Friday, September 30, 2016

Nevada Gaming Control Board Enforcement Division Chief Gives the Lowdown on Casino Cheating

NGCB Chief on Cheating
James Taylor, the deputy chief Of the NGCB's Enforcement Division, told a packed seminar room at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas that casino cheating and scams are on the rise and that 25% of Nevada's casino cheats are the casinos' own employees.

He spoke about a wide range of casino-cheat activities, everything from high-tech scams to desperados grabbing players' chips off the tables and running out the doors.

Ironically, he said that these chip grab-and-run scams are the state's biggest casino-cheat headache and are also the hardest to stop and catch the cheats involved.

He said that casino cheats are becoming more sophisticated with high-tech scams like marking cards with invisible ink and reading them with special glasses or contact lenses

He also expressed his sadness that so much casino management was involved in crimes against the casinos they work at.

You can read the complete news article here.

My take: I agree with Mr. Taylor when he says that the basic scams are often the most difficult to stop. After all, my notorious Savannah scam was so easy and basic but the casinos could never figure it out--not even with an FBI investigation!

Thursday, September 29, 2016

BrainChip Technology to Further Thwart Casino Cheats?

Brain Chip or Brain Dud?
A high-tech company out of Australia called BrainChip says it has developed a new technology called Game Outcome that will greatly help casinos catch the highest level cheats at the baccarat tables as well as throughout the whole casino. BrainChip says its new technology will also catch dealer errors and make sure that players at the tables receive their fair share of comps based on their betting action.

The technology works by using video streams from standard surveillance cameras that recognizes sequences of played cards, proper dealing techniques in conjunction with winning hands and proper payouts. A spokesman for the company claimed the technology was like having a full time surveillance operator assigned to every gaming table in the casino.

BrainChip says their technology could save casinos up to $50 million per year.

For more on this read the newspaper article.

My take: This sounds to me like another over-hyped method of detecting and stopping cheating at poker and casinos, much the way all that biometrica surveillance stuff supposedly spots casino cheats entering target casinos before they even get their clothes on at home.

Besides, is saving $50 per year in casinos worldwide such a big deal?