[HN Gopher] Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and...
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Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players
Author : vegasbrianc
Score : 254 points
Date : 2025-10-24 11:42 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Between all these recent gambling stories with coaches and
| players and the Kawhi thing I think I'm done with the NBA. The
| NBA's gambling push has done nothing but gross me out. Greed
| unbridled. They saw the 1919 World Series and said "Let's bet on
| this shit."
| prodigycorp wrote:
| This plus a lot of the soft greed. The insistence on a foul-
| centric game that leads to over 50% longer games, the
| ridiculous lack of investment on its own broadcast infra, the
| refusal to shorten the season (which is the longest in pro
| sports, longer than baseball's season, despite being less than
| half the games), and the consultant-driven management decisions
| - I have so much contempt for Adam Silver for making me hate
| the game I love most.
|
| Everything Silver did grew revenue fourfold. By every metric,
| he's a good commissioner. And yet I don't know a single person
| in real life who actually likes the NBA. People I talk to find
| the NBA anywhere from inaccessible to an outright turnoff, due
| to load management (and player pay), tanking, a glacial pace of
| play, and so on. And so the only way I can engage the game is
| by listening to podcasts about it. Podcasts that now belch
| gambling ads at me constantly.
| codyb wrote:
| That is _nuts_ that the basketball season is longer than the
| MLB season. I never would have guessed that.
|
| Let's go Jays! Looking forward to this World Series.
|
| Also not a fan of the constant inundation with gambling ads
| even if they have literally no interest to me. Just seems
| like a net negative for a society that realized cigarette ads
| are bad, but can't seem to figure that out for alcohol or
| gambling.
|
| At least the public education campaigns have started earlier,
| I definitely see ads talking about where to get help if
| you're having an issue fairly frequently.
| whycome wrote:
| Public education is one thing. But kids aren't protected
| from the ads and can't even have reasonable discussions
| about it. They're just being brainwashed around it. They
| see superstars and celebrities endorsing it all. Then all
| the language around it is "play" and "game" and "fun" and
| "win" which has very specific appeal to children. The
| prominence also makes it seem vetted and okay in a kids
| eyes (if it were bad, it wouldn't be in these places). I'd
| legitimately rather my kids see ads for smoking cigarettes.
| The conversations to be had around it are much much easier.
| Gambling and other psychological addictions are tougher to
| convey, but potentially very damaging nonetheless.
| codyb wrote:
| I understand, and am against the constant advertising of
| it.
|
| But it's also important to remember just how successful
| the smoking psa campaign has been. Especially given the
| cost! Rates have fallen dramatically, just by telling
| people to "watch out!" in public spaces that reach young
| folks ears.
| whycome wrote:
| I don't think it's easy to attribute it to any specific
| part of the 'campaign' -- it's multifaceted. Making it
| illegal to smoke in public spaces may be the single most
| important part of reducing smoking in subsequent
| generations. There's also taxes. And removing it from
| media (we hardly see people smoke on camera unless it's
| for a 'period piece'). And just straight up treating it
| like a health issue.
|
| We could be doing equivalent things for gambling (and we
| have in the past) so this erosion will have consequences
| for decades.
| svachalek wrote:
| I stopped watching a couple of years ago but I assume they're
| still doing this: dealing out every game to a different
| network. You needed like 4 sports subscriptions just to be
| able to watch the season, sometimes even to watch the
| championship. For me that was the bridge too far.
| bluedino wrote:
| NFL isn't far behind
|
| NFL Network, ESPN, Prime, Peacock, YouTube...
| rkomorn wrote:
| All that mainly because some streaming services are
| willing to pay a more competitive amount of money for
| single (albeit national) weekly game broadcasts to
| sweeten their offering and get more subscribers.
|
| Of course the NFL isn't gonna turn down $1B per year from
| Amazon for TNF. They get ~$2B from CBS and Fox each for
| the combined 10 Sunday games, then another couple billion
| from NBC for one Sunday night game, and another couple
| billion from ESPN for Monday night.
|
| I think it's unlikely a single broadcaster would spend
| $12+B/year for exclusive rights to all games.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| A large portion of NFL games can be viewed on network TV.
| The same cannot be said for the NBA.
| rkomorn wrote:
| "for now" seems like a reasonable thing to add to that
| sentence.
|
| The number of games you can watch on network TV is
| decreasing slowly but steadily.
| typpilol wrote:
| There was over 90 free throws shot in 1 game yesterday
|
| It was crazy
| drdec wrote:
| > which is the longest in pro sports, longer than baseball's
| season, despite being less than half the games
|
| You are clearly referring to calendar time, in which case the
| NHL season is longer
| deelowe wrote:
| It's been like that forever. Makes it very hard to take the NBA
| seriously.
| sojournerc wrote:
| This interview with a former Turkish NBA player who protested
| things happening in China with simple statements on his shoes
| convinced me the NBA has no morals whatsoever.
