Bodog Poker Running Freeroll Qualifiers to Asian Poker Tour Event in Macau
July 23, 2008
Bodog is giving online players the chance to freeroll their way to APT Macau and compete for share of its $1.5 million guaranteed prize
For Immediate Release
July 23, 2008
Bodog Poker is once again giving its online poker players the chance to freeroll their way to poker stardom and riches while traveling to exotic locations in total Bodog style. The Asian Poker Tour event in Macau, held Aug. 26-31, is guaranteeing $1.5 million in prize money, and Bodog Poker is now running freeroll qualifier tournaments where the winner receives entry to the APT Macau plus an all-expenses paid trip to the exciting gaming destination situated along the Pearl River Delta in China.
The freeroll tournaments are scheduled four times daily throughout the month of July. The top 25 finishers per qualifier move onto the APT Macau Seat Giveaway Finale on Saturday, Aug. 2, with the top prize being an $8,000 prize package that includes the event’s $5,300 buy-in, round trip flight, spending money and a six-night stay at the luxurious Galaxy StarWorld Hotel & Casino located in the heart of Macau.
“With the World Series in Las Vegas all but over, it is time for online poker players to head east—the Far East that is—for a shot at scoring big, and Bodog Poker is excited to give players the chance to win their way into this major tournament without spending a dime,” said Morris Mohawk Gaming Group CEO Alwyn Morris. “We’re sending a team of players to the APT Macau in total Bodog style and one of them will be freerolling their way there to compete for a share of its $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool.”
In addition to the APT Macau Seat Giveaway freeroll qualifiers, online poker players can also play for one of three $8,000 APT Macau VIP Prize Packages that Bodog is awarding in qualifiers held through Aug. 3. Players can work their way up from the “cheap seats,” build tournament credits for other qualifiers, blast through a Turbo Quarterfinal or two, or skip the line and buy directly into one of the $300 + $20 buy-in Semifinal events held over the next three Sundays at 3:15 p.m.
The APT Macau is just one of a number of tournaments held around the world that poker players can qualify for through Bodog every week. From the World Series event in London this September to tournaments across Europe, Asia and North America, Bodog’s Player’s Choice packages give winners the chance to compete for millions of dollars while experiencing some of the most exciting and exotic locations in the world as only Team Bodog members do.
For more details on Bodog’s APT Macau Seat Giveaway and qualifiers, visit
About Morris Mohawk Gaming Group
The Morris Mohawk Gaming Group (www.morrismohawk.com ) is located in the territory of Kahnawake just outside Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to offer gaming services from Kahnawake to users worldwide. The Antiguan-based Bodog has entered into a license agreement with the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group to allow this group to use various elements of the Bodog brand within North America to support the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group’s marketing activities. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group is led by Olympic Gold medalist, Order of Canada recipient and First Nations’ leader Alwyn Morris. For more information, contact Media Relations at pr@morrismohawk.com.
About Bodog
Bodog has its head office, and is licensed in, the Caribbean nation of Antigua. The Bodog group of companies (www.bodoglife.com ) offer a host of entertainment services, including online gaming, which includes Poker, Casino and a suite of other world-class gaming products. Bodog does not offer “for money” gaming services within North America. For more information, contact Media Relations at pr@bodoglife.com.
Gambling in Macau, Playing a poor hand!
July 3, 2008
An Asian godfather reshuffles
AFTER several false starts Stanley Ho, Macau’s erstwhile casino monopolist, at last broke through a logjam of litigation and scepticism this week and took his ailing gambling franchise public, agreeing on July 2nd to sell a 25% stake for some $500m. SJM Holdings, as his company is now known, owns 19 of Macau’s 29 casinos and has the biggest market share, but its lead is tenuous and the deal was not an easy sell. Hong Kong’s new-issuance market is weak after many disastrous offerings this year, and for what Mr Ho wanted to sell—some shabby casinos built to serve what used to be a captive market—it is weaker still.
