time professional casino cheat who has madehimself available to the industry. In particular,people asked me questions pertaining notonly to my personal experiences <strong>and</strong> cheatingmethods, but also about various scams theyhad heard about or imagined.I was truly amazed at the level of inexperience<strong>and</strong> ignorance many people holdingimportant surveillance positions had. I wasnearly dumbfounded upon conversing with asurveillance shift director from a majorNevada casino. This person’s commentsabout detecting <strong>and</strong> setting up casinocheaters actually made me think of MickeyMantle, who once said, “Had I known I wasgoing to live this long, I would have taken bettercare of myself.” The words streakingacross my mind at that moment were, “Had Iknown surveillance departments were thisunknowledgeable, I would have been evenmore aggressive during my cheating career.”Another thing I learned at the WGPC washow underpaid surveillance people are, <strong>and</strong>how many people forego these careersbecause they often lead to “dead-end” situationsfor advancement <strong>and</strong> greater wages.That reality flabbergasted me. How can a pitboss earn significantly more than a surveillanceoperator? Or a casino shift boss twice asmuch as a director of surveillance? I mean,which employee is in a better position to savethe casino money — one who detects a majorscam before it walks out the door with thous<strong>and</strong>sof the casino’s bankroll or one whorates customers’ play <strong>and</strong> “generally” supervisesthe games? I am in no way demeaningthe value or job functions of casino floor staffs,but, in my opinion, key surveillance peopleare more important to casinos’ bottomlines.A good case in point is the major Mini-Baccarat scam I wrote about in last month’sissue of CEM. Someone like me would havewww.casinoenterprisemanagement.com47September 2007Casino Enterprise Management
detected that scam much earlier, but the factthat it went unchecked for so long is by nomeans the fault of surveillance operators.Why? Because we cannot expect them tocatch sophisticated cheating scams whenthey have not had the proper training to doso. In the old days, casino surveillance departmentswere staffed by people like me, excheaterswho knew the scams from firsth<strong>and</strong>experience. In today’s surveillance system,people behind the eye-in-the-sky are taughtabout scams by other people who weretaught about the same scams in the samefashion they’re now teaching them: mainlythrough videos <strong>and</strong> demonstrations. I am notcriticizing these methods, as they are theproduct of our technological revolution, butmore needs to be done.Remember, when you put a person who isnot scam savvy in charge of a surveillancedepartment, it’s like putting a pilot with arecreational license at the helm of a commercialairbus; he’s going to be unfamiliar with alot of the inner workings.In today’s modernized casino world, wemust educate floor staff <strong>and</strong> dealers on howto recognize basic <strong>and</strong> advanced scamsbecause, in spite of improvements to videosurveillance, cheaters are not backing down.Some are even capable of using technologicaladvances to their advantage, capitalizing oncasino floors’ real-time ignorance. A majorproblem with on-floor surveillance in today’scasinos is that the entire floor staff, from dealersup to casino managers, has become fartoo dependent on surveillance upstairs to dothis job for them. They rest self-assured that,because every square inch of casino space isvideotaped 24/7, no cheater can successfullypull off a significant scam. The commonbelief is that all scams will be caught by thecamera sooner rather than later.Maybe so, but what a fair amount of casinopersonnel don’t realize is that the cameracatches many scams that are ignored by thefloor staff. Floor personnel <strong>and</strong> pit bosses oftenfail to grasp that the order of process regardingsuspicious play or possible outright cheatingmoves is supposed to work from the bottomup. Many — even if only subconsciously— havetakenthe approach that, “Why should I worry aboutbeing so observant on the games? If anythinggoes down, the camera will tape it <strong>and</strong> my surveillancecolleague upstairs will run back thetape <strong>and</strong> catch it.” But this must work theother way. The person on the floor must initiatethe process. He must call surveillance <strong>and</strong>report his suspicions. Of course, this happenswhenever surveillance is called, but my pointis that surveillance is not called nearly enoughbecause floor personnel rely on their confidencein video surveillance. I have a proverbfor this: When on the floor, don’t rely on thecamera because the camera cannot tap you onthe shoulder <strong>and</strong> say, “Excuse me, Mr. orMadame Pit Boss, but the player on Mini-Bactable Number 3 just pulled a move.” Let’s notforget that cameras are no different than computers;they need input to give you output. Ifyou don’t tell them, they don’t tell you; thus,the cheaters’ secrets are protected.Had I known surveillancedepartments were thisunknowledgeable, I wouldhave been even moreaggressive during mycheating career.The Dealer’s ChecklistLet’s take my aviation analogy regardinginexperienced pilots flying super jumbo jets astep further. You all know that before any aircrafttakes off, there is a checklist that must beadhered to. Pilots must confirm that instrumentsare in good working order <strong>and</strong> that allpreparations for takeoff have been made.Why not initiate this process for casino dealers?What if they had a certain checklistbefore dealing cards, spinning Roulette balls<strong>and</strong> passing dice to Craps shooters? Wouldthis effectively reduce the casino’s risk ofbeing cheated?You bet.To give you a strong example of this, let’sreturn to my infamous “Savannah” move. Forthose unfamiliar with it, the move consistedof hiding a $5,000 chip under a $5 chipon even-money <strong>and</strong> 2-to-1 bets onthe bottom of Roulette layoutsso the dealer believed only$5 chips were placed there.This was done by jutting the $5 chip slightlyoff the $5,000 one. When the bet lost, I rakedit off the layout before the dealer could sweepit. When caught, I replaced it with two $5chips I had palmed in my other h<strong>and</strong>, goinginto a drunk routine to deaden suspicion <strong>and</strong>avoid surveillance. When the bet won, I waspaid either $5,005 or $10,010, depending onwhich bet had been placed. Naturally therewere surveillance verifications each time thebet won, but because it was a legitimate bet,the casinos had to pay.Never once did a dealer, floorperson or pitboss detect the $5,000 chip before I claimedthe winning bet, which made this the “perfectmove.”But was it really so perfect? Or could a simpleprocedural dealing tactic have rendered itimpossible? After casinos saw it hundreds oftimes <strong>and</strong> suspected something was wrongdespite the video evidence, you would thinkthey would have stopped it. And they couldhave. If Roulette dealers had been instructedto follow a checklist, with one of the itemsbeing to visually verify the bottom chips of alloutside bets, making sure that no high-valuechips were set there, I never would have gottenpaid on the move — not once!But this counter measure was never implementedby suspicious surveillance departments,nor were any other proceduralchanges made to give the casino a chance ofdefending itself against what was really a verysimple cheating move. Mental checklists canbe used by dealers to combat cheating on allthe table games. They will not wipe out cheating,but they will greatly reduce both failed<strong>and</strong> successful cheating attempts. I would saythat with effective dealer checklists (whichfloor people must make sure are beingadhered to by their dealers), overall cheatingon table games would be reduced by as muchas two-thirds.Lack of CommunicationI have found an integral shortage of communicationbetween personnel on the floor<strong>and</strong> observers in the surveillance room. Asidefrom basic regulations dictating when floorpersons should call surveillance, there has tobe a more h<strong>and</strong>s-on approach from both levelsof the casino. The simple performances ofverifying questionable bets <strong>and</strong> settling disputesbetween players <strong>and</strong> the casino are notenough. Both the person on the floor <strong>and</strong> inthe sky must be able to properly communicatea situation to the other, <strong>and</strong>, on top ofthat, inject some versatile thinking.Casino Enterprise Management September 200748www.casinoenterprisemanagement.com
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