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/3LUPh7waoWtydoiwjEgP16?si=-...
| tclancy wrote:
| Eh, even as a Celtics fan I would be cautious of taking what
| Enes Freedom has to say as gospel. He definitely has a
| narrative he's pushing
| sojournerc wrote:
| What's the narrative? Human rights abuse is bad, speaking
| out about it got him fired? I have a hard time seeing some
| nafarious angle to what he talked about other than China
| doesn't want their shit called out.
| xbar wrote:
| NBA stopped being an interesting sports entertainment product
| to me by the year 2004. It has generated a handful of
| interesting narratives since, but not really enough to keep me
| engaged in the face of its enshitification.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| This is silly.
|
| People used to play poker, and cheat, and the whole thing was
| illegal.
|
| Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government
| to police their poker games and make sure they're fair.
|
| Complete waste of resources.
| bbstats wrote:
| "previously people could cheat, now they can't" ?? how is that
| bad.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| That's not the part that's bad. I don't care whether they
| cheat or not. I don't want the government policing what is
| and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game.
|
| I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes backroom /
| mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those left from this
| one) can say "Look, those other guys got arrested. The law
| protects you. We don't want that to happen to us. Our game is
| definitely fair." Of course, they too are cheating.
|
| The only reason the FBI cares here is probably because one of
| the victims had pull. If you or I get cheated, the FBI won't
| care about that.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I don't want the government policing what is and isn't
| fair in a poker / NBA / etc game.
|
| Operating a business that defrauds people is the domain of
| government enforcement.
|
| I think you're trying to reduce this to some sort of small
| scale friendly poker game between friends. It was not. It
| was an organized crime business operation that was
| systematically committing fraud.
|
| Fraud is illegal and within scope of government
| enforcement.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| The raison d'etre for the offense of fraud is to protect
| commerce.
|
| The state / society needs to enforce a basic level of
| trust for Business A to buy widgets from Business B, and
| for Customer C to be employed, etc.
|
| Betting on sports / poker / etc. is not part of that.
| Nobody is creating anything of value when you spin the
| roulette wheel. At best, the house wins and most players
| lose... and that is a harm to society. At worst, the
| house cheats or some subset of players cheat, and most
| players lose... and that too is a harm to society. (Edit:
| At worse worst, it leads to violence, extortion, etc...)
|
| Gambling does not deserve the legitimacy of being
| policed.
| im3w1l wrote:
| If the police don't police it then the marks will pay
| someone to whack the cheaters.
| bbstats wrote:
| did you read the article?
| cwillu wrote:
| While I agree that they're probably not arguing in good
| faith, "Did you even read the article?" is explicitly
| called out in the hn guidelines.
| pton_xd wrote:
| > I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes
| backroom / mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those
| left from this one) can say "Look, those other guys got
| arrested. The law protects you."
|
| Disagree, this case demonstrates the exact opposite -- you
| think your underground game is legit because there's
| celebrities playing? Think again, it's a far more
| sophisticated scam operation than you could imagine.
|
| > The only reason the FBI cares here is probably because
| one of the victims had pull.
|
| Again, I doubt it. Likely it's because the mafia is
| involved, and according to the indictment "the defendants
| and their co-conspirators used threats of force and
| violence to secure the repayment of debts from illegal
| poker games."
| f1shy wrote:
| I think the comment goes more in the direction: "previously
| playing poker was a totally private thing, didn't cost me a
| dime, now part of my taxes is used for that"
| fukka42 wrote:
| I'd appreciate it if the police could help stop cheating in
| my kids' soccer game as well. One of those brats keeps
| pretending to be injured! Lock him up.
| vharuck wrote:
| The poker games were run by the mafia, who pulled in a lot of
| cash by luring and cheating suckers. I want the FBI to stop
| scams that funnel money to criminal organizations.
| tw04 wrote:
| A lot of cash? It says "at least $7m" over 6 years across
| supposedly 4 crime families and how many people? They'd have
| been better off opening up a Jimmy John's franchise.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The key is a lot of cash, or cryptocurrency.
|
| If you run a Jimmy John's, most of your customers will pay
| with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You can't
| launder that easily. It's all traceable. It's all taxable.
|
| Run a poker operation and you can get your marks to give
| you crypto, cash, or small transfers.
|
| $7 million in pure cash and crypto proceeds from a poker
| game is a lot more valuable than $7 million in revenue from
| a sandwich shop for an organized crime operation.
| mb7733 wrote:
| > If you run a Jimmy John's, most of your customers will
| pay with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You
| can't launder that easily.
|
| You don't need to launder it, it was acquired legally
| le-mark wrote:
| Fast food franchises aren't generating $1M a year either.
| Ok a McDonald's in a high traffic area can, but a
| sandwich shop anywhere? Nope.
| tw04 wrote:
| We're supposedly talking about 4 major crime families, it
| wouldn't be one McDonalds it would be dozens and dozens.
| And all legal.
|
| Nothing about this story makes sense other other than as
| yet another headline to try to get people talking about
| something other than Epstein.
|
| Did illegal gambling take place? I'm sure. Were 4
| different crime families investing significant resources
| to take home barely $1m/year? I'm extremely skeptical and
| given this is coming from Kash "I always look like I just
| did a line of coke" Patel, I'd say it's more likely than
| not we're getting incomplete, if not bad information
| nicce wrote:
| Situation is pretty bad if you can jail mafia only based on
| the cheating on poker.
| Noaidi wrote:
| Yes, these corporations need to be stopped. Like Wells Fargo.
| Still trading in the market. Maybe we should go after the
| stock market as well.
|
| https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/wells-
| farg...
