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Back when I was in gaming, the casino’s never trusted their own staff. Although this is hardly bad because if I owned my own casino then I wouldn’t trust the people who worked for me either.

My experience of human nature is such that if people are given the opportunity to steal and especially when they can get away with it then they will do so. It is just nothing more than human nature. The situation is made worse by the fact that croupiers and casino employees are not well paid compared to other professions.

Although it has to be said that paying staff more money would not deter them from cheating. I have been approached numerous times by crooked punters. They tended to find out where we socialised out of work and then hung out there.

We were expressly forbidden to mix with punters for this very reason although that didn’t stop it from happening. I should have reported these approaches but didn’t as I did not want to stir up any more trouble. I figured that I had been targeted for a reason and that reason was because it was common knowledge that I was disgruntled working in that job.

So it isn’t surprising that certain punters must have heard my conversations with other members of staff in the pit area. But I knew of cases where staff were colluding with punters and there were numerous cases where staff were actually caught stealing. I have heard of cases where chips were passed to punters by all sorts of ways.

I have seen dealers deliberately pay losing bets and I have known that it was deliberate but when you lump all of this together then you can hardly blame casinos for watching their staff.

You wear trousers, shirts and waistcoats without pockets and belts were not allowed where I worked and even watches inside one casino although that was for other reasons as well.

Casino owners do not want punters asking a croupier what time it is and then realising that it is time to go home

see you soon

Carl
If you get tired of reading my blog, why not try the bwin poker blog

It isn’t just roulette where cheating takes place inside a casino, it is on all games. Blackjack is certainly no different and there are many cheating moves available even though in the UK, the players cannot physically touch the cards. In many situations, the lethargy and the indifference of gaming staff make many moves possible.

The way that the dealer deals the game opens up many moves. One such move is to spot the next card out of the shoe on the next round of play. Quite often this is accidentally revealed by certain dealers who apply too much pressure to the centre of the card.

Fast dealers tend to do this or male dealers who are far too rough with the cards. It is difficult to see certain types of cards because of the white surfaces but picture cards can be visible sometimes. But taking advantage of this move is not cheating in any way shape or form. It is no different to a poker player who accidentally reveals his hand to a fellow player.

The player who has glimpsed those cards certainly has no duty to inform the player that they are revealing their cards. It is exactly the same with blackjack. Also, this is something that the inspector cannot spot from their position so they cannot inform the dealer to correct it anyway.

Plus,at the end of the day….inspectors are nothing more than promoted dealers so they suffer from the same indifference and lethargy that the dealers do. Plus they are elevated and looking down on the table either from an elevated chair or from a standing position so they simply cannot see this. In fact the punters cannot see this either except one of them…..the player who is active on first base or first box.

Most dealers do not expose cards in this way but if you find one that does then you can create very profitable opportunities here. When you factor in that the knowledge that when your first card will be a ten value card then the edge to the player of around 13%

Now that’s why these moves can be so damn good,

see you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson – author of Princes of Darkness : The World of Highstakes Blackjack

Visited a quaint little casino last night, my partner was out with a couple of female friends and rather than stay in and do my work, I had some business to attend to so I had a little casino trip with a friend who signed me in. They had a blackjack hand dealt game. These are getting rare now in the UK. I had about £500 on me and was drawn to the game like a moth to a light.

I should not have allowed this to happen because you cannot do much with £500 unless you are using advantage play techniques. Unfortunately last night I had proficient dealers all through the night and no one ever made an error.

I played blacklack and counted and in seven shoes, the count never rose high enough for a big bet to go out. I couldn’t get too much on the table in this casino without getting noticed. Anyway after about two hours of this I became bored and drifted across to roulette minus about £50. I had been watching a certain dealer and when they came back from their break, I knew that they would be on the next table for at least ninety minutes or so.

So I casually drifted across and took a seat which was the only one left as it was quite busy. Fortunately the seat was near the wheel so I could get to grips with his spin. It was a usual low profile Huxley wheel but the ball composition was perfect and so was his wheel speed. The inspector didn’t seem to care and spent ages chatting to the female dealer on the other table.

I already had about £100 in five pound chips in my pocket and bet five and the neighbours for £5 (£25 bet)……..bullseye….no 5. Roulette has been going so well that I don’t know why I bother playing blackack. So this one spin put me over £100 up for the night. On the next spin I hit him again for another £5 on the number for what was a £155 in profit. This put me at about £260 ahead in minutes since switching from blackjack.

Then the dealer started messing with his wheel speed, I think he either sensed that he would get into bother if he didn’t or that I was reading him. I had two losing bets that came nowhere near their target and finished the session over £200 ahead. I would like to report a happy ending but I owed my partner £250 from a few weeks ago……oh well.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson author of Princes of Darkness :The World of Highstakes Blackjack and Killer Roulette

Casino’s attract cheats and thieves, this is a fact. If you were to assess and then learn how a pick pocket operates for example then you would be amazed to see that a busy casino affords them all of the necessary advantages. There are people with money for a start, then there are people in large numbers and in close proximity, people who are aroused and focused on something else, we also have ease of access and get away.

The only draw back for these guys is that everything is on CCTV and if they get caught or seen then the casino can often know their name. But thats just it, how hard would it be to join a casino as a member using a fake name? If a punter loses thier wallet or purse then the natural thought would be that they had lost it or left it somewhere, nobody suspects that it has been lifted……when a purse or a wallet is “secure” inside your pocket or inside pocket or handbag then the thought of having it lifted never occurs to anyone.

So the CCTV isn’t checked and all that gets done about it is that the management tell the victim that they will keep an eye out and it may also be announced over the tannoy that someone has lost a purse or wallet. But the victim immediately in their own mind writes this off as no one expects the majority of people to hand stuff of that nature in.

In the overwhelming number of cases, the victim is left thinking that they have lost the purse or wallet and not that it has been taken from them. I once had a demonstration given to me by a professional pickpocket and I couldn’t even detect that he had taken my wallet. Apparently it is thin people who are targeted with regards to lifting wallets from back pockets as there is little resistence between the wallet and the backside.

It was a serious education into this dark art and something that I will never forget. He also told me how many pick pockets work nights for the simple reason being that the pubs and clubs are even more crowded and when people have had a few drinks, they are easy prey.

So beware the next time you set foot inside a casino because these people are out there lurking and they are very good at what they do and you can take that from me.

Sleep tight

Carl “The Dean” Sampson