Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | Oct 2007 48 Casino Scams ing on top of the front stack of her chip re- serve.Thus the picture painted in his mind is that Dawn had inadvertently bet those five chips, which he assumes must have been at the top of that front stack before she placed them on number 32. That perception plus Dawn’s claim to have bet the black chips by accident removes all the pastposting heat that would have come down had those win- ning black chips just shown up without the rehearsed psychological ploy. When the floorman or pit boss, hearing the celebratory ruckus, comes over to the table, he too is sold by the sham. He sees a pretty woman jumping up and down for joy, her mix-up stack that corresponds to the “mistaken” bet and the distance she is from the actual winning chips, which are at the bottom of the layout. All the jubilation fur- ther removes suspicion by creating a happy atmosphere.The last thing on the floorman’s mind is that she pastposted the bet. Even if it did cross his mind, it is evident that Dawn could not have tampered with the chips be- cause she is too far away from them.The final coup de grace is when she tosses the dealer a black chip as a toke, outwardly a measure of her joyful generosity, but secretively an- other psychological ploy to keep the casino personnel on her side. Then she leaves the table with a big smile and in her wake the casino is a “merry” victim. This move and claim was incredibly powerful. The first time I did it was in Puerto Rico and I’ll never forget the floorman’s re- sponse when he came over to the table and saw Dawn jumping up and down high-fiving everyone at the table. He smiled at her and said,“Must be your lucky day in Puerto Rico, señorita! I wish I could make a mistake like that. My wife would love me!” Believe me, Dawn would make many more of those mis- takes over the years. More psychology at the ready Rarely did casinos react negatively to the move.But when they did we were ready with more psychological weaponry to win them over. Sometimes a sour pit boss would come to the table and tell Dawn he wasn’t paying her because she hadn’t intended to make the winning bet. It was not that he was sus- picious of a pastpost, simply that he didn’t want to pay it. But Dawn, schooled in the art of handling the situation, retorted, “What do you mean you’re not paying my bet! You would have taken it if it lost!”Which was true. If, by chance, a player had really unintention- ally bet two $100 chips on a roulette table and they went unnoticed and then lost, and the dealer swept them away, what chance would that player have to recuperate those chips by claiming he hadn’t meant to bet them? No casino anywhere would return those chips in a million years, and rightly so because anybody could claim that he hadn’t meant to bet black chips when they lost. Three steps This is just one example of the many ways I used psychology to cheat casinos over the years. But all of my moves followed three distinct steps to manipulate casino personnel. The first was in setting them up. In the mix-up claim the set-up was the mix-up stack that Dawn placed in plain view for the dealer to see at the opportunemoment.In other sce- narios not using the mix-up claim,I had Dawn make legitimate large bets before the move went down, which established her as a high roller, always betting the same denomination chip to be used in the move in the same sec- tion of the layout we would pastpost. The second phase was during the actual move and claim, where Dawn would have an abundance of high-valued chips in plain view to further convince personnel that she was a high roller. A player with thousands of dollars in chips in front of her would only be expected to bet high. And thirdly, after certain moves, “bet- back” procedures were implemented to make the casino more easily digest the loss it had just suffered. For example, if we had just pastposted $200 on a straight-up at rou- lette and been paid $7,000,Dawn would stay at the table a while and legitimately bet back several black chips before leaving. This was better than her leaving the table immedi- ately after the move.The casino would grow comfortable with her, and of course male personnel would waste no time attempting to flirt with their lucky patron. And for those bosses only thinking of the casino’s bottom line, they relished the chance of getting their money back from her. Of course they never did. Richard Marcus, a former baccarat dealer and recognized authority on numerous as- pects of Asian gambling and cheating, now offers detailed training and seminars to ca- sino staff, including dealers, floor personnel and surveillance. His engaging and authorita- tive insights have been featured at The World Game Protection Conference, the Asian Casino Executives Summit, the Peru Gaming Show as well as many international TV segments about casino surveillance and the armies of cheaters who battle against it. http://www.richardmarcusbooks.com/ protection.htm