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| If there's a business that's being run fraudulently then I want
| them to be held accountable for that.
| sigwinch wrote:
| I'm expecting some pardons will shape the expectation that
| this all could have been avoided with strategic political
| donations. In this era, what would you accept as a
| substitution for accountability?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the
| government to police their poker games and make sure they're
| fair.
|
| No, if _you personally_ run a poker game in your house and
| cheat your friends the government doesn't care. The FBI isn't
| going to be interested.
|
| If you _join the mafia_ and run an organized crime ring that
| operates poker games as a business which systematically
| defrauds people for large amounts of money and funnels the
| proceeds to organized crime through money laundering
| operations, the FBI will be interested.
|
| If you look at this story and only see "some people cheated at
| a poker game" you're missing the real story. This was a full on
| organized crime business operation
| ClarityJones wrote:
| Okay, a lot of people cheated at a lot of poker games? I feel
| like we're being redundant here.
|
| So, their cheating was organized and systematic? Yeah, you
| can't really cheat consistently without having a scheme.
|
| Did anyone really think the mafia were running _fair_
| backroom poker games?
| gdulli wrote:
| It's not even lunch yet and "the mafia should be allowed to
| build onto their tower of crimes in peace" is a take that I
| don't think that will be beat today.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| you're right, they should outlaw gambling as a business because
| it's inherently predatory, rigged ("the house always wins"
| isn't just a cute phrase) and has addiction issues that
| disproportionately impact the poor
| y-curious wrote:
| I can't help but think this recent Wired video[1] has some
| accidental overlap with how they cheated.
|
| 1: https://youtu.be/JQ20ilE5DtA?si=_MHmhjKGMKk4sobB
| mckirk wrote:
| Sorry to be completely off-topic, but: I'm really reluctant to
| click on anything with these 'share IDs' and usually remove
| them from any link I share with anyone. I don't want to make it
| even easier for the platforms to build networks of associated
| accounts.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I do the same thing!
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| I believe the Firefox extension CleanURLs helps with this.
| daveevad wrote:
| Sorry to be pedantic but if you're clicking the link, YT gets
| the referer header even without the share id url parameter.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| X-ray table? That can't be good for your balls or ovaries.
| jackric wrote:
| Next podcast sponsor fad: lead-lined underwear. PbUndies
| breckenedge wrote:
| Gotta call them "Weighted Undies"
| brianbreslin wrote:
| wasn't tim ferris promoting one of these products years ago?
| was like a faraday cage for your nether region.
| Arrath wrote:
| My cousin (submarine nuke plant operator) has stories of
| his compatriots using lead foil to line their pants.
| The_President wrote:
| Bundies! Mascot should be Al Bundy.
| consp wrote:
| Looks like near-IR of some sort but media calls everything
| x-ray since it's what people know. X-Rays would go through
| cards anyway. But you'd get nice pictures of peoples hands
| though, and cataracts after a night of play.
|
| edit: now I think of it: if the cloth is thin enough you don't
| even need near-IR. Old fashioned IR camera's (those without any
| fancy filter) from the '00 showed though some relatively thin
| opaque synthetic material with a tiny IR source so ...
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Could also be mm wave maybe? Cheap mm wave security gates and
| similar tech are ubiquitous now
| swores wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it was just marks on the back of the cards
| that glasses/contacts then converted into an xray-like
| view, not any actual technology for seeing through the
| cards.
| runjake wrote:
| From the photos it looks like regular IR photos to me. Also
| note you don't see the bones in the hands at the top of the
| photo.
| consp wrote:
| Yes, my conclusion as well. Especially with a bright enough
| IR source. The bones reference was as a bit sarcastic
| reference if they'd used x-rays but since nobody got
| seriously ill that did not happen..
| nimbius wrote:
| i wonder if we're not conflating xray with terahertz radiation
| perhaps? the former being used by a company called corrections
| one that produces a horrifying whole-body X-Ray of a prisoner
| to detect contraband (certainly not healthy.)
|
| Terahertz radiation is used in airports with (arguable) safety
| and efficacy. the resolution is sufficient to read protest
| statements written under a passengers shirt in metallic ink. I
| wonder if it could read cards should they be specially crafted
| similarly.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The table didn't actually use X-rays. They're using X-ray to
| mean it could be seen through with special cameras, perhaps IR
| sensitive.