In 2004 SJM had revenues of HK$34 billion ($4.4 billion), 85% of the total for Macau’s gambling industry. Three years later Macau’s gambling revenues have doubled, but SJM’s have declined. New figures suggest that it may soon lose its leadership to Las Vegas Sands, which owns two giant casinos, the Sands and the Venetian, that are as glittering as SJM’s are grim.
The offering document was littered with titbits about Mr Ho’s empire. He turns out to have an interest in a casino in North Korea; stakes in five of SJM’s largest suppliers, including the ferries that bring punters to Macau; and interests in local horse- and dog-racing franchises, a Chinese lottery and various hotels and property.
Disclosing all this information cannot have been easy for Mr Ho. For years he has trod a difficult line, being one of Hong Kong’s most visible personalities and appearing at society events, while also running a complicated, mysterious business empire. Why, given the weak market, has he chosen to bring it all to light now?
Perhaps it is the first step in a more profound rehabilitation of SJM, prompted by Mr Ho’s acceptance of just how badly it has been gored by foreign competitors. In February 2007 SJM responded with its own elaborate casino across from his old flagship, the Casino Lisboa. But the new Grand Lisboa (pictured above) is far from packed and still lacks an occupancy licence for the hotel above the gaming floor. A public listing now may not bring in much money, but it provides a way to raise money in future and grant ownership stakes to more competent managers. Mr Ho must have realised that the game has changed.
http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11670836
Wynn Revitalized Las Vegas Casino, Gambling And Sports Betting Industy
June 17, 2008
Las Vegas always has been a city built on hopes and aspirations but only a handful of true visionaries have had a unique and lasting impact of the growth and direction of this desert outpost. Of the four pillars of Las Vegas innovation, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Howard Hughes and Liberace are gone but one architect remains, a man who continues to reinvent this unique city to this day.
Part 4: The Man Who Reinvigorated Las Vegas.
Steve Wynn was still a couple of years shy of becoming a teenager in 1952 when he stood on a dusty patch of desert highway called the Strip and listened intently as his father, a Maryland bingo parlor operator, told him of his dream of expanding his business there. Michael Wynn died in 1963 but his dream - and then some - never left the mind of his innovative son. It would take 26 years but Steve Wynn would realize his father’s dream.
Typically, Wynn’s first steps into gaming weren’t timid ones. In the early 1970s, using money he’d earned in the family business, Wynn purchased a parcel of real estate adjacent to Caesars Palace from Howard Hughes. The next year he sold the land to Caesars for a profit of $760,000. He used the money to accumulate stock in the downtown Golden Nugget and, by 1973, at the age of 31, was the youngest casino chairman in the history of Las Vegas.
Wynn next turned his attention to Atlantic City, paying $8.5 million for the Strand Hotel. He promptly demolished the Strand and built another Golden Nugget which, in 1987, he then sold to Bally’s for a record $440 million.
Flushed with optimism and with his father’s dream still kicking around in his head, Wynn then returned to Las Vegas, a city which, despite its gaming persona, still was in search of an identity. Wynn defined it.
He did it by building The Mirage, a $630 million all-inclusive complex that he promised “would have mystique, like a lady half-dressed.” It did.
The birth of The Mirage in 1989 redefined Las Vegas as the ultimate tourist destination, the home of wondrous new sights and experiences, where casino gambling and sports betting were the main but not the only attractions. A tropic paradise of waterfalls and foliage, luxury accommodations, gourmet restaurants, a rain forest, an exploding volcano, a swanky shopping mall, rare white tigers, an aquarium with bottle-nosed dolphins, and the city’s most spectacular - and expensive - show, Siegfried & Roy, there never had been anything quite like it. In fact, Wynn was forced to add a new term to the gaming lexicon just to describe The Mirage. He called it a “megaresort.”
