The answer to this straight forward question can be tricky. Reputable online casinos don't cheat. Consider you play games for an hour in an online casino. Compared to a land-based casino, you play more games. The great majority of online casinos do not cheat for a simple reason. They don’t need to. Just like a live casino the online variety has a built-in house edge which is guaranteed to make them a long-term winner. All the online casino needs to do is keep a steady flow of players at games like blackjack and slots.
Cheating in casinos is much more common than casinos like to admit. Although game protection is important to casinos, it’s just about impossible to catch every cheat.
You may not be sympathetic for the billionaire casino owners. But in games such as poker, honest players can be easily taken advantage of. This article explains some of the cheating technology actively being used in casinos today, and how to spot cheating card players.
Although playing in an established casino environment does offer a level of protection, it is not complete protection.
You can’t rely on dealers
Dealers are trained to report suspicious behavior that may allude to cheating. But dealers are human, and are easily fooled by professional players. Just take for example a magician that can make something seemingly disappear, even with your close observation.
Casino surveillance staff watching video footage are no different. And although they are able to review video footage repeatedly, a casino cheat needs to be suspected of cheating before a proper review takes place. The professional cheats avoid suspicion to begin with.
Marked cards
Environments where cards can be handled create the possibility for cheating. Marked cards are quite common but more so in private games. You’ve probably heard of them but in case you haven’t: basically special dyes can be added to cards. The dye is invisible to the naked eye, but can be seen with infrared cameras and special lenses. The technology itself is quite simple. In fact most mobile camera phones are quite sensitive to infrared light. And through the use of an infrared illuminator, cards can be illuminated, with the light being detected by the mobile phone camera. In fact generally the cheaper cameras are more sensitive to infrared light, so you don’t need expensive equipment.
Casino surveillance often believe that the use of infrared illuminators would easily be detected by CCTV cameras. The reality is the infrared light is indistinguishable from visible light when viewed on camera. In the casino environment, there tends to be many flashing lights, shadows and reflections. So unless casino surveillance staff are very carefully monitoring suspicious objects, it would be very difficult to detect infrared sources. Furthermore, some of the more sophisticated technology requires a very short burst of radiation which may not even be detected by most CCTV cameras which operate at 25 or so frames per second. So all that’s required to see through a card is a very short burst of infrared light and a high frame rate camera. Then with the right equipment, it would be nearly impossible to detect even if casinos surveillance staff reviewed video footage.
Card counting devices
Card counters are not new, but the technology is developing very rapidly. What was impossible years ago is now reality. Just consider how quickly mobile phone technology has evolved. But cheating devices are not necessarily built into mobile phones. In some cases, they may be the perfect cover at the table. But most casinos wont allow any electronic device to be at the table. In some casinos, you can freely sit at a table on your phone or even listen to an mp3 player with earphones.
The more modern counting devices use an adaptation of the infrared technology. They can both read cards and automatically count. An example of the sophistication is the side of a stack of cards can be penetrated with radiation, and read by a high resolution camera. 4K resolution might seem sufficient, but some wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are only visible in lower resolutions with off-the-shelf components. So only rare light sensors are capable of reading the resolutions required. Keep in mind that cards are very thin, so the high resolution is required to read the sides of cards when penetrated with radiation. Although the technology is expensive and rare today, we can expect the technology to be more widespread in a few years.
Monitoring gambling forums for new technology
You wouldn’t normally expect secrets to be released on a gambling forum, because generally players with effective technology tend to keep it private. But gambling forums are often used by professional teams to recruit new players. In fact that’s one of the primary purposes of GamblersForum.com. Although most casino gambling forums tend to be full of irrelevant and inaccurate information, even casino game protection experts lurk on forums to stay informed of potential new technology.
Cheating devices in other casino games
There are cheating devices in just about every casino game. The more sophisticated devices are roulette computers as explained on the page explaining tips to play roulette, although they cheat the casino owners and not the players. If your focus is card games, you need not worry about such devices and can focus on how your opponents may be getting an unfair advantage over you.
Things to observe when checking for card cheats
Again playing in a reputable casino does provide you with some protection. But it is far easier for a cheat to take advantage of you in private games in the home environment. Here are a few things to check for you ensure you aren’t being cheated:
Check for any objects on or near cards: it can be any object including a mobile phone, or even a fake stack of chips. Use the same lenses worn by cheats to spot marked cards: see what they see.