| rs186 wrote:
| I looked up the term "X-ray table" but couldn't find anything
| relevant except very recent results about this specific news.
|
| Sounds like FBI invented this very stupid/confusing name for
| the story when they could have used much something much
| better and clearer. X-ray really has nothing to do with this.
| dboreham wrote:
| I remember as a kid seeing comics imported from the US that
| had ads for "x-ray specs". My first clue that the US
| advertising standards were not quite the same as other
| countries. Perhaps it's a similar idea to that?
| mrandish wrote:
| I don't think it's literally "X-Rays". A couple years ago I saw
| an infrared transparent table being demonstrated as a product
| prototype by a distributor of magic props at a conference for
| professional magicians. I played with it a while because I
| thought it was quite remarkable and had never seen anything
| like it. The top surface was a half-inch thick hard black
| plastic which appeared completely opaque. It was perfectly
| convincing as it even had faux wood grain texturing on the
| surface. It looked for all the world like a table you'd see at
| IKEA or Target. I put my phone's flashlight on full brightness
| under it pointing up and couldn't see any light coming through,
| even shading the spot with my hand.
|
| The table had a bunch of IR emitters pointed up built into the
| supports holding the table surface but they were at least two
| feet away and well-obscured into the table leg design by more
| normal-seeming smooth plastic I associate with being IR-
| transparent. Of course, if you suspect the use of IR, it's
| quite easy to detect with your camera phone. There was a camera
| hidden into the middle of the table supports looking up which
| transmitted the image wirelessly to a monitor nearby. My own
| face-down playing cards were visible on the camera plain as
| day, so it doesn't require special cards.
|
| Interestingly, the magic distributor showing it wasn't giving
| out any info on who made it, what it cost or when it might be
| available. They just said they were "showing it to gauge
| interest" and might carry it at some point in the future.
| They're a large, long-time, reputable distributor of other
| people's products so I don't think they were involved in
| creating it. It hasn't made an appearance at subsequent
| conventions, so they must have decided it wouldn't be popular
| with magicians - which makes perfect sense. It would have been
| expensive and pretty technically involved for a limited-use
| magic prop. Good magicians have a _many_ easier and cheaper
| ways to learn the identity of hidden cards :-). But the fact
| such a thick, textured, optically opaque surface could be IR
| transparent was pretty nifty.
|
| As a former magician I was surprised to read the gang was using
| 'reader' cards (backs marked with ink visible to special
| glasses). No one uses those anymore as there are so many better
| ways to do the same thing. Seems like this gang was just into
| various tech toys and kind of lazy. In reality, once you
| control the environment, cards and have confederates in the
| game - cheating to win is trivial without any tech if you know
| what you're doing.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Nothing like a night of high profile illegal poker while
| getting blasted with radiation. /s
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| This scheme doesn't really make sense. Once you've convinced a
| wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you've
| already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy
| fish don't have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do.
| Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables
| etc kills the golden goose and doesn't even necessarily increase
| total winnings, since it makes you win faster but doesn't
| increase the amount the fish are willing to lose to have a good
| time.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| I think it's revealing of how diminished the la costa nostra
| is. This is such trivial work and, yet, this was a multi-family
| operation.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Diminished? More like, matured into white collar crime.
| There's no need to murder people on the street any more, that
| kind of dirty work is left to some random Southern American
| cartels, and the white collar crime brings in more than
| enough profit while also being way less risky should the feds
| catch up on it.
| cool_man_bob wrote:
| > More like, matured into white collar crime.
|
| Honestly this is the first "advanced" mafia scheme I've
| heard of in a while.
|
| Last time I heard about a mafia crime it was a very sloppy
| hit that sounded more like what you hear from teenagers in
| Chicago shooting at each other.
|
| Though tbf it could easily have always been like that and
| I'm just blinded my media bias about a group of people I've
| never known form a time I've never known.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| I don't know if I buy that. If we were to put this in white
| collar terms, we'd all be questioning Tim Cook if he
| decided that selling ice cream was a great resource
| allocation decision.
| jimbokun wrote:
| What business would you take your organized crime
| organization into for maximal returns?
|
| Just stick everything in the S&P 500?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I'd get dirt on the sitting president, then leverage him
| to make decisions with obvious market implication.
| Examples: give me a day's notice that the federal
| government is going to invest in a dinky mining company,
| or tariffs are coming on foreign electronics... except
| next week <these companies> are exempt. You gotta believe
| people on the inside are making fortunes as the markets
| continue to make big swings up & down.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > You gotta believe people on the inside are making
| fortunes as the markets continue to make big swings up &
| down.
|
| Yeah but that's friends of the emperor, not organized
| crime (although granted, the distinction between these
| two groups is getting smaller by the day).
|
| Organized crime? That money is literally everywhere.
