In all my years in gaming I thought that I had come across almost every scam on the planet…..not so. Of course one has to say that the number of possible scams are almost infinite and the imagination has no boundaries.
I was reading a piece by the late great John Scarne, legendary card magician and expert on cheating methods. He related the story of a roulette punter who was observing a roulette wheel for some considerable time. He then announced to the dealer that he had “mentally bet” on a number that had lost and that the bet was $10.
He then tried to pass $10 to the dealer who at first refused to accept it. The player kept on insisting that he “owed” the casino the money and after a while, the dealer took the money.
Sometime later this same player had another “mind bet” and claimed to have placed $10 on a number that had won. At first the dealer refused to pay the man out but then he claimed that he had to be paid because if the dealer readily accepted a $10 losing “mind bet” then he had to pay out on the winner.
It is clear to me that this type of bet was made against an inexperienced dealer and especially one that was not being supervised. The player received the winning bet not because he duped the casino, but simply because he had duped the dealer and more than likely had the casino in a legal loophole.
He was blatantly scamming and any casino pit boss would have known this. When I was a croupier I came across all sorts of little tricks by players against rookie dealers so this little story is no surprise to me. Most of the time these things are done in fun but with an ulterior motive to test the dealer and how much they will allow.
