cheating the house.

Cheaters never prosper? Think again. From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

Blink and you'll miss him: Casino cheat shows how subtle moves squeezed out cash

By ARNOLD M. KNIGHTLY

Richard Marcus claims to have made more than a healthy living cheating casinos all over the world.

It is a claim that has to be taken on faith because he was never caught.

"I looked at what I did as an art," said Marcus, who said his teams took casinos around the world for $20 million. "Let's face it, who's going to feel sorry for a casino?" Read more.

This cat does a little moral equivocating on his own life of crime, but I still can't help but be captivated by the stories. As a former dealer, we were always told to be on the look-out for scams. As a brand new dice dealer, I was part of a crew that got taken for about $80,000. It is not a day of which I am proud; except for one fact: I was the one who told my box man they were sliding the dice. Was I ignored? Sort of. See, I was dealing with a seasoned crew; a couple of which were (in my view) a-holes who didn't respect me. Therefore, nobody was going to listen to me. In fact, they wouldn't even let me tap in on stick, thinking I wasn't able to handle it. Ironically, that "seasoned" crew got taken left and right while I was the one leaning into my box man saying, "dude, they're sliding the dice....dude, they're sliding the dice!"

That was not a fun week for me at all. There were reports to fill out. I had meetings with the games manager. People got suspended. I was fearful of getting fired, honestly. I chose to go directly to the people in charge and ask them what was going to happen to me, if anything. In the end, nobody got fired. I think one person got suspended. And the dice pit was, for a short period, on edge for the scam.

I'm certain one of our regular dice players—a very nice guy, I should add—got permanent eviction for jumping in and collaborating with the scammers. It didn't immediately register to me that he was in on it because he didn't get involved until midway through the scam. He was a mid-level player. Next thing I know, he's throwing out a $500 chip on a hard eight. WTF? At the moment I didn't put two and two together, but he was booking bets with the scammers' money. I knew it was out of character behavior for him (one thing dice dealers are good at is anticipating players' action). So much so that when he first booked the bet I stopped and looked right at him and say, "huh?" Should I have caught on? I suppose.

What was the scam? It was so simple it was genius. It was a crew of about eight men. Some were wearing clothes purchased in our gift shop, emblazened with our casino logo on them. They were polite, calm, soft-spoken and friendly. They made certain to say please and thank you as well as call each dealer by name. And oh yeah, they were booking bets for the dealers; anywhere from $25-$100. In other words: they were softening the crew.

Second, they all spread out around the table and booked heavy action on the hard-ways. $100, $500 and so on. They booked their bets all out of sequence, so the stick man's head was always on a swivel, Hell, all our heads were on a swivel!

Third, everybody at the table passed the dice to the same shooter. Over and over again. It's not uncommon for a player or two to defer dice shooting duties. But an entire table? Rare!

Fourth, in addition to booking bets while the dice were in the middle, they'd book more bets when the dice was out. What does that do? Not too much, but it's an attempt at distraction. But here's what else they did while the dice were sent to the shooter: a few different players—one near the base dealer and another next to stick—would throw a fan of cash on the layout asking for action out of it. DISTRACTION! Not only does that force the base dealers and box man to quickly react, the player obstructs the view of the stickman just as the dice are thrown.

Fifth—and here's what makes the whole scam a success—the shooter is sliding the dice. Not both of them, but one of them. The rule on a dice game is the shooter must get air under the dice when he/she throws them. If not, the roll can be disqualified (a "no roll" is called immediately). So how is it three dealers a box man and a floor missed it? Everybody was distracted. I never saw photos from the game, but I would bet everybody's heads were in different directions when the dice were being handled and thrown/slid.

Like I said, they took us for about $80,000 and the dealers dropped a ton of tokes on that game. The casino considered withholding our tokes, but eventually dropped that idea.

It was a simple plan and it was executed nearly flawlessly. And it opened up a discussion in the dice pit that needed to be opened: who can call a 'no roll'? I was taught anybody on the game can call a 'no roll'. Some box and floor people told me I was wrong. Truth is, I was right. I was right all along. But nobody listened to me. I really hated some of those people on that shift because they were smug, condescending and swept up in their own high school drama that they failed to recognize I could deal circles around half of them.

I take solace in knowing that.

Okay, story-time is over. Get to bed! :-)