Wow. Want to know how you and your crew can win big at the casino? It will require cheating. This surveillance video shows how a group of scammers took a San Diego casino for millions with an elaborate, multi-person card cheating operation: Video Reveals Methods Of Casino Cheating Ring.
The team, assembled by ringleader Phuong Quoc Truong aka "Pai Gow" John, -- a former casino dealer -- was arrested back in 2007 when they were caught in a complicated operation involving bribed dealers, false shuffles, cell phones, transmitters and card-tracking software. Here's how it worked:
According to the indictment, here are the steps the Tran Organization used to commit the crimes:More here.The group was eventually caught because someone, possibly one of the dealers they tried to recruit, tipped off the FBI. When someone inevitably makes a movie about these guys, you know they'll change all the characters into white guys. Then again, maybe not. They got caught, after all. (Thanks, Wayne.)
Four members of the organization developed the scheme and recruited and trained others to participate.
Once in the casino, the card recorder would track the order of the cards played in the game.
Previously bribed dealers would perform a false shuffle with the decks and return the cards to the shoe, thereby creating the slug. Pit bosses were sometimes bribed to look the other way.
Once the slug was identified, the card recorder would signal, either by hand or through the use of electronic earpieces, the other members of the group to increase the size of their bets on the predicted winning hands. l Players could win significant amounts of money in short periods of time. According to the indictment, in one 90-minute session, the Tran Organization took in about $868,000.
The organization would distribute large chip winnings among several members to avoid the federally mandated reporting limit (above $10,000).