| Restaurants, real estate, cars, the stock markets... the
| only place you'll _rarely_ spot it is, ironically,
| gambling, way too many chances of getting caught on a
| paper trail. A lot of it is also invested in art pieces
| stored in one tax haven /freeport or another, really easy
| to launder money or evade taxes.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Probably going into crypto, the federal government even
| _encourage_ it now.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| Highlighted perfectly in The Sopranos when they try to extort
| a Starbucks, it's a different world.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rtnSe0eKmdI
| bn-l wrote:
| It seems like so much work for relatively so little payoff.
| There's a lesson here for non criminals also.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| > In what sounds like an Ocean's Eleven film plot,
| prosecutors say these "unwitting" victims were cheated out of
| at least $7m (PS5.25m) in poker games - with one person
| losing at least $1.8m.
|
| Definitely a lot of work but that seems like a half decent
| payday to me.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| An nba coach was one of 30 people indicted in the scheme.
| He made about 5m a year at his straight job.
| evan_ wrote:
| $5M is a lot unless you have a crippling gambling
| addiction.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| It's not so much the absolute amount as the comparative
| one.
|
| Just extorting Chauncey Billips seems like a better ROI
| than the whole caper if you've got some hold on him.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Extortion risks exposing you in a way that quietly taking
| their money through cheating at cards does not. It's also
| strikes me as a far more serious crime but I could be
| wrong.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| I was replying to the premise that his involvement was
| under duress for gambling debts. If so it's extortionate
| either way.
| elicash wrote:
| More than 30 arrests, and the scheme dates back to as early
| as 2019.
|
| The article says "A cut OF THE PROFITS went to those who
| helped in the plot," implying that the $7m wasn't truly
| profit but actually revenue? The writing is unclear to me.
| I'm not sure if this is before paying out to 30+ people
| over several years, or after, but article implies before,
| that it's how much was taken from victims. That I think
| makes the difference on whether or not it was a decent
| payday. The profit would be how much supposedly went to
| fund their other operations, which the article does allege
| some went to.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Honestly I imagine a lot of this just became chasing yet
| another thrill that net you maybe tens of thousands of
| dollars. I could totally see why someone would be in to
| that. Most hobbies drain your bank account after all lol
|
| Same reason there are people out there who shoplift even
| though they don't need what they're grabbing. The thrill
| of the act.
| elicash wrote:
| I can definitely imagine a scenario it was worth it (a)
| just to fund them getting to hang out with NBA players,
| and/or (b) make connections with other wealthy folks in
| ways that are beneficial towards other ends.
|
| And that they just didn't want to operate it at a loss.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| There may be more victims. I doubt it's based on a
| thorough audit of accounting, just those that put in a
| complaint. But how do you verify a complaint?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Wasn't there just a pair of people that walked $100 million
| euros out of the Louvre?
| jimbokun wrote:
| Seems pretty clear to me the risk and excitement of the
| scheme was probably a big part of the appeal for these
| people, as much as the total cash amount they took home.
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| The profit from a scheme like this would likely be in the
| high tens of millions of dollars.
|
| The poker game itself in high-roller situations could be a
| million plus per night depending on the stakes.
|
| Then there's the whole "you owe the Mafia" angle with NBA
| players and coaches. It's a pretty clear line to the Mafia
| making tens of millions of dollars on rigged NBA games.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| "just play better poker" like that's an easy thing to do in a
| game of chance and incomplete information, with variance having
| years or decades long tails. not to mention it's an unsolved
| game, so "better" poker doesn't even really have a set
| definition and depends on tons of variables. and they literally
| knew what hole cards were coming - that's vastly more of an
| edge than playing "better poker" than someone.
|
| Besides the fact they were often targeting pros - this was
| reported on and known by LA area pros for at least two years
| now. why the FBI decided to act now is weird to me. I can't
| stress enough that in the pro scene this was common knowledge.
| years old podcast clips are coming up talking about it.
|
| source: https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-
| news/article/professio...
| binarymax wrote:
| You can spend the time to learn the odds, and play the odds.
| Most people don't have even that basic skill.
| robocat wrote:
| You are ignoring why people play the game: reading people
| and avoiding being read (lies, misdirection). I would
| predict your job is technical rather than people oriented.
| There's plenty of other card games where learning the odds
| matters, but poker has a bit more depth.
| ecshafer wrote:
| The FBI is going to take time building up the case, flipping
| people, getting recordings, and trying to get as many people
| involved to not just stop the games but hopefully take down
| the entire crime families involved. LA Poker pros will start
| talking as soon as they suspect something fishy.
| duped wrote:
| The FBI is also struggling for legitimacy at this point in
| history
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I think they're also doing good investigations into local
| crime rings that the states and prior administrations
| didn't touch
|
| The political prosecution vendettas are dumb but here in
| LA they are disrupting "Armenian" crime rings
| parineum wrote:
| Name a decade without a major FBI scandal
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Name a less competent FBI director ever.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The difference it that what used to be a decade-defining
| major FBI scandal is more like monthly in the current
| administration.