Suddenly, the Strip, which had not seen significant growth in several years, was awash in megaresort projects. In the eight years immediately after Wynn first unveiled his plans to build The Mirage, other would-be entrepreneurs played follow-the-leader, adding 30,000 rooms and $3 billion worth of investments to the Strip.
The success of The Mirage spawned the Excalibur, the castle-configured casino with 4,000 rooms. Then came Luxor, a pyramid-shaped property next door to the Excalibur. Hardly content to watch others build, in October of 1993, Wynn added another property of his own, Treasure Island, a pirate-themed facility adjacent to The Mirage. Two months later the city welcomed the MGM Grand, with 5,005 rooms, the largest hotel, er, megaresort, in the world.
Wynn would later build Bellagio, on the site of the old Dunes Hotel on the corner of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard and, most recently, Wynn Las Vegas, his high-end signature property that now stands on land where the Desert Inn once stood.
“Nevada’s advantage is… that we have the creative genius of people like Steve,” said former Governor Bob Miller.
Wynn, the architect of the modern Las Vegas gaming and sports betting expansion, just smiled at the remark, comfortable with the presence (and accolades) of elected officials. In fact, Wynn has golfed with many politicians, including Arizona Senator Sen. John McCain, the presumptive 2008 presidential nominee of the Republican Party.
So how did it feel to rub elbows with the power elite?
McCain never said.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online sportsbooks offering sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Liberace Has Strong Link To Gambling And Sports Betting Industry
June 17, 2008
Entertainment became linked with Las Vegas in the 1940s when savvy city planners and casino entrepreneurs rightly reasoned that even hard-edged gamblers would need an occasional respite from the drudgery of table games and the challenge of sports betting that had lured them to this desert outpost in the first place. Of the many who came to sing, dance and tell jokes was one so unique that he set the standard for the glitzy performances that have become the city’s staple. He joins Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Howard Hughes as the third of four men who helped make Las Vegas the most unique city in the world.
Part 3: The Man Who Played Las Vegas.
Although classically trained and universally recognized as one of the foremost pianists in the world, Walter Valentino Liberace, the recipient of six gold record albums and two Emmy Awards, became even better known as the symbol of Las Vegas entertainment, a flamboyant, over-the-top performer who represented the scorned image of wretched excess often associated with many of Las Vegas’ stage acts.
It is perhaps ironic that Liberace, who first performed in Las Vegas in 1942 and whose talent on the keyboards was without dispute, nevertheless helped pave the way for a succession of marginal performers who offered more style than substance to their audiences. Without Liberace, there probably never could have been a Charo, a Lola Falana, or the slew of Elvis impersonators who continue to earn their livings in the city that brazenly refers to itself as “the Entertainment Capital of the World.”
But marginal musicians and singers weren’t the only beneficiaries of Liberace’s conscious, if insidious, pushing of the Las Vegas entertainment envelope.
In a city where reality is no closer than the next bus ride home and the unexpected now has become the anticipated, illusionists such as David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy, and Lance Burton owe a measure of their success, if not their very existence, to Liberace’s underrated ability to transcend the boundaries of traditional entertainment.
And it’s something less than a stretch to suggest that the audience’s acceptance of Liberace’s effeminate manner cleared the path for the acquiescence of such long-running gender-bender acts as Boylesque and La Cage.
Through it all - the ostentatious sequined gowns, the ever-present candelabra, the gaudy gems, the spectacular pianos, the shtick that overwhelmed the music - Liberace understood what he was doing.
“I’m the first to admit my stage costumes have become a very expensive joke but I have fun with them and the audience shares that fun with me,” he said.
But Liberace, who died in 1987 at age 67, had a serious side, too. In 1976 he created the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts which, over the years, has funded over $5 million in scholarships to 2,200 students at 110 colleges and universities across the nation.
