Since the emergence of casinos, of course, there were those who wanted to get a big score, not relying only on luck. However, it is not easy to pull a scam and empty a casino; especially if it is an online casino, like the ones from top10bestcasino. But there are con artists who were able to become famous for their cunning.
Crown Casino Scam in 2013
The biggest scam that brought in $32 million in winnings was the Crown Casino scam in 2013. Fraudsters managed to pull off identical actions of the characters of the movie “Ocean’s Eleven”. They acted together with an expert on security systems; who hacked into the casino security system and analyzed data from surveillance cameras and then passed the information to his accomplices. The players then made only winning bets. Internal investigation of casino security helped to expose the culprits. It was conducted after a suspicious series of winnings of one of the players.
Phuong Quoc Truong Cheat
No less famous was scammer Phuong Quoc Truong with his elaborate plan. It took more than a year to work out the script of the scam; and the plan itself included the recruitment of several people. Phuong rode around major casinos offering dealers to earn money for helping with the scenario. In all, he was able to recruit 30 people. The dealer’s job was to create the illusion of shuffling a deck of cards. At the same time, one of the players transmitted information about the cards to the second through a hidden microphone. To communicate, the perpetrators used cigarettes, as smoking did not arouse any suspicion. At the end of the instruction, the accomplice folded his fingers in the prescribed manner. But in the end, the scammers were still caught.
“Invisible” tags
Another famous trick was the use of infrared tagging by a group of crooks. However, it would have been impossible to pull this off if the group did not include a croupier and a casino administrator. The cards were marked with infrared ink which could not be seen without special lenses; and the markings could be read up to 4 meters away. On the whole, the group of swindlers managed to operate this method of gambling for more than 2 years; during which time they did not arouse the slightest suspicion.
Giardina Tim’s cheats
At the end of 2014, it became known about another sly counterfeit chip scam by Tim Giardina. Giardina himself was a deputy head of the U.S. Treasury Department and was repeatedly caught cheating. For example, at an Iowa casino, he tried to use stickers to change the denomination of the chips from $1 to $500. He was caught hot on the trail and at first, claimed he bought the chips from a stranger in the bathroom. But some time later he changed his statement to that the chips were found by accident. The investigation examined the inside of the stickers and found a complete match to Tim’s genetic code. The investigation revealed that Rear Admiral spent an average of about fifteen hours a week gambling.
Keith Taft’s Cheat
A few years before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs launched the personal computer, Keith Taft, a member of a Baptist church, managed to build a computer that helped him win at blackjack. In 1972, no one could even think about the existence of such devices, and there were no rules against their use. While playing at the table, Keith used his toes to input information about the cards into the memory of the machine. After analyzing the data, the computer gave information about the remaining cards through the blinking lights in the frame of his glasses. It took a long time, and many people used the technology before it was discovered.
Cheat by Richard Marcus
An old tried-and-true trick was made famous by con artist Richard Marcus. Playing in Las Vegas casinos, he pretended to be drunk. Sitting at the table, he put a stack of two chips crookedly, so that the bottom could not distinguish the denomination. Naturally, the unsuspecting dealer, seeing the top chip with a face value of $5, did not assume the enormous value of the bottom one. And when Richard lost, he simply raked the chips back, which is a gross violation of casino rules. However, who would want to fight with a drunken customer over those pennies. When Richard won, he would cheer loudly and draw attention to himself, and the dealer would be completely puzzled when he saw the denomination of the bottom chip. And no one would have suspected fraud in this trick if Marcus had not begun to write his detailed memoirs.
Hacking Casino scam
As the technology evolved, so did the methods of conducting casino scams. And no less famous was the hacking of the slot machine by Denis Nikrash. The difficulty was that the slot machines were not connected to the Internet, and this is usually a critical indicator for the hacker. Denis was not deterred by this indicator. First, he got his own slot machine for training. Then he upgraded the internal processor modules, which gave him the ability to constantly win, but only within the limits of his device.
So to install the modified processors in casino slot machines, Denis purchased a special key on the black market. After that, he found a small team of accomplices, whose only task was to cover the swindler from the surveillance cameras. The whole operation to replace the processors took less than a minute; and it was time to start collecting the jackpot from the slot machine. Unfortunately for Denis, his own accomplices turned the crook over to the FBI.
The Radio Control Casino scam
In 1973, the world became aware of the radio-controlled balloon scam. It involved a croupier, his son-in-law, and his sister. The son-in-law’s job was to portray the player, while his sister was to sit at the next table. The chief swindler was the croupier, whose hobby was the manufacture of radio components. He managed to make and place a radio transmitter in a small ball, which was made to order. The croupier’s job was no different than usual, and his son-in-law had to make big bets.
At this time, his sister, who was sitting at a nearby table, would turn on a radio transmitter disguised as a cigarette packet, which would cause the ball to fall into one of the six holes. In all, the crooks were able to win more than five million francs in a week. The security service would not have been able to expose the cheaters if it were not for the chance. The owner of the institution liked the croupier’s sister, and having paid attention to her, the owner noticed some strange things. After all, she always played alone and always lost without any emotion. In addition, she always had a pack of cigarettes in her hands, but no one saw the girl go out to smoke. That’s how the scam was uncovered.
The Rosselli brothers’ scam
History is also known for the Rosselli brothers scam, which managed to ruin casinos in Puerto Rico and Nevada for five years without making any investments at all. The essence of the scam was the use of the personal data of the players. The scammers hired a hacker who was able to download for them the closed data of credit systems. Using this information, the brothers opened bank accounts into which they transferred up to $50,000, which allowed them to open a line of credit at any casino in the state. All of the actions were elaborate, which allowed the scam to last from 1995 to 2000.
A scam without a game
And finally, a Casino scam perpetrated by a group of 14 people who did not even have to go to a casino to steal a substantial sum of money. They needed only to buy a plastic card and comply with certain conditions, which allowed the criminals to earn about one million dollars. They used ATM machines at some of the largest casinos in California and Nevada. Thanks to the security hole, the crooks were able to make several unrecorded transactions in a single minute. And because card limits were not exceeded, the FBI was unable to figure out what was going on for a long time.