| mrandish wrote:
| This did strike me as quite a small scale crime for all
| the attention it's getting. I guess the notable part is
| using a couple celebrity athletes to recruit marks for
| rigged high-stakes poker games. If you think about it,
| poker games don't scale up into a truly _big_ money.
| After paying off everyone involved, maybe they clear a
| few hundred grand in cash? That 's chump change in modern
| organized crime.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| They almost certainly already have done much of this if
| they're going public now. What makes it to the media in the
| beginning is only ever the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > They almost certainly already have done much of this if
| they're going public now.
|
| Normally I'd agree, but this administration is known for
| pushing to release public distractions whenever they can.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Exactly. Structures, men behind, organizations involved,
| networks and other crimes indicated or discovered for
| example money laundering, betting.
|
| It takes time to build a case. Some laws need people
| working together and a one time event testing a new table
| and accidentally having lots of cash in the bags as well as
| so-called famous people showing up can simply happen by
| chance.
|
| It is complicated.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I'm not sure I believe this. It seems you can just walk
| into one of these places and roll the whole place,
| confiscate electronics, and make all the necessary
| connections fairly quickly. These games aren't a secret
| and never have been.
|
| I don't like the private (illegal) scene because it's
| killed action in casinos and games I used to love playing
| in. The risk to me of breaking the law, being
| robbed/scammed, or worse is not worth it to play in these
| games and I wish they'd go away.
|
| Even the mafia angle - the NY families must have fallen a
| long way if they're resorting to high profile but
| ultimately petty scams like this. This seems like PR for
| the FBI and nothing more, like I said up thread this has
| been common knowledge for years.
| philistine wrote:
| > the NY families must have fallen a long way if they're
| resorting to high profile but ultimately petty scams like
| this
|
| The presence of petty scams does not indicate they have
| stopped their large scale operations. The Mafia has
| always done scams like this; it's basically the bush
| leagues to train for the really big stuff.
| mrandish wrote:
| > NY families must have fallen a long way
|
| I spent a fun few hours a couple years back deep diving
| into what has become of the old-school "Goodfellas"-style
| mob these days. Looking into both media reports as well
| as posts by 'mob fans' - niche forums of those who
| obsessively follow mob and mob adjacent activities via
| open-source intel methods - I got the sense the
| traditional Italian mob families have indeed shrunk to a
| smaller, sadder version of what they once were due to
| being eclipsed by new, different kinds of organized
| crime.
|
| Guys who are known "made men" getting out of prison after
| doing 10-15 and then ending up doing relatively nickel
| and dime crimes like daylight armed robbery of a jewelry
| store themselves for lack of enough income. 25 years ago
| guys like that wouldn't normally do that stuff
| themselves. Others have even sunk to basically LARPing
| being old-school mobsters on social media.
|
| It seems there are two key drivers behind the decline:
| the real money in organized crime has shifted to new
| kinds of activities which scale better and can grow
| _much_ larger. That 's attracted new competitors. Some
| are smarter, some more brutal and some which are both.
| There's also an aspect that these new, bigger
| opportunities are far more complex, long-term and can
| also require successfully operating legitimate businesses
| as one necessary component. I guess it's not surprising.
| Even illicit industries undergo accelerating change over
| time. The old crime families still exist and can
| certainly still be dangerous - they're just no longer the
| top of the criminal food chain in terms of earnings.
| busyant wrote:
| It's all petty crimes. I've known a handful of low-level
| "members" and they were all morons (imo) running the most
| absurd scams.
|
| Things like: "Hey I'm organizing a trip to Vegas. $1000 /
| head. Great hotel, meals paid, etc. etc."
|
| Then the organizer has the great misfortune of being
| "robbed" of all the money he collected by a masked
| assailant.
|
| Maybe the higher level guys were were brighter, but I
| kind of doubt it.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Some professional poker player told me this anecdote: he was
| playing at a table with a celebrity. He quickly noticed he
| has a tell (he did something with his chips when he had a
| powerful hand or was bluffing, don't remember), and half the
| table also noticed the same or similar tells. They proceeded
| to clean his stash.
|
| At the table statistics matter between pros, but if you are
| not aware of your flaws, you might as well play with your
| cards face up.
| jimbokun wrote:
| This sounds similar to an article I read about major league
| pitchers, who must learn to avoid "tells" for the pitch
| they are about to throw, while opposing teams pour over
| video of their previous outings looking for those tells.
|
| Some pitchers even said they would deliberately perform a
| "tell" that opponents had identified then throw a different
| pitch.
| untilted wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcoB3G2Gj7w
| theturtletalks wrote:
| Same thing happens in football with audibles. I wonder
| how many teams are feeding videos like these to AI and
| asking it to find patterns that might be tough for humans
| to see. If an AI thinks there's a pattern, verifying
| shouldn't be too hard either.