In 1979, Liberace also built the Liberace Museum, a fantasyland for adults comprised of a trio of buildings located in southeast Las Vegas. Walking through the non-profit museum, one can easily imagine how Alice felt when she first peered through the looking glass. The museum, which is stocked with mementos and items from Liberace’s professional and personal life (though it’s not easy to tell the two apart) has little relevance to most people’s reality. In other words, it fits perfectly in Las Vegas.
Liberace wasn’t a visionary in the mold of Siegel or Hughes but he was as much an innovator, bringing a new, bolder type of entertainment to Las Vegas that transformed the industry and attracted people, many of who didn’t fit the prototype of the average gambler, to the city. After one of his shows, these same folks would hit the slots and table games and engage in sports betting, an unexpected but welcomed part of the legacy that is Liberace’s enduring influence on Las Vegas.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online sportsbooks offering sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Visit The Greek Sports Book for more Sportsbook Articles and Sports Betting information.
GENIUS OR MADMAN, HOWARD HUGHES ALTERED THE GAMBLING ANDSPORTS BETTING INDUSTRY
June 17, 2008
By the mid 1960s, Las Vegas was well on its way to establishing itself as the gaming and sports betting capital of the world. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for another visionary to challenge the status quo and expand the concept of those who had come before him. Of the many daring dreamers and schemers who have left their legacy in this desert oasis, here’s a look at one of the four men who really made an impact.
Part 2: The Man Who Bought Las Vegas.
Early in his life he was known as a swashbuckling aviator, a playboy who romanced Hollywood actresses and Las Vegas showgirls, a shrewd and often ruthless businessman who parlayed an oil drilling bit into one of the world’s great fortunes, and the man who had designed a special uplift bra for the actress Jane Russell to wear in the motion picture, “The Outlaw.”
By his twilight years he had degenerated into a pathetic, paranoid, long-haired, straggly bearded, reclusive billionaire so fearful of disease he avoided all human contact, spending most of his time alone in a darkened room, surrounded by boxes of Kleenex and covered only by a bed sheet. When the end mercifully came, April 5, 1976, at the age of 70, at 3,000 feet aboard an airplane out of Acapulco bound for Houston, his once sturdy, 6-foot, 4-inch frame carried a mere 90 pounds.
But somewhere between the genuine genius and the mystifying madness was the real Howard Hughes, the man who tried to buy Las Vegas and mold it in his image. The amazing part is that he nearly got away with it.
Hughes was a month shy of his 61st birthday when he arrived in Las Vegas by train from Boston and took up residency on the top floor of the Desert Inn, Nov. 27, 1966. Only six months earlier, Hughes had sold TWA, the fledgling airline he had first bought for $1 million in 1939, for $546 million. Meanwhile, his Hughes Aircraft Co., which produced weapons for the US government, was valued at $1 billion and his Hughes Tool Company would fetch an additional $150 million in 1972. There also was a Hughes helicopter division, Hughes Air-West, a television station in New York, an architectural firm, as well as substantial property holdings in California and the Bahamas.
Howard Hughes was a very rich man.
So when Moe Dalitz, the feisty owner of the Desert Inn, sought to make good on a promise from Hughes that the billionaire would vacate his hotel by Christmas, instead of moving out, Hughes bought him out. It was the beginning of Hughes’ attempt to make Las Vegas his own private Monopoly board.
Under the umbrella of his huge conglomerate, Summa Corporation, Hughes quickly acquired the Frontier, Castaways, Landmark, Silver Slipper and Sands hotel-casinos in Las Vegas as well as Harold’s Club in Reno. Hughes also negotiated to purchase Caesars Palace, the Dunes, Stardust and Riviera in Las Vegas, Harrah’s in Reno and Lake Tahoe, and Harvey’s in Lake Tahoe. Pressure from the federal government in the form of possible anti-trust action against him probably prevented those sales but Hughes consoled himself with 2,000 mining claims in the state, 30,000 acres of real estate, including most of the land around the airport, and another TV station.
