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Is High-Tech Poker Cheating Real? |
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December 2007
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For several years now, we've been we've been hearing about high
stakes cheating scams happening in online poker games. First came
collusion-type cheating engineered by players using multiple PCs and
multi-IP accounts. Then came poker "bots" whose software programs are
now believed capable of incorporating artificial intelligence into
strategy decisions. And finally, recent claims of hacking security
codes and high-tech money laundering through which criminals wash their
illicit earnings while playing poker online. But what about our good
old-fashioned low-tech poker rooms? Are they safe from high-tech
wizardry that crafty cheaters would use against unsuspecting players?
Well,
two years ago it appeared that they were safe. Other than some weak and
rather unprofessional attempts to use hidden computers to track played
cards (especially in Stud games) and calculate playing and betting
strategies with that knowledge, nothing much about sophisticated
technology was heard through the real-world poker-cheating grapevine.
But that began to change in 2005. In September of that year a woman
playing three-card poker at the Mint Casino in London, England, aroused
suspicion while winning at an exorbitant rate 34 of 44 hands that is
highly unlikely at that game. The same woman had been noted winning at
similar rates in other London casinos offering three-card poker.
Another thing Mint security officials observed that related to her
previous wins at the other casinos was a white van parked in the
proximity of the Mint’s front entrance.
An immediate on-site
investigation was launched, and the woman was found to be wearing a
harness on her arm that housed a tiny digital micro-camera, all of
which were covered by her sleeve. Sitting in the back of the van
outside, officers found a computer “techie” hunched over two computer
screens. One was for the live feed, the other to play the recordings of
what the woman’s hidden micro-camera was filming inside the casino: the
cards coming off the dealer’s pack as he dealt them facedown to the
players and himself. By positioning her arm on a downward slope from
the dealer’s hands as he dealt, the woman’s camera was able to film the
cards’ faces. Back in the van, the techie slowed down the digital
images on the screen and perfectly read the cards. He then relayed the
info back to the woman and a man at the table, also an accomplice,
through the hidden earpieces they wore. The two cheating players then
played their hands, having an enormous edge on the casino.
True,
three-card poker is not poker, but it is a step closer to it than say
blackjack or roulette. The game is certainly a poker derivative. But if
this incident were not enough to make you wary about possible goings-on
in our brick and mortar cardrooms, less than two years later, back in
July, we learned of another frighteningly high-tech scam that was
indeed poker, if not in a brick and mortar public cardroom. It was,
however, in a brick and mortar room.
Of course I am referring
to the highstakes private game scam in the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic
City, which took place just before the start of the Borgata Open,
Atlantic City’s preeminent poker tournament. For those of you
unfamiliar with the details, it happened in a luxury Borgata hotel
suite that was rigged with digital cameras in the walls. These cameras
filmed players’ hole cards while they peeked at them rather than when
the cards came off the dealer’s deck. In place of the van used in
London’s threecard poker scam was the hotel room next door to the
suite. That’s where two techies viewed the film work on laptop screens
and relayed the info to their cohorts playing in the high-stakes game
through the earpieces they wore.
It was very similar to the
London scam inasmuch as digital film and radio equipment were used to
film cards that were supposed to be unseen and transmit that
information back to the table. In fact, rumors circulated and still
persist that there was more to the Borgata scam than was released by
the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, and therefore the press. This
scam was not made public until early July, a month after it allegedly
got busted. Why? Early reports claimed that the scam was directly
connected to the Borgata Open and was in commission while the
tournament was taking place. The natural supposition in that case was
that the big tournament players’ hole cards were being secretly filmed
and that information given to a syndicate of tournament cheaters lined
up against them at the tables.
Whether or not this is true and
a coverup is in place to protect the integrity of bigtime tournament
play doesn’t really matter. The fact is that high-tech cheating has
arrived in brick and mortar poker and you need to be aware of it,
because in the future it will grow.
There are perhaps half a
dozen professional teams working with micro-cameras across the world,
but that number is about to increase. They operate in a similar fashion
to the London three-card poker team. Filming players’ hole cards in a
public cardroom scenario is generally too difficult if not impossible
altogether. The problem is that in spite of the most sophisticated
miniature digital camera equipment, cheaters still have to get the
right angle and viewpoint of players’ hole cards to film them. Most
poker players are already sufficiently wary of this. They naturally
protect their hole cards while peeking at them, in most cases keeping
them adequately hidden from any eyes lurking behind, either human or
those man-made and fitted into optic lenses. Unless cheaters had some
kind of tiny periscope hidden somewhere in the cushion of every player
spot on the table, effective filming of hole cards would not be viable.
