, is the memoir of a guy who formed a group to cheat at craps during the 1960s and 1970s. He claims they were successful at it. It’s an interesting read, though I’m not sure how much to believe of his claims. L.A. Times review of the book here.
This news article reminded me of this thread. Card marking in Blackjack (and presumably other card games). Apparently had been getting away with it for 3 years using a hollowed out chip containing dye.
Really, really good cheats can get away with it for quite a while. Poor cheats get caught almost right away. Of course, it’s the crappy ones that write books, brag about it, etc. The good ones know to stay under the radar.
Going on a 3 year winning streak is not exactly staying under the radar. That’s getting too greedy.
Just to elaborate on this part a bit, I haven’t read the book but have seen this technique described - my understanding is that when you see you have lost, you take your chips off the table before the dealer can clear them. Obviously, the dealer spots this and complains, but with sleight of hand you exchange the $5,000 chip at the bottom of your stack with a $5 chip before replacing it on the table. Because the dealer hasn’t seen the $5,000 chip in the first place, they’re none the wiser. Of course, I imagine he didn’t try this more than once a night, because I expect the second time you pulled this, you’d be asked to leave and it would certainly attract attention from secuirty. Nowadays, as has been said, they’d review the tapes and you’d soon be banned.
Sure. In the days before high tech surveillance, you could probably get away with a lot. My first trip to vegas, the common way to cheat involved dealer cooperation. The player would show her blackjack hand, pretending to be dumb and asking for advice about what to do. The dealer did a quick look at the next card and advised her to hit or stand. The next day, the manager took that dealer to the side and said if it ever happened again he was fired.
That being said, it’s probably very easy to spot a cheater. Most games will have an average take over a given amount of time. On a day’s take, if there are huge variations, the casino knows something is going on whether they saw anything or not. Also, if the same person wins every time, that also arouses suspicion. Nearly all cheaters get caught the same way: they get greedy.