Because of the hundreds of millions of dollars he invested in the Las Vegas valley, money that revitalized a stagnant if not decaying industry, Hughes expected, and usually received, preferential treatment. Hence, his casinos were dutifully licensed despite the fact that Hughes refused to appear before gaming authorities, much less be photographed–something that hadn’t occurred since 1957 - fingerprinted or interviewed.
After four year, Hughes left Las Vegas, not only annoyed that he had failed to control every aspect of the city’s destiny, but melancholy and fearful that his many contributions to Las Vegas’ growth and prosperity might go unappreciated.
“So now I wind up a supposedly successful businessman who has wrecked his health and consumed the best part of his life in the process,” writes Hughes in Citizen Hughes, a biography by Michael Drosnin which explores the eccentric billionaire through internal memos and notes in Hughes’ own hand. “I can’t help but feel I must have given something to this community.”
Gazing upon the gambling and sports betting wonderland that is today’s Las Vegas, of this there can be no doubt.
Next, Part 3: The Man Who Played Las Vegas.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online sportsbooks offering sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Visit The Greek Sports Book for more Sportsbook Articles and Sports Betting information.
Bugsy Siegel And Las Vegas
June 17, 2008
From its legal inception in 1931, Las Vegas’ gaming and sports betting industry has been built on the dreams and imagination of people who have had the courage to question the status quo. But while many a daring dreamer has left his legacy in this desert oasis, four men stand out.
Part 1: The Man Who Invented Las Vegas.
It was on the night of June 20, 1947, that nine bullets from a .30-.30 carbine ripped through the living room window of socialite Virginia Hill’s home on 810 North Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. The first shot crashed into the man’s head, driving the victim’s right eye from his skull and hurling it 15 feet across the room. The other shots quickly followed but there was no need. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the era’s most infamous mobster, already was dead.
Ironically, hundreds of miles away, in a desert outpost called Las Vegas, Siegel’s gambling dream was alive and well and just beginning to prosper.
Ben Siegel first came west in 1937 to California to organize the mob’s lucrative narcotics, prostitution and bookmaking enterprises there. A much-feared New York criminal who by his early 20s already had committed several murders, Siegel had partners in crime including the underworld elite, from Meyer Lansky - with whom he’d formed an execution squad that predated Murder Inc. by seven years - to Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Albert Anastasia, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein, Vito Genovese and Frank Nitti. Except for his movie star good looks, Siegel fit right in.
By 1945 Siegel had used a combination of bribery and deadly force to consolidate his power in California, buying off cops and politicians and killing those who couldn’t be bought. Three years earlier, in 1942, he’d taken over control of Las Vegas’ racewire services, charging the hotels exorbitant fees for the racetrack information.
But Siegel had bigger plans for Las Vegas.
Early in 1946 he decided to build the largest and most lavish casino in the world there. But it wouldn’t be just a casino. There’d be a hotel, too, with carefully manicured grounds, a swimming pool, restaurant, bar and nightclub. There’d be nothing like it anywhere on the planet and as soon as it opened on a patch of inexpensive land at the desolate southern end of what would later be called the Strip - Las Vegas Boulevard - Siegel instantly would be transformed from mobster to mogul. He’d be America’s king of gambling. It’d all be legit, too.
But the casino, which Siegel called the “Fabulous Flamingo Hotel,” was horribly under funded. Siegel had invested his own ill-gotten fortune, about $1 million, in what was estimated to be a $1.5 million venture. But the hotel’s plumbing alone cost $1 million and building supplies, particularly steel and copper, were scarce in post-war America. Siegel paid extra to get them.
The tab for the project quickly soared to $6 million, an incredible sum at the time. Siegel raised $3 million in stock sales and got the rest the Mob, extorting $2 million through the sale of his TransAmerica racewire service, an audacious move that later cost him his life.