| alargemoose wrote:
| My personal favorite example of this in football
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=g4SEPufzG7s
| darepublic wrote:
| I understand the "need" for cheating but it does seem like
| overkill the way they cheated, at least as described. They've
| already got colluders, and then the auto shuffler reads the
| cards, and then they've ALSO got the contact lenses? Just
| some marked cards would have been sufficient. And then the
| rare time the fish catches up after being behind is your "let
| them win a hand and get traction". It just seems like they
| really went too far to control every part of the hand
| jimbokun wrote:
| What's the increased risk of cheating more?
|
| Once you're cheating and colluding you are in danger of
| going to jail, and it's not clear that more cheating makes
| it more likely to be caught.
| asdfasvea wrote:
| How could more cheating avenues not equal a more
| likelihood of being caught?
|
| Car analogy--I never had to take my 1976 Olds Cutlass in
| because the key fob got out of sync or because the
| touchscreen got fried or the electronic power steering
| module shorted or... or .. or
|
| More points of failure = more failure.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Is a 76 olds the car to use to make a point about
| reliability?
| cestith wrote:
| Not regarding the paintjob, certainly.
| yuliyp wrote:
| Perhaps those were different iterations of the technique
| over time. Start with marking cards to identify face cards,
| then move on to x-ray table.
| dktp wrote:
| People making most money _playing_ poker are really really
| good players that get invited to games with the wealthy
| people. This takes both poker skills, social skills (being
| entertaining) and potentially doing some occasional "fun"
| (incorrect) plays.
|
| They are not the best poker players in the world. Best poker
| players have the misfortune of not being invited to "fun"
| millionaire games
|
| If you have enough of an edge, the variance is really not
| that big. The only reason to have high-tech cheating when you
| already have a table full of fish - is if the people running
| the scheme are not very good at poker
| dboreham wrote:
| > why the FBI decided to act now is weird to me
|
| Someone didn't pay a bribe on time?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Or the wrong person lost
| bobafett-9902 wrote:
| think of the spotlight the NBA had because of opening
| night! Someone in the FBI/admin wanted this news to drop
| right when the NBA was trying to make a splash and tarnish
| their new season
| serf wrote:
| >"just play better poker" like that's an easy thing to do in
| a game of chance and incomplete information
|
| you just need to beat the table, you don't need to become an
| over-average pro.
|
| that decades long tail you mentioned is for pros chasing
| profitability in tournaments -- it's a much shorter tail when
| you're playing fish in setups.
|
| being better at poker than the guy at the table who is good
| at making money isn't a big leap, it's what sharks and
| hustlers have been aiming at for hundreds of years.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > it's a much shorter tail when you're playing fish in
| setups
|
| A lot of rich people know more about poker than middle-
| income scrubs. You don't want to find out the fish you're
| chasing was a shark all along. The point here is to turn a
| game a chance into a profit center, suggesting they just do
| it legitimately missed the point and assumes the scammers
| themselves have the time or talent to become good enough to
| reliably fleece people legitimately. It also means you have
| to vet the people you invite, rather than confidently
| turning out the pockets of scrubs and capable players
| alike.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| You're illustrating why the phrase I am nitpicking is
| silly, and why poker is somehow still profitable even after
| the boom of 20+ years ago. What is the definition of
| "beating the table?" Is it winning? Because I promise you,
| that's a poor definition. You can be playing perfectly
| great poker and get slaughtered, you can play terrible
| poker and win. Look at the career of Phil Helmuth, for
| instance (joke, I'm joking). Playing live poker, you're
| very unlikely to get a large enough sample size to have a
| close to 100% confidence you're actually beating the game.
| You're even less likely to get a large enough sample from a
| single table/group of players to know either. And like I
| said up thread - what is "good" or "optimal" or the highest
| expected value play can change _drastically_ depending on
| information. Poker is a game of incomplete information, and
| you can conjure tons of scenarios where folding something
| like a pair of Aces is correct before the flop, even though
| many people who have a shallow understanding of the game or
| haven 't studied it deeply would say you should _never_ do
| that (for instance, in a double or nothing tournament,
| where half the table cashes and half doesn 't, folding AA
| with a large chip lead to an all in from a certain stack
| size is the correct play and happens surprisingly often).
|
| Or like, say you're against a "fish" that goes all in
| preflop with exactly J7 offsuit and nothing else, no matter
| how big his stack is, because that's their lucky hand or
| something. You're not playing as profitably as possible if
| you lack that knowledge, and if you somehow have that
| knowledge, there are tons of hands you play there that you
| normally never would and would appear to others without
| that information as playing "bad."
|
| It's a deeply complex game people try to trivialize. I've
| been studying for about 20 years and every year that goes
| by I think I know less than I did the year before. And I'm
| just talking no limit hold'em right now - there are tons of
| variants that all have their own areas of study, and that's
| not even to get into weird live game areas of theory like
| tells and stuff (which is not as important as people tend
| to think).
| dfxm12 wrote:
| You don't want to extract more money per hand, you want to
| build up the fish (check the text message screenshots in the
| article) and then strike at the right point. The x rays remove
| the luck from those big hands.
