Cheated with Marked Cards

Well, they got us. Luckily they were quite obvious about it and we caught it quickly with minimal damage. All value 10s and 9s were marked equally in one 8 deck shoe. If someone happens to know, a card marked as such, how would it be done (ie what materials are used, etc.)? How long would it take to mark each card? The bottom diamond of the star on the right (on both sides of the card) is "erased" or missing.



Thanks for the help.

Oscar

I mentioned this to Bill Zender and he said that he tried to register and reply, but somehow couldn't make it work. At any rate, here is what he wrote to me, in part:

Quote: Zman

The game attacked had to be blackjack, and the decks were probably introduced by someone inside the organization. The cheaters probably played what is known as an “anchor play”. A cheater sitting in the last seated position plays his hand to bust the dealer (minimum wager) while another cheater(s) wagers close to or at limit wagers, and plays very close to basic strategy. The cheater controlling the last hand will be able to bust the dealers hand at a very high frequency with the nines and tens marked. The play is hard to detect because the big money player never varies his bet nor deviates from basic strategy (sometimes taking insurance).

The cards are not marked on the table during play, but marked previous to play, and brought into the game. The cards are marked by removing a portion of the card design. This is known as “block out work”. The cheater uses a razor or knife to scrap away the design; in this case the lower edge of the star design. You will notice that the empty space is the same color as the white of the card. In order to hide the mar on the surface of the card, the cheaters will apply a polish or car wax to the affected area. They could also use an intense UV light to fade that one area of the card.

This is definitely an inside job. Either some employee got the marked cards onto the table, or the cards were switched into play by a cheater/player with the help of the dealer. I would be willing to guess that the casino’s card control is very lacking. Some employee had to steal the cards, have them marked, and returned them back into the inventory (probably the pit card cabinet). This employee would also have the ability to direct those cards to a specific table. This may even be a very large internal problem. BTW, the back pattern shown in the example is unusual, and is something that might be used overseas, not in North America.

Please tell Zender he is very good at what he does. He nailed just about everything...only left out mentioning the actual employee's name lol. The switch was done in the pit card cabinet. And we are not a Casino in North America.

Fortunately, the player who actually carried out the play was not familiar with the "anchor play". Took us 2.5 shoes to guess what was going on. It was done all by one player, playing alone, max on 3-4 spots. He didn't play at all close to basic strategy....doubled in strange positions, didn't hit in strange positions, etc. He also only took insurance (max) whenever a ten was coming.

As Bill said, we obviously need to improve our card control.

Oscar

Its detectable, I believe, by fanning the deck.... you will see spots move because some have the diamond design in full and some do not.

Definitely put your money on an inside job to get it done and to make use of the deck.

New Mexico casinos use dealers to sort "retired" decks into proper order, something that in Nevada is done by a prison services contract. Its a terrible system since in New Mexico the cards have not been sliced at the corner showing them to be used solely as gift shop sales decks.

More from Bill ...

Quote: Zman

The fact they didn’t use the anchor play, and only a straight play, tells me the cheater’s weren’t that sophisticated. It sounds like for the most part they played a straight top card play for hit/stand/double decisions. They probably used the last player hand on the table to steer a hole-card (I’m think no hole-card game) which would emulate an anchor play, although not be as strong, but in conjunction with the hit/stand/double information would do quite a bit of damage in a short period of time.

Oscar as an easy fix I would suggest brushes on the fronts of your blackjack shoes. They make those for CSM's, Angel Eye shoes as well as regular plastic shoes.

This will not cure the problem completely but it will help. You still have to look at dealers peeking the cards out of the brush in order to show players the marks but this is very easily picked up and can be addressed straight away.

Bill is a top guy, he knows what is going on :)

Congrats on catching the scam pretty quickly.

I would be interested to find out exactly what happened to both the employee and the player if you don't mind sharing. PM would be preferable.

Thanks