On Dec. 26, 1946, with Virginia Hill at his side and Jimmy Durante in his nightclub, Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel. It was a terrible disappointment. Bad weather had grounded many of Siegel’s celebrity friends in Los Angeles and, as luck would have it, the casino lost heavily the first night. Two weeks later, $100,000 in the hole, the Flamingo closed.
On March 27, 1947, Siegel reopened the Flamingo. For three weeks, the casino continued to lose money. Then, finally, as it often happens for those who accept wagers, red turned to black. In May, the casino cleared $300,000.
Three weeks later, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, 41, was dead. But the town he built, the gambling and sports betting Mecca known as Las Vegas, was just coming to life.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online sportsbooks offering sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Visit The Greek Sports Book for more Sportsbook Articles and Sports Betting information.
SPORTSBOOK AND CASINO GAMES CHEATS;PART 1: PART 3: DICE SWINDLES
June 17, 2008
The fast-paced nature of craps and the physical involvement of the player make it a target of opportunity for casino cheats, or crossroaders, as they’re commonly called.
Obviously, the easiest way to cheat at craps is for the crossroader to substitute gimmicked dice into the game - typically when it’s the hustler’s turn to throw and he has physical contact with the cubes. There are several hand techniques for inserting crooked dice, including the thumb switch, and the palm switch but all require the cheater possessing magician-like sleight of hand ability.
There also are several ways dice can be altered.
Tops are dice that only have three numbers, each appearing twice on opposite sides of each die. One common set is to have the numbers two, three and six. These dice can roll the numbers four, five, six, eight, nine and 12 but cannot seven out. In order to reduce suspicion, the craps shooter himself usually will not be a big bettor but his partner, a beard, at the opposite end of the table, will. Tops with one, three and five also are used, sometimes in alternating fashion with two, three and six tops so more numbers appear.
Most casino stickmen drag the dice across the table after each roll, making them tumble and exposing all sides. Of course, no crossroader worth his cheating heart would insert tops into that situation.
A safer dice scam is to insert loaded dice, known as weight, into the game. These cubes, which do not guarantee a win but shift the odds in the crossroader’s favor, can pass the casual inspection of a boxman. However, today’s dice, because they are translucent, are much more difficult to load.
“There’s been a whole evolution in craps scams,” began Steve Forte, an advisor on the motion picture, “Rounders,” and one of the world’s foremost authorities on casino cheating. “In the old days you had subs, hidden pockets in the dealer’s clothing. Craps is a game that has so much action that the dice would go one way and the money would go the other, into the sub. Then they went to techniques like hand-off moves, where the boxman would make change, giving extra money to the accomplice. And, off course, there were gaffed dice.”
Some craps swindles don’t require gaffed dice.
“I once asked an old-timer what was the strongest thing he’d ever seen to cheat crap games and he said, ‘Setting them up late,’” recalled Forte. “Craps is a game that involves a lot of call bets. As the dice are in the air, somebody’s going to give you a bet. So let’s say I’m the dealer and you’re on second base next to me. You put up eight black chips and as the dice are in the air you say something. The person upstairs in surveillance has no idea where that money is supposed to go until I set it up. So, if I listen for the dice and I hear, ‘Six,’ I can take those eight black chips and set you up with four each on six and eight, so you win.
“Or let’s say I hear, ‘Seven out.” I take those very same eight blacks and put them behind the nine. I slap the ‘lay’ button on it, as you for the juice and all of a sudden it looks like that was obviously an $800 bet against the nine. You win again.”
In another scam, one die is passed from the shooter to an accomplice and on to a beard at the opposite end of the table. The shooter then rolls just one die, expertly making it land close to the beard who has concealed the stolen die, positioned on six beneath his money. When a cheater bets the field and is guaranteed a six on one die, he can only lose when the random die comes up ace or deuce. All other spots win and the six pays double.
The dice have not been gaffed and, when executed properly, the move is almost impossible to detect with the naked eye.
