If there is a will there is a way. Many times they don't get caught right away as it isn't obvious. They get greedy.
The guy who scammed las Vegas slots
Casino chip forger
The gambler who beat roulette
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
The guy who scammed las Vegas slots
Casino chip forger
Don't even have to do that. That's pretty common any time multiple decks are placed into the shuffling machine. I've talked to blackjack dealers while they were inserting into a shuffling machine, and they showed the whole thing where they manually flipped half the cards. Or sometimes the prescribed procedure was to alternate orientation for about a deck's worth. Flip about 52 cards, maintain the next 52, flip another 52, etc.
But what happened here was they were big players where the house believes they will still win in the long run, and having them play will eventually net them a profit. That's why they were meeting all their demands, because if they didn't they might just go to the next casino.
Apparently the purple Gemaco card had a high rate of imperfectly cut cards. But there were certainly other cards where they could scout for imperfections and ask for all the things that would allow them to edge sort.
Rio is still open, but it was sold in 2019 with Caeser's operating it until 2023. It's now affiliated with Hyatt.
https://investor.caesars.com/news-r...ent-completes-sale-rio-dreamscape-company-led
https://newsroom.hyatt.com/news-releases?item=124469
https://www.riolasvegas.com
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
I had my time ..... glad to say very many years ago when I thought gambling was fun and one could win. No real big gambling but enough to know with my addictive personality to STOP. Before I did 100%, I did start to stay out of casinos. Instead, (still another from of gambling) was purchasing the odd state run gambling/scratch cards. Prices from $1 thru $20 around here when I would gas up and go inside to purchase local news paper. So, I tried them all a few (too many times) and won and lost. One day I purchased a $2 ticket and it was a $10,000 winner. I know myself very well. So, I went and cashed it. Our state actually kept $3000 on the spot for taxes! I took the remaining money and told the wife, showed her the ticket. I told her since oldest son just started a family and youngest is graduating college and getting married , lets take the money and give each one half. She agreed and that is where it went. I knew if I kept that money I would end up gambling some of it and then waste most buying things we did not need. I did buy a nice 9mm pistol with some.
I rarely buy scratchers, but I'll buy a single PowerBall ticket.
There was a couple that figured a way to beat the lottery based on simple math. It was a game they saw in their home state of Michigan, where at a certain point the prizes "fall down" to the next level. He figured that when this kicked in, it was almost assured they would win unless someone won the jackpot. Jackpots were somewhat rare and how the game was supposed to work where the jackpot builds up. They set up a corporation and accepted investments. But later the game ended (supposedly due to low sales) but they found a similar game in Massachussets. They apparently had to contend with a similar group at MIT. There was a movie based on their story, but the movie had a group from Harvard.
After nine years, the Selbees had grossed over $27 million in winning tickets – for a net profit of $7.75 million before taxes. That's when a Boston newspaper started investigating locations where lottery tickets were being sold at an extraordinary volume. That triggered an investigation by the Inspector General. But, the Selbees had been playing by the rules. The lottery had worked the way it was designed to work.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jerry_and_marge_go_large
Maybe it was already covered - but there was a group from MIT that figured out how to beet the casino's at blackjack in the 70's. I saw a documentary on it.
They would count cards. However the person counting cards would just sit at the table and bet the same minimum every hand. When the deck was getting rich (lots of face cards) they would somehow signal someone else - usually a guy with a pretty girl - who would just walk up and start making max bets to much fanfare. If they won they would take there money and go. Meanwhile the same card counter would stay, continuing to bet minimum bet for some time.
They were smart. I mentioned MIT right. They would move casino to casino, use multiple groups, and never take too much.
As casino security tactics became better, they were eventually mostly caught and banned from the casino's.
Fun story still
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team
They would count cards. However the person counting cards would just sit at the table and bet the same minimum every hand. When the deck was getting rich (lots of face cards) they would somehow signal someone else - usually a guy with a pretty girl - who would just walk up and start making max bets to much fanfare. If they won they would take there money and go. Meanwhile the same card counter would stay, continuing to bet minimum bet for some time.
They were smart. I mentioned MIT right. They would move casino to casino, use multiple groups, and never take too much.
As casino security tactics became better, they were eventually mostly caught and banned from the casino's.
