http://intergameonline.com/casino/news/7......-3-years

3 years... Those guys are just idiots. They would have stop after a few months no one would ever have caught them.

Mmm, Maybe I am missing something....

The only type of shoe camera I have seen was the type which is like a prism shoe except is uses a camera. These shoes should not emit a red light if designed properly.

On the other hand if they were trying to "peek" cards as they were dealt, this would also be difficult since cards are usually slid and not lifted off the table to players and dealer ? I wonder if the dealers were in on it to help lift the cards slightly ?

Also, after 3 years, they must have had inside access to change batteries in the shoe ?

Mmmm, interesting.

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......um=188&4

@AMcD:
I would have to respectfully disagree with that Arnold. When you have a serious scam going and the team is making big money, it is almost impossible to stop and even harder after three months. Also, the details are lacking as to the frequency of the scamming. Were they making a play once a month, once every two months, once a day, what was the size of the plays, etc.??? That information is not given and without that information it would be hard to come to any valid conclusions IMHO.

@ExpertMagician:
They call it a dealing “box” which is an fuzzy and inaccurate statement as to what the dealing mechanism was. Was it a shoe, was it a shuffle machine and if so who was the manufacturer? Yes, you can read the cards out of certain “boxes” and have that information transmitted in "different" ways. You really don’t need the dealer to do this.

Once again, without sufficient accurate information, most of this is conjecture. The second link givien by NFS gives more complete details.


After three years, is almost goes without saying the some on the inside were involved for this type play. In fact, the second link alludes to such fact.

It don't matter what it is, this stuff, drug dealing, scams, whatever. You get away with it once and greed automatically takes over and enough is never enough. Everybody always starts out with the "We will use restraint and not get greedy" line and it disappears faster than you can say Abra Cadabra, lol.

Let me tell a small story : Years ago I used to hang around this club in Brooklyn and I was about 20 and we used to play cards and do this and that till the older guys had somethign for us to do. Anyway, there was this one guy who used to frequent the club to play ziganette on sat nights, nice guy , not loud or flashy or trying to play a role, very low key.
In fact this guy lived about a block away from the place in Gravesend, nice middle class house, nothing extreme or fancy.

Anyway, one day we hear the feds pinched him and turns out the guy owned the house he was living in and the one connected to it as these were row houses. In the other house, they found over 10 mil in cash ! The guy was dealing junk for years and no one had a clue but he finally got popped. Now if the feds found that much, I wonder how much he had stashed in other places. The point of this is the guy was rich 100 times over but he kept it up and wouldnt stop because he figured he wouldnt get caught. Its always that way, always, with few exceptions.

I get your points my friends, but... what's the point not to stop knowing you'll be caught one day or another? I can assure you that if I made 10 millions bucks I'd get retired!

The way to work things like this, things that you know will come on top sooner or later, is to use to front men. Welcome to the layer cake.

You are 100% right, Tony. Once you start you can’t stop. In fact you don’t want to stop. I can give a few stories on this, but I will just give one.

I knew a fellow that had been a dealer all his life and was approaching retirement age. He knew he was not going anywhere in the gambling business and with retirement age coming up the prospect of living on Social Security was dismal to say the least. He figured he had two to four years left in the business and needed a retirement nest egg. So he started to swing with the chips on the game and he never did any stealing before in his life.

Keep in mind this was a top action joint on the Las Vegas strip and he usually dealt the big games because he was a very good dealer, had worked for the joint for many years, had a nice low key personality and was a very pleasant fellow. When he realized he that all that sophisticated and intimidating surveillance, the pit bosses and the floormen were basically paper tigers, he really started to move. It was routine for him to steal $4,000 to $5,000 a night on most nights, mostly in $100 chips with an occasional $500 or $1,000 chip thrown in to make it interesting. It got to the point where he loved going to work. What used to be dull and routine every night was now exciting and exhilarating.

He used a few closed mouthed and professional mules to cash out the chips. To cash out $10,000 or more on a busy weekend is really not difficult at for one person. In fact it is quite easy if you know what you have to do not to get heat. (How to do that would be inappropriate to explain.) He knew eventually he would get caught and a couple of closed mouthed personal friends told him to prepare for that eventuality and to make sure he stashed away as much as possible. He was also told he would probably get caught by accident or by one of the players on the game. He was aware of that inevitable outcome but was determined to steal as much as he could until they stopped him. He could not stop on his own and give up all that future money.

He was eventually caught by a player on the game who though he was swinging and told one of the higher ups of his suspicions. Surveillance zoomed in they reported that it seems like he was swinging but could not be 100% certain. He was pulled off the game, rousted, was prosecuted but got a slap on the wrist with no felony or jail time. He ended up with a jacket and can never work in gaming again, not that he really wants to at this point. I know for a fact his end was over several hundred thousand dollars in tax free cash, more than he ever had in his entire life.

The point is I never met anyone who was making very serious money scamming who could stop. Usually they have to get nailed or get some very serious heat where they can’t move any more to make them stop.

In any event, I hope this old-timer is enjoying his retirement because he sure as hell doesn’t need to pump in these joints any more.

Of course I strong distain and condemn doing anything as nefarious and naughty as stealing from a casino, but is seem like it was a happy ending for this gentleman.

Of course, making 10 million dollars and stealing 10 million are two different things. If you are talking about stealing 10 million, you would never get to that point or even close. It is precisely because these guys keep going and don’t stop is what enables them to make that kind of money in the first place.