But filming the faces of the cards coming off the deck during
the deal that’s a different story. This can be done with a master’s
proficiency. Just like the London trio filmed the cards coming off the
deck at the three-card poker table, a cheating team can very accurately
gauge the angles necessary to accomplish the same feat at the Texas
Hold’em and 7-card Stud tables. Of course particular dealers would
either inadvertently aid or hinder the efficiency achieved by the
cheaters, but there are many dealers out there who, from the right
angles, consistently expose enough of the downward spiraling cards’
faces to the tiny lenses up someone’s sleeve or hidden in a woman’s
open handbag.
Here’s the scenario to watch out for, or I
should say to be aware of because it’s very difficult to see even if
you’re watching for it. But you never know you just might see something
to clue you in. Ideally, the hightech team will have two people with
hidden micro-cameras on the table. This is not always possible due to
playing conditions at any given moment, but if the team is patient they
will not only get their cameramen to the game but into the positions
best suited for their covert operation. Generally, those positions are
the 2 and 3 seats to the dealers’ left and the 8 and 9 seats to their
right. These positions supply the cameras with the best angles and the
optimum fi elds of vision determined by the distances that the cards
travel from the top of the deck on their way to the felt in front of
the players. The cameras will nearly always miss several cards,
especially those dealt to the players in the 1 and 10 seats because of
the shorter distance; but in all cases they will pick up more than
enough cards to give the cheaters a monster edge in the game.
As
demonstrated by the three-card poker scam, the images will be slowed
down by a computer program and read clearly on monitors, then relayed
back to players at the table who are wearing invisible audio devices in
their ears. In most cases, the two players filming the cards will be
the only team members in the game: There would be no inherent profi t
in having a third player, unless, of course, the team wanted to get
into added collusion play (they’re already playing in collusion) with
another hand to participate in the whipsawing that sucks more money
into pots. But the third player really is not necessary and would
probably reduce the overall profi t, because in a tenhanded game they
would have three dead seats (their own money) instead of two.
If
you think this type of cheating would completely run over a Hold’em
game, you’re right. But consider what it would do to a Stud game! How
many hands are decided on that river card dealt face down? And dealers
tend to be more deliberate in their delivery of that last card to each
remaining player,which gives the cameras an even bigger window in which
to catch its image.
If you’re wondering about tournaments, the
threat of high-tech cheating is decidedly less, regardless of what may
have happened at the Borgata Open. Firstly, and especially in No Limit
events, players often risk getting knocked out in a single hand. This
would nullify whatever chips they had won up to that point since there
would, of course, be none left, and only the loss of entrance and rebuy
fees would stand.
Secondly, tournaments are much more
scrutinized by cardroom personnel, and many of them are already being
filmed by cameras that are supposed to be there. Imagine the scandal
that would brew if the network cameras discovered the illicit ones! And
thirdly, as there are always high-stakes cash games going on during all
the major tournaments, it is much more profitable for the high-tech
cheaters to join their low-tech counterparts in these games. So in
short, don’t worry much about high-tech tournament cheating unless
someone is using isotope imaging to mark the cards.
Isotope
imaging… what did I say! Is that another high-tech cheating formula
coming to brick and mortar poker? Not exactly, but there are high-tech
card marking schemes in the works. Can you guess what they entail?
Well, if there’s one technology that’s on the cutting edge of just
about everything, naturally it would be that same technology to take
poker cheating to new heights in the coming years. Of course I’m
talking about lasers.
We’ve already heard about laser scanners
in cell phones used to predict where roulette balls will land. Several
of these scams have proliferated, the most famous of which is the Ritz
Roulette Scam in 2004, where another trio of two men and a woman beat a
bunch of London casinos out of $3 million. The next step in laser
cheating technology is going to revolutionize marking cards at poker
tables. Forget all that invisible and disappearing daub that is the
avant-garde method of today’s advanced card-markers.
Within a
few years we will see, or at least suffer unknowingly, the effects of
tiny laser pens that card-markers will use to shoot beams onto the
backs of their hole cards, which will result in tiny discolorations
that can only be seen with special lenses and from certain angles. As
we are already familiar with laser-engraving technology for marking
everything from retail bar codes to paper, wood and plastic products,
the transformation to covertly marking the backs of playing cards is
just over the horizon. And these laser guns will be made to look like
the normal assortment of objects players routinely surround themselves
and their chips with at poker tables.
Are there any other
nefarious high-tech gadgets in the works to cheat you out of your money
in brick and mortar poker games? You bet. The only problem is that I
don’t yet know what they are. But as soon as I do, I will let you know.
I can tell you one thing now, however. The high-tech cheaters out there
are more determined than ever. They will go to great lengths to develop
products and strategies to remove you from your money. Don’t panic,
though just remain vigilant. Like in any poker game, if you get the
feeling that something not kosher is going on, just get up and go find
another game. Don’t hang around trying to figure out if someone at the
table is filming the deals or “beaming” the cards. It might be too
difficult.
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