The High-Tech Cheating Tactic Raising Alarms Among Poker Players

Traditional casinos are hip to helping spot fraud, like having spotters and card counters at the game table. However, with so much tech, dishonest players now have a new weapon to try to game the system. Recently, in France, two dishonest players reinvented the wheel when it comes to card counting. Card counting is where players make mental notes or have spotters keep track of the high-value cards, like tens and royalty cards, that have been dealt.

However, the fraud team used a cell phone to secretly record dealt cards at more than one casinos. So, not only were they helping themselves, but they had an organized network to try to game multiple casinos at once. While the idea of using a cell phone to record was unique, how they went about it wasn’t exactly ideal. Quite frankly, the couple got so sloppy recording the dealers' dealings that they quickly got on the radar of the casino staff.

The unlucky duo were quickly arrested on fraud charges at an Enghien-les-Bains Casino. While they didn’t overtly film the poker dealers and players playing. The couple, nonetheless, managed to install micro cameras to film secretly. One player would play at the table while the other would play blackjack or other games like poker. After winning several hands – too many hands, the casino staff quickly knew that something was off.

To communicate the card results, the players wore micro earpieces to communicate with each other. The scheme was so successful that the duo managed to conned and schemed more than 200,000 euros at one French casino. The micro cameras are not anything that law enforcement throughout Europe has seen. There is speculation that the cameras were specially made for this purpose.

With the ability to communicate inside and outside the casino, law enforcement believes that this could be the tip of the iceberg for organized crime. While this new and sophisticated con might be new to law enforcement, it isn’t such a surprise for professional poker players. For at least five years to the arrest, pro poker players like Matt Berkey suspect that players like him might have been cheated with a similar scheme. Berkey advises dealers to adjust how they deal cards to make them harder to film.