Fun story still
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team
I think it was mentioned. But they weren't the first to employ team play. Al Francesco is credited as the originator of team play with a "big player". This notes that he used to watch his brother (a small time card counter) play in Lake Tahoe in the 60s, where he'd bet between $1 and $5, which didn't attract the attention of the house. But if he saw a $5 bet he'd put down a $100 bet himself. He later turned that into team play.
https://www.blackjackreview.com/wp/encyclopedia/f/al-francesco/
I "beat" roulette last weekend in vegas. Played for a couple hours and ended up 0.66 ahead. My goal was to waste time while my wife and her family played. Watch out for the new 000 scam. That makes the odds so much worse
One casino group (MGM) basically just banned Kelly Sun - even before she and Ivey went on their big spree. But apparently they didn't share anything with other casinos. One guy working there said that the $1 million or so she got from them was pretty cheap in terms of them learning about how to avoid a certain "advantage play".
I also found a used deck of the Gemaco Traditional Series cards (the ones preferred by Kelly Sun) in my house. Not sure when I got it, but it's from a defunct casino. I'm seeing a wide range in being off-center. I suppose the used cards often get assembled from different tables, but I've heard that cards from the same production run tend to be pretty consistent in terms of how off-center they are. But this one is possibly the most off center. This one is easy to tell if sorted. A tiny bit of the circles on the left, and a bigger piece of the circles on the right. I hear it's also possible to sort along the shorter edge. But Kelly Sun said she studied the cards for a while and practiced it for a long time.
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
T
thanks for sharing the card, easy to see with the picture, hard to grasp without the photo.
I've seen some vids that show the exact ones. She had a thing for the purple Gemaco Traditional Series which I heard were used by Borgata and Crockfords. Something about it being far more likely to be off-center. The graphic I found a few years ago showed a diamond pattern cut off center, which can still be edge sorted. But with the Gemaco cards, it's really obvious if you know what to look for - especially with that particular card. I'm thinking that she probably had to scout different casinos to find cards that were suitable for their attempts to edge sort. I'm sure that sometimes they just played through a shoe and stopped playing.
But once I found my old deck, I had to give it a look to see if my cards had that issue.
A six deck shoe is probably better for card counting, if using a simple system like hi-lo. It's more likely to go into deeper counts. It's beneficial if the running count is high, meaning that the remaining cards have a higher proportion of 10s/aces.
2-6 +1
7-9 +0
J/Q/K/A -1
And Rain Man just made no sense. He was somehow predicting whether or not it would work to hit. In reality, most would play a basic strategy but increase the bet when the remaining cards in the deck are favorable to the player. I've heard there are some more advanced strategies that might involve shifting the hit/stand/double strategy depending on what's left in the deck. That might require perfect recall. But it wouldn't create massive winning streaks, but maybe just increase the odds slightly to the player's favor.
Here’s another case from over a decade ago. Some card makers provide “certified” pre-shuffled packs of cards, that reduce the time it takes. The players noticed a pattern and kept on winning at baccarat because they knew the order of the cards, which were a pattern that repeated every 52 cards. That style of baccarat is purely deterministic. Every shoe will have a predetermined outcome because there are fixed rules with no player input like in blackjack. And players have these sheets (often provided by the casino) to track previous plays. They noticed this and figured the pattern was repeating and bet big knowing where to bet. I’m guessing there were also ties, which win big for the bet.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unshuffled-cards-a-costly-headache-for-casinos/
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/new...th-gamblers-in-unshuffled-cards-case/1940008/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unshuffled-cards-a-costly-headache-for-casinos/
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/new...th-gamblers-in-unshuffled-cards-case/1940008/
Here’s another interview just with Kelly Sun. She goes in depth. Says that she could sort different card backs, and not just purple Gemaco. Sounds like she made a lot of money even without Phil Ivey.
I learned to play Video Poker before I moved to Reno in the 90’s. There were a lot of positive play games and casinos had generous comps, cash back, and giveaways. I almost strictly played $0.25 games. $1.25/hand. Playing 800 hands per hour could generate about $2.25/hr on cashback alone. Expected return on the deuces wild games was $7/hr if you played well. Hard work to make less than $10/hr but fun to “beat the casinos”. I’m good at math, learned to count and look for tables with favorable rules, but was too slow to count cards. I played blackjack match plays, entered dozens of slot tourneys, and took advantage of giveaways. Also they came out with bankable slots at that time and those were often positive: Wild Cherry Pie, Double Diamond Mine, etc. I never got the big big one but still made a few bucks, saw a lot of free concerts and ate a lot of free crab legs. In the past 20 years casinos have really cracked down on advantage plays in video poker and slots. Blackjack is now mostly a joke. Good times.
Fun fact, Snopes was an advantage player.
Fun fact, Snopes was an advantage player.
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
Listened to the YouTube audio. Very interesting, yet gives anxiety. Gambling is a death sentence sooner or later for all that participate. For the player, financial collapse and heartbreak to family and friends. For the dealer and casino worker, lung cancer at a minimum. And for the casino owner/ operator---- a forever stain on your life, having been a exploiter of your fellow man.