“Cheating is and always has been a serious problem,” acknowledged Forte. “Knowledge and vigilance are your only protection.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online sportsbooks casinos offering craps, blackjack and other casino games and sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Visit The Greek Sports Book for more Sportsbook Articles and Sports Betting information.
SPORTSBOOK AND CASINO GAMES CHEATS;PART 1: PART 2: BLACKJACK THIEVES
June 17, 2008
Blackjack is every casino’s most popular and profitable game but the house’s bottom line could be even stronger were it not for the efforts of thieves, called crossroaders. The most dangerous form of cheating, claims the top expert in the field, is done with the aid of crooked dealers.
“I would say that there’s almost nothing that I could share with you, for shoe games, the wheel and craps, nothing in my experience - 30 years of collecting hustlers’ moves, forays, scams, you name it - that would have any real threat to the casino bottom line that doesn’t involve somebody on the inside,” said Steve Forte, the man many regard as the nation’s leading authority on casino games cheating. “Employee theft is a reality in any industry and the gaming industry is no exception.”
Crooked dealers, many of them capable of sleight of hand tricks and close-up magic, have a variety of ways to work with an accomplice or agent. In a hand-held, single-deck blackjack game, the most common method is for the dealer to seconds, that is, the second card from the deck while pretending to deal the first. Usually a crooked dealer will use one of two hand manipulations, the two-card push off or the strike to deal seconds. Before seconds are dealt, the dealer first determines the top card’s identity through a peek. An adept dealer also can look (bottom peek) and deal (base deal) from the bottom of the deck.
A blackjack dealer also can increase the agent’s chances of winning by showing or flashing him the next card.
A proficient dealer, or mechanic, can transform his agent’s losing hand into a winning one by substituting a card from the deck. A mechanic who specializes in switching cards is called a hand mucker.
But while cooperation of the dealer makes cheating easier, it’s not essential to the cagey crossroader’s success.
Expert hand mockers can gain an edge by palming two cards off the cut. It doesn’t even matter if they’re poor cards, say a three and a six, because the mucker always can substitute them for an ace and a picture card once he’s legitimately been dealt those cards through the course of play. When he’s accumulated the ace and picture card and switched out the three and six, he has a stolen blackjack in his possession. On the next hand he makes a limit bet and inserts the pilfered blackjack.
Muckers also use sleight of hand when playing two hands at once. An ace-five in one hand and a king-six in the other, two 16s, can be turned into a blackjack and a potential-laden 11 by switching cards between the two hands. Sometimes the mechanic is so proficient that the move is difficult to spot even with slow-motion surveillance equipment.
A third method employed by muckers is capping or pressing, a technique in which the mechanic adds chips to a favorable hand. Dragging or pinching is the reverse, removing chips from a poor hand.
Knowledge of the blackjack dealer’s hole card is an enormous edge and thieves have devised some ingenious ways to attempt to gain that information. Before objects on a table were banned, some cheats employed a glim (also called a flick, light, or twinkle) a shiny object, such as a cigarette lighter, which, if strategically placed on the table, will reflect the dealer’s hole card when it’s transferred from the deck to the table. Of course, casino surveillance experts know of glims so crossroaders have gone to great lengths, including building a prism disguised as an ice cube which floats in their half-finished drink, to improve the scam.
Another method of gaining access to the dealer’s hole card is called spooking, where a spook sits at another table behind the dealer and signals when the dealer checks his hole card for blackjack.
But by far the most devastating cheating is the cooler, where a stacked deck or package, is inserted into the game in place of the casino deck(s).
As many as nine thieves, seven players, including one who will make the switch with the accomplice dealer, and one who will distract or turn the pit boss, a bagman to carry out the legitimate deck(s), and another turn person (often an attractive woman or a skirt) to create a disturbance, can take part in the scam.
Of course, the thieves need exact copies of the casino’s distinctive cards, less of a hurdle than you might think in today’s technological era.
