Is cheating in Vegas using ESP illegal?

Obviously there would be some definitional and factual issues involved, but here are the statutes, for those who want to consider the actual laws involved. I’ve bolded the sections that might apply.

http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-465.html#NRS465Sec070

Responding more directly to the OP, I doubt any case based only on statistics would go to a jury. OTOH, if they caught you bragging about it or maybe taped a confession in a jail cell, that’d be a different story.

Because the World Series of Poker main event would be 5 days of 12-14 hour a day work, during which time if you could knowingly place bets at 35:1 you would make that main event pot look like pocket change.

Here, by the way, is the list of excluded persons, known as the Black Book: http://gaming.nv.gov/loep_main.htm

No they get escorted to a posh room and suggestions are made they continue to gamble.

No matter what the house never loses.

Are there any laws in Vegas or Nevada about witchcraft and fortune telling? :confused:

I’d be ironic if they couldn’t arrest you for cheating but *could *burn you as a witch. :smiley:

Local ordinances only penalized unlicensed astrologers, hypnotists, and practitioners of the psychic arts: Municode Library
Municode Library

Gee, it’s not as many as you’d think.

This is a pretty good social history of the Black Book: The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada’s Casinos

Welcome to my 4000th post!

In the UK, the offence is “cheating at play,” defined in the 1864 Gambling Act, and recently used to prosecute a group of three men who used a high tech video camera hidden up his sleeve and an invisible earpiece to communicate with his mates in a van who did the actual game analysis and instruction.

They were busted by casino staff who realised that the player was winning too many hands (10 out of 44).

BBC news report

Si

Slight hijack i know but somebody please comment on the technology used here. Is it real? Could that really be possible? I guess it must be 'cause they won bucket loads in one night but i just can’t get my head around how sophisticated the technology must have been to work this.

Suppose you have some ESP ability-suppose also that you resolve to keep this a secret. You fly to Las Vegas, and enter a casino-and start playing roulette. You start winning-but decide to "lose’ now and then (to avoid suspicion). How much could you win before they throw you out? Suppose you don’t get greedy-could you take a casion for perhaps 50,000/day without arousing suspicion? So you move on-working your way down the strip-eventually, you win several million -how long could you keep this up?

I suspect that they’d be watching you like a hawk after your second $50K. They’d probably ban you after the third $50K.

And casinos share data about who’s been banned nowadays. Get banned from the Mirage, then walk into the Flamingo, and security will meet you at the door to let you know you’re not welcome there. If you did have this capability, you’d need to keep your winnings low enough to fly completely under the radar.

Yep, it’s real. Mostly it is about timing how long it takes for the ball to make a spin before it falls and drops - using an IR laser and associated circuitry built into a mobile phone case is just icing. You could use a stopwatch and a laptop,but it may be a bit obvious. Plenty easy to build a custom miniature computer to do it, or program a PDA. The problem is that the bet-layers have to put down a fairly specific bet pattern to get the spread once the ball is in motion - the device is not accurate, but gives a general indication of where the ball might fall, which leads to a specific betting pattern. If the table is too quiet, then the spread bet pattern will be obvious, too busy and the betters might not get all the bets down.

And security will be analysing the betting patterns to look for spreads - and then they will identify the players, and then they will make you leave. With a great deal of respect and bruised kidneys.

Si

Since ESP is not proven in the real world, and exists in the world of science-fiction and the occult, then we can look to those areas for how they did it.

I seem to remember that Psi Corps members on Babylon 5 were prohibited from entering the casino in the first place.

Based upon the previously posted Nevada law, it would seem to be illegal. It wouldn’t matter much though because it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court. What prosecutor would ever take on such a case?

It might not be that bad. Just make sure you get some psychics on the jury!

I can think of five or six vexing criminal law/criminal procedure hypotheticals worthy of a law school final, all based on a few simple fact patterns and the quoted statutes.

Make that seven. :smiley:

I disagree with those that believe that you would end up banned after winning merely $50 or $100K.

Large casinos in Vegas understand that luck is part of the game and that occassionally they lose. Heck, big winners are great business for them. Winners tell their friends how they hit it big. Bystanders who watch that couple turn 500 bucks into a hundred grand believe it can happen to them and they tell their friends. Everybody that hears about the nice fellow from Topeka who hit it big, thinks it can happen to them and come running, with wallet in hand.

The big winners get comped a suite and encouraged to play tomorrow evening in a nice VIP room.
“Oh, your vacation is over and you have to return to Topeka tonight? Well, please let us know when you can return and we’ll treat you to a nice stay with us. We’ll even send a limo to pick you up.”

It would take a several big hits for security to figure out that you were more than just lucky, especially if your edge was something as hard to prove as ESP. So long as you were clever about it, I’d guess you could get away with it for quite a while.

In Breaking Vegas the players who worked the casinos as a team were being comped plane tickets and suites to return. It took security quite a while to figure out they were being worked and blackjack card counters and team play is something that security watches for.

Forgive the slight hijack - but just say I did win $500K and head back to Topeka - how does the casino pay me my money? Do they write a cheque? Do a bank transfer?

If they welsh on paying you, what recourse do you have?

mm