They say that crime doesn’t pay, but for a few people it has – even if only briefly – and these gambling scams are proof of it!
The Roulette Job
A Roulette scam in Ohio came to light in 2012, and it was believed that as many as 70 people were involved! The premise of the scam was for players at the Roulette table to distract the croupier with low bets, while another player swiped higher value chips. These chips were then passed along to other players in on the scam and used elsewhere in the casino.
In the end, it turned out the scam ran throughout casinos in Ohio and was earning between $1000 and $2000 a time. Only a few scammers were caught, and earned themselves a year in prison or fines of up to $2500.
All Eyes On The Cards
In 2011 a group of 4 French con artists ripped off the Les Princes Casino in Cannes for over 40,000 Euros using contact lenses. They were in cahoots with the dealer who had marked playing cards with invisible ink to denote their value, and the special contact lenses the players wore allowed them to see the ink clearly. The casino caught on when the same group of 4 returned less than a week after winning big playing Poker, and the scam was uncovered.
The Coin Counterfeiter
Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio pulled off a counterfeit coin scam that saw him and his associates win an undisclosed amount of money from casinos across the US. The Coin created counterfeit coins and tokens that could be used in slots machines, and then he also tried his hand at making dice too. He was eventually caught in 1998 when casinos discovered a surplus of slots coins and tokens in their vault.
After 6 years in prison, The Coin was released, but was caught again in 2006 for using fake coins. Of course, it is thanks to scamsters like The Coin that nowadays casinos tend to use vouchers or have cards with re-loadable credits. This makes land-based casino’s security measures and safety standards almost as good as Dota 2 betting sites, as the chances for fraud have been minimalised.
Cigarette Radios
In 1973 a Roulette croupier, his sister and his brother in law took the Casino Deauville for nearly $1 million. The trio devised a scam that saw them put a radio transmitter in a box of cigarettes and the receiver in the Roulette ball. When a button was pushed on the box, the ball could be controlled to land on a specific part of the wheel. They had a 90% accuracy rate, and continued with the scam for over a year.
The trio were only bust when the casino owner, who was lusting after the croupier’s sister took an interest in why she always sat at the same table and placed very low bets, and never won much. He was also suspicious of the enormous losses at the table, so he called in a debugging company to do a sweep and the transmitter and receiver were uncovered.