So, while surveillance techniques have improved and the odds of success at cheating the house at blackjack have diminished, there are always those who will try.
Next: Part 3, dice swindles.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online casinos and sportsbooks offering blackjack, craps, slots and other casino games and sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
Visit The Greek Sports Book for more Sportsbook Articles and Sports Betting information.
SPORTSBOOK AND CASINO GAMES CHEATS;PART 1: SLOT MACHINE CROOKS
June 17, 2008
It was more than two decades ago that Barron Hilton, the chairman of the hotel chain that bears his name (and grandfather of you-know-who), shelled out $50,000 for a private, six-hour seminar from Steve Forte, arguably the leading expert on casino games cheaters and scam artists. Forte was the consultant on the poker movie “Rounders,” starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton, and is the author of several books and videos on casino cons, swindles and rip-offs.
At $50,000, Hilton may have gotten a bargain because it’s estimated (although impossible to prove) that cheats, or crossroaders, as they’re often called, steal $100 million annually from casinos.
In Part 1 of our series, we look at slot machine crooks.
The war between slot machine crossroaders and casinos is a technological one, with slot manufacturers constantly upgrading their equipment in an attempt to stay a step ahead of the thieves.
Better constructed machinery has all but eliminated such techniques as spooning, where a spoon-like device is inserted up the payoff tray to make the machine release its coins; stringing, where a coin on a string is used for repeated plays; and handle popping, a technique in which cheaters apply tremendous force in the first two or three pulls causing the handle mechanism to weaken. Most handle poppers were able to hold the first reel and save a valuable symbol, such as a bar, on the center line. Some expert cheats even were able to hold more than one reel. The machine, with its locked-in symbols, then could be played endlessly, greatly increasing the crossroader’s advantage. Handle poppers often used accomplices, called blockers, to shield the excessive force and non-spinning reels from view.
Strong arm cheating included the use of a piano wire or bottom joint, inserted through a puncture hole, to contact the slot’s payout counter. Then a boomerang-shaped object, called the top joint, was angled through the coin slot until it made contact with the display light sockets on the inside of the machine. Current then traveled through the top joint to the bottom joint which energized the machine’s payout process.
Some slot crossroaders, or drillers, gained access to the inner workings of the machine with a high-speed, carbon-tipped drill that often was no larger than a pen. Then, often with the aid of a small but powerful magnet hidden in a cigarette pack, they manipulated the wheels.
“The quality of the machines has improved dramatically,” said Forte, whose clients have included some of the largest casino operators in the world. “Today, the machines are virtually foolproof.”
But not quite.
“There’s always a way,” conceded Forte. “At one time the hottest scam in the industry involved a device called a minilight. In the old days, the hopper, which actually dispenses the coins, was mechanical. If you could get power to it, it would start spitting out the coins.”
To make it more difficult for crossroaders, the industry adopted optical sensors, which operate by light.
“The thieves went in through the coin payout shoot with a device the size of a fork with an LED light at one end and a magnet to hold it in place at the other end,” explained Forte. “They built up credits and when they hit the payout button, they turned on the light, which confused the optic sensor and caused the machine to overpay. The light could be turned on with a transmitter receiver so they didn’t have to reach under the machine to do it manually. Once the scam was uncovered, enforcement officials found the minilights all over town. Manufacturers of slot machines quickly adapted and moved the optic sensor to the back of the machine where it couldn’t be accessed.”
And so, the technological battle between slot makers and slot takers rages on, with innovative crooks facing resourceful casino personnel in an ongoing and ever-evolving war of survival.
Next: Part 2, Blackjack scams.
This article was written by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com. The Greek Sportsbook & Casino is host to one of the top online casinos and sportsbooks offering casino games and sports betting on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and all other major sports. The Greek is a must have sports betting and entertainment portal with one of the largest wagering menus available online. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.thegreek.com.
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