The online casino has high tech security protocols in place to ensure that you’ll enjoy top security when you play online real slots real money games. Land-based casinos also take security very seriously but over the years, there have been incidents where the casino security systems were caught out. Explore casino history with some true-life tales of casino scams.
Casino Cheats
If you’re a movie buff you might have watched the Ocean’s 11 film series about casino theft, the 21 movie about MIT students who counted cards at Vegas casinos or even the 1974 The Sting film about a couple of enterprising scamps who set up their own (fake) gambling venue to fleece some crooks out of their savings.
The fascination with people who manage to walk away with casino money without getting caught attracts a wide audience as people cheer on those who take some of those billions of dollars for themselves.
With Vegas casino security rivaling anything that the U.S. Mint has, you might think that it’s not possible anymore to pull off a successful casino theft but over the years there have been some enterprising efforts to penetrate casino security. Some tricksters have gotten away with their loot while others might have had they not gotten greedy.
Card Counting Geeks
The courts have given card counters some leeway in deciding whether their efforts are criminal or not, but casinos are united in their efforts to try to identify card counters and ban them from the casino. Some of the casinos’ methods aren’t exactly legal either – people who have been caught counting cards have reported being taken to back rooms for a few hours – or more – of “re-education”.
Such was the world that a group of university students stepped into when they joined up with Bill Kaplan to count cards while playing blackjack at Vegas casinos.
Kaplan gathered together a group of students from Princeton Harvard, MIT and the University of Chicago. He schooled the students in the art of counting cards – keeping track of which cards have been played and which are still in the deck and then strategizing based on that knowledge. Kaplan then sent the students into casinos where they played blackjack and won.
Casinos have estimated that, over the course of two decades, the card counting students won over $57 million dollars, though no one knows how much because there was a constant turnover as some students left and others came on board. Eventually, the team dissipated but some members are now making money by talking about their exploits.
Dice Dominator
For a mere $1,600 you can take a course with Dominic "The Dice Dominator" LoRiggio and learn his “dice control” technique that has, he said, allowed him to control the craps table in casinos around the world. Dominic teaches that if you follow his “wrist control” technique when you’re throwing the dice, you can control what comes up on the dice.
Skeptics say that there’s no such thing and that Dominic‘s skill is in persuading gullible craps aficionados that he can make the results of a toss of the dice into something other than a random event. That may be true, but the fact that he’s been banned from most Vegas and Mississippi casinos gives one pause for thought.
Cannes
One wonders why, if a group of thieves could think up a scheme as complex and potentially successful as this one, they would take the chance of throwing their efforts down the toilet by trying it a second time at the exact same casino.
But that’s what a group of scammers did in 2011 when they marked cards with invisible ink while they played stud poker which allowed them to read those symbols by wearing special contact lenses that revealed the ink to their eyes. They walked away with $84,000 and no one was the wiser ….. until they returned to the same casino where the unusual wins drew closer scrutiny from the casino security staff. They were then arrested.
Sector Targeting
One of the biggest problems that casinos have to face is that, in today’s technologically-advanced society, new ways of scamming casinos aren’t yet covered by existing laws.
That’s what happened in 2004 when a gang of 2 men and one woman walked away from the London Ritz with £1.3. They used laser scanners hidden in mobile phones and linked to computers which allowed them to predict where a tossed ball would land in a roulette wheel.
After one or two spins the laser enabled the scammer to determine the point at which the ball is released and the point that it passes. Those figures give the ball’s “decaying orbit” which then makes it possible to anticipate the wheel sector where the ball will come to rest.
The scammers were arrested but since sector targeting was not yet covered by the UK’s gambling laws, charges were dropped and the gang left London with their money.
Stardust Casino
The Stardust Casino Robbery of 1992 is notable because the thief was never caught, even though authorities know that it was Bill Brennan, a sportsbook cashier at the casino, who made off with $500,000.
Brennan never got greedy, never tried for more and never came back. He simply planned his heist for a Monday night when the tills were full of Monday night football betting cash and counted the cash, as usual. Then he eluded the cameras and walked out with the money, never to be seen again.
Roselli Brothers
The Roselli brothers were genuine scumbags who not only stole casino money but ruined the lives of innocent citizens whose only crimes were to have amassed perfect credit scores.
The Roselli brothers identified dozens of such people – most of whom had never stepped inside a casino in their lives – and then opened credit accounts in their names with multiple casinos. They deposited money into these ficticious accounts which then gave the casinos the confidence to extend credit to these “gamers.” Little by little, the accounts built up to points that they were worth $1 million or more. The Roselli brothers then bet the credited money on Vegas games, won and left, leaving the people whose identities had been stolen in debt and authorities trying to track the shysters down. The Roselli brothers have never been found.