The honest people who intellectually discuss something like this will never steal any significant money in their lives precisely because of that attitude or understand people who do this and keep going.

Nothing wrong with being honest.

Absolutely. Makes me wonder about the story behind some guys. Tony Giorgio comes to mind.

What you mean exactly Nich?

From what I understand he gave up hustling in the '60s quite abruptly. Something happened.

Same goes for a handful of other interesting men that I never got the full story of.

its just crazy, I know a couple of guys like this in vegas who eventually got pinched, the thing is, they werent even raking a significant amout a night...a player find out what these guys were doing(these guys werent subtle in their moves at all) and surveillance was called...one guy was already at his retirement age, and the other one who was close, now cant get a gaming job.

Someone might have put the fear of god into him, looking down the barrel of a gun or getting a good working over makes you re-evaluate things. Who knows ?

One thing I was thinking of : Say youre part of a team that's taking places off, I'm wondering if the places can have RICO charges filed on you, especially if youre crossing state lines. Its a federal charge but I'm sure the joints can get the feds interested real easily if they want to and its someone who is a constant thorn in their sides. If that happens, guys better find a new line of work, RICO is nothing to fool with.

With that kind of attitude, what's the point of starting anything at all? Just stay safe in your bedroom and you'll never get caught.

Cheat at play is a surprisingly tolerated crime, and very sticky to prosecute. In many jurisdictions the ramifications just aren't what you guys would expect them to be. For many of the more organized/successful teams, getting caught is just another bump in the road and is figured into their cost of doing business. This is especially true of groups that (as Tommy pointed out) have a uninvolved mastermind, and the play is executed by lackeys who have a taste for fast money.

Of course the plan is to limit your chances of being caught to a single instance, not your entire three years of activity.

Now this guy has the Feds to contend with, funny I was just thinking about this yesterday, lol.



Casino scam suspect held
Updated: May 17, 2012 |7:52 a.m.
De Rong Shang has a habit of cheating casinos out of big bucks - now federal authorities say they are looking to break it.

The Chinese-born Shang, 50, a Southern California man convicted earlier this year of defrauding Station Casinos out of $1 million in a baccarat credit scheme, has become a key figure in a new FBI investigation into a similar, larger scam on the Strip.

In persuading a federal judge to revoke Shang's bail last week, prosecutors alleged that Shang, while awaiting trial, was part of another group that "scammed Las Vegas casinos out of millions of dollars by cheating at baccarat."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Duncan provided few details of the scheme in court papers, but he said Shang's group may have defrauded Paris Las Vegas out of $550,000 last October.

Federal authorities obtained a surveillance photo of Shang at the Paris on Oct. 12.

"The defendant was also identified as part of a group attempting to conduct the same scam at Caesars Palace on Oct. 9 and Oct. 12," Duncan wrote.

In all, Duncan said, "multiple casinos" were victimized.

He said Shang's presence at Paris and Caesars Palace and his alleged involvement in the new scam violated the terms of his pretrial release.

Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt bought Duncan's argument. He ordered Shang detained in federal custody following a hastily called hearing Friday that took place before federal immigration officials could launch proceedings to deport Shang to China.

Shang is a Chinese citizen who came to the United States in 1991, prosecutors have said. Duncan told Hunt in his court papers that Shang decided not to fight his deportation, which likely would have allowed him to be sent back to China before his July 16 sentencing.

"It appears to the government that the defendant is attempting to use the removal process to flee from punishment in his criminal case," Duncan wrote.

FBI officials declined to comment on the latest baccarat investigation.

Jerry Markling, chief of enforcement for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said he is aware of Shang's previous casino fraud case, but has no knowledge of the newest FBI investigation.

Details of how Shang's scam worked surfaced in the Station Casinos case.

Shang was convicted March 27 of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 22 counts of wire fraud following a two-week trial before Hunt. He faces up to 360 years in prison and $4.5 million in fines, according to prosecutors.

His co-defendant in the case, Yuli Eaton, 47, of Southern California, pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Hunt is to sentence him on June 8.

The credit scheme unfolded between December 2006 and April 2007 at a local bank and three Station Casinos - Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch and Palace Station, prosecutors alleged.

Shang and Eaton recruited people to open Bank of America accounts funded by Shang. Then, Shang helped the recruits apply for lines of credit at the casinos.

Once the lines of credit were approved, the recruits transferred the money from their accounts to Shang's account.

The recruits, who were paid $300 for every $10,000 line of credit they received, withdrew chips from their lines of credit and played baccarat at the casinos, prosecutors alleged.

They carried out a scam known as "rolling the chips" to make it look as though they were losing money, when in fact they were just hiding chips and giving them to other co-conspirators.

Shang ended up cashing in the chips, prosecutors alleged.

By the time the casinos tried to collect the unpaid markers, the accounts had been drained or closed.

"Shang deceived the casinos into believing that the recruits had sufficient funds to pay back the casinos," Duncan wrote in previous court papers. "In doing so, the defendant caused monetary losses to the casinos while enriching himself with proceeds from the fraudulent scheme."

360 years of prison. Hahaha, you, Americans, are great! In my country he would probably face a reprimand from the judge...

Yes, but he won't have to serve the full term. He probably will get probation after the first 100 years for good behavior. LOL

Is is strange why guys cheat in the USA casino's at all with those sort of sentences they face if caught when they could just hope on a plane and do it in places with far less risk in terms of the sentences they would face if caught.