One of the most successful cheating teams that I ever encountered in my time as a croupier and Inspector involved stealing chips from other players. It is amazing at times just how careless other players can be with their chips. I have seen players make bets on the layout and then walk away into other areas of the casino and almost totally disregard their bet.
Casino gaming staff as a rule usually only look out for their own best interests and this means punters who are trying to cheat from them and not other punters. So chips that were on the layout at the start of the spin that were not there at the end of the spin are often overlooked and especially by inexperienced staff.
I once encountered a team leader who confessed to me how much they were making a year stealing cash chips and it was a very substantial figure. They only did this after I had left gaming for good but the techniques were powerful. In the recent World Series of Poker, a player was ejected from one tournament for stealing chips. This is a practice that goes on but the mistake that this guy made was that he chose to do it in a high profile event. If he scaled down his ambitions somewhat and pulled his very fancy moves on roulette then he could have been far more successful.
It wouldn’t be difficult to make £100 ($150) a night if you were skilled enough and you found players who were careless enough. During busy games with lots and lots of chip action then cash chips would not be missed on the payout if they had been underneath large piles of colour chips. The key here is to spot players who are careless with their chips from the ones who are alert.