Observe your opponent’s partners or associates: usually cheats work in teams. By observing your opponent’s associates, you can see if there’s potential collusion.
Oct 14, 2014
Instances of casino cheating are very rare, but they can and do happen. Here are a few schemes casinos have used to screw unsuspecting blackjack players.
Most of us associate blackjack tricks with advantage play techniques like shuffle tracking and card counting. There is good reason for that, because players are much more likely than casinos to try to use subtlety to tip the scale in their favor.
The casino’s motivation is to take money out of your pocket, but when it comes to blackjack their methods are straightforward and transparent. The dealer will be happy to explain the rule variations and house edge for their blackjack table, so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.
However, there have been cases of casinos getting caught using dirty tricks to take extra money off unsuspecting players. Here are a few dishonest maneuvers used by casinos in the past:
Removing cards from the deck
No self-respecting casino will ever try to pull this move, but in the past there were high-profile cases of casinos in Vegas and elsewhere getting nailed pulling tens or face cards from decks, literally stacking the decks against unsuspecting players.
All the casino needs to do is remove a ten, jack, queen or king from the deck and the instances of player blackjacks decrease significantly, meaning fewer times that the house has to give a 3:2 payout. And pulling one or even two cards from a deck most likely won’t be noticed by anyone.
Selective shuffling
During most blackjack games the dealer will shuffle once a certain amount of cards have been dealt from the deck (50-60 percent on average). However, if the dealer or pit boss notices that a certain player (whom they assume to be using a card counting system) is winning too much, the dealer will reshuffle on the spot.
They also may do this is they notice that a lot of low cards but few high cards have been dealt, meaning that players will have favorable chances at winning up upcoming hands. In the worst cases the dealer will reshuffle after only 2-3 hands.
This isn’t considered to be outright cheating but it should be, as it essentially gives the casino the right to adjust the house edge when it looks like the cards have tipped in the players’ advantage. If you’re playing at a table and you catch the dealer doing this, you have every right to voice a complaint.
Sleight of hand
This is a pretty nasty trick that has been known to happen, usually in poorly-regulated gambling jurisdictions. The dealer has extremely quick hands and notices that the player has had a few too many frosty umbrella drinks or is simply not paying attention, so rather than dealing the card from the top of the deck, the dealer intentionally hands out a bust card.
Selective shuffling, sleight of hand, hyper-shuffling, … fair?
This is most commonly done by the dealer pulling a card from the bottom instead of the top. Sometimes the pit boss will also instruct a cocktail waitress to distract the player in the middle of a big bet, thereby preventing him from seeing the dealer use a sleight of hand maneuver.
Hyper-shuffling
This isn’t considered to be outright cheating, but when the dealer is a “speed demon” the house edge always increases. Shooting through hand after hand allows the casino to make more money over the course of the night, and it also makes things easier for the dealer to play tricks.
Dealing hands extremely quickly means that the dealer can sometimes fudge the rules without the player noticing; for example miscounting a hand here or dealing a card from the bottom of the deck there. A few minor errors per hour add a lot to the casino’s take over the course of a night.
The faster the cards are dealt the harder it is for the player to follow along. For that reason, most casino strategy experts advise blackjack players to stay away from tables at which the dealer looks to be working extremely fast.
Why would a dealer cheat?
Dealers make a living from salaries and tips, and more winnings for the casino don’t necessarily mean more money in their pockets. So why would a dealer cheat in the first place? One explanation is that casinos keep detailed statistical records of their winnings at every table and with every dealer, and thus dealers are under pressure to impress their bosses.
Some older Las Vegas dealers have anonymously told journalists that back in the day when many casinos were mob-run dealers would be required to run scams against players. Refusing to do so meant kissing their jobs goodbye.
These days, however, there is very little incentive for a casino to cheat. For one thing, regulatory bodies like the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the New Jersey Gaming Commission are serious about auditing casinos and cracking down hard when wrongdoing is found.
Just as important, casinos need to look out for their reputations. In the internet age word spreads quickly, and if a player thinks they got cheated the casino stands to lose a lot of business. Cheating can and does occur (as this article makes clear) but it is most likely extremely rare.
Tags: advantage play, blackjack tricks, card counting system, casino strategy, Nevada Gaming Control Board, New Jersey Gaming Commission, selective shuffling, shuffle tracking
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