Tuesday, July 04, 2017

New Bahamian Casino hit by major Roulette Chip-Color Scam

How much is each stack worth?
I am a bit late in reporting this as it happened two months ago in the end of April, but it is a significant piece of news in the casino-cheating world.

Two American casino cheats from Florida hit the new Baha Mar casino with the already infamous roulette chip-color scam, a scam scene quite often in the continental US but not seen before in the Caribbean as far as I know. That's to say I've read no reports about it until now.

The scam is simply to obtain a color of non-redeemable roulette chips at one roulette table and then bring them to a second roulette chip where those chips are put into play where the same color chips at the second table have a higher established value than they did at the first. It is always done with at least two cheats partnering up and in some cases a whole team.

At the Baha Mar in Nassau, one unnamed roulette chips bought in and played at the first table and then handed them off a stack of those chips to a second unnamed roulette cheat who played them at a much higher denomination than for what the first cheat had paid for. Details are sketchy, but according to Bahamian police the pair made off with $6,000 in profits due to the difference in chip denominations.

Their scam came apart when a casino employee noticed the first cheat subtly pocketing roulette chips on several occasions and then heading off to the bathroom, where he must have given them to his cohort.

The $6,000 scam proved to be quite expensive for the pair of Floridian casino cheats. A Bahamian chief magistrate listened to the two tell her that they were pressured from a third man to participate in the scam before she sentenced them to two years in prison each.

My take: Definitely a heavy sentence for a low-level/low tech casino scam. I guess sometimes even the Bahamians are not so mellow!