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| Exactly. You want zero risk asymmetric payouts.
| raincole wrote:
| > don't have time to learn to play perfect poker
|
| Probably don't have time to play so many hands with you that
| the better player is statistically guaranteed to win, either.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| I read a theory that the poker winnings were not the scam.
|
| The scam was that the criminal element would HELP the NBA
| players cheat at poker, and then blackmail them with that info
| to change the outcomes of NBA games, which they were betting
| on, from which they could derive greater scale of winnings.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| imo that doesn't make sense. All the online betting platforms
| will cut off the sharps. If you are net profitable and you
| make too much money from them, you _will_ get banned.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| Yeah, that would limit the scale if they were betting
| against the platforms.
|
| However, if you assume they were feeding the information to
| the platforms...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| ... or if you assume that they control the platforms...
| im3w1l wrote:
| An organization could place the bets through different
| people each time.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Well first of all, organized crime does not need an online
| platform to profit off of fixing professional sports games.
| There are still plenty of bookies running around offering
| better odds than draftkings. Though, if they really wanted
| to, they could make smaller bets under hundreds of
| accounts.
|
| There is also the very strong possibility that they are
| colluding with the online betting platforms in some way.
| Coupled with the fact that any difference-maker athlete is
| getting a huge salary, and blackmail/extortion becomes your
| best option to getting one on your side.
| evan_ wrote:
| with that level of sophistication I'm sure they're not
| using the inside info to place bets on retail platforms.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| The do use retail platforms, just like the same orgs send
| out armies with cloned cards to use retail banking infra.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You're focusing on a game with player vs. house odds, like
| a casino. Online betting platforms do offer some of these
| games but they are clearing markets for gambling; they
| manipualte the odds to arbitrage wagering and take a cut
| regardless of the outcome. It's all about volume. If you
| make a huge wager on a long-odds parlay, they no longer
| look the same for the next (or other side) of that specific
| (or components of the) wager.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Organized crime operations have no problem getting a lot of
| people involved in their schemes. They wouldn't use one
| account. They'd spread the bets over a large number of
| people and accounts and also possibly sell the information.
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| First, people who are banned from online bookies use
| "horses" or other not-banned players to place bets for
| them.
|
| Second, the FBI is targeting real world Mafia members, who
| will typically be the bookies taking action from others. If
| they know in advance, through blackmail or collusion that
| an NBA player or coach will throw a game, they can exploit
| this versus their entire betting pool for massive wins
| against the suckers placing bets with them.
| im3w1l wrote:
| 5d-poker.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Or the players were already jammed up in gambling losses and
| were then offered to play in these games to forgive the
| losses.
| IT4MD wrote:
| Most criminals have a specific type of cleverness, but not
| intelligence. If they were smart people, they wouldn't do the
| crimes in the first place.
|
| I dealt with a low-tech breach at one of the hospitals I worked
| for. The criminal worked in HIM, and used paper and pencil to
| note specific info about specific types of patients. Since they
| worked in HIM, it was expected for them to view many medical
| records in a day and no app detects paper/pencil, so quite
| clever so far.
|
| Ultimately, they used this info to file false tax returns to
| steal the refunds.
|
| The problem? They filed 881 false tax returns annnnnnd used the
| same address for all of them. DOH.
|
| They were busted/arrested and off to jail they went.
|
| Clever, right until the end, then abysmally stupid.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| HIM = Health Information Management for anyone else
| wondering.
|
| _If they were smart people, they wouldn 't do the crimes in
| the first place._
|
| There are tons of smart people committing crimes. The levels
| of Intelligence, success, luck, greed, and morals can co-
| exist in every possible combination within one human.
| wildzzz wrote:
| The intelligent ones don't get caught, or at least find the
| right loopholes to make their obvious crime technically
| legal.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| You don't need to play better poker. You can just have multiple
| people on the same team at the same table and communicating,
| vastly increasing your odds of your team having the best hand.
| empath75 wrote:
| > Once you've convinced a wealthy person to play at your
| underground poker table, you've already won - just play better
| poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don't have time to learn to
| play perfect poker and you do.
|
| You would be surprised at how good some very wealthy people are
| at poker. There is a lot of variance in the game and they don't
| want that. In fact what they want is _exactly_ wealthy people
| who are quite good at poker because they make big bets and you
| can reliably bust them out on _one hand_ if you set it up
| properly after playing a fair game all night. And the great
| thing about that is that they feel like the night overall was
| fair and fun, because it was. You just cheat them on one or two
| hands at the most.
|
| People who are bad at poker can also be quite difficult to
| reliably take money from fairly because they play randomly and
| sometimes win huge pots out of complete luck. For one thing,
| they are near impossible to bluff out of hands, so you end up
| having to fold a lot more than normal because you can only play
| with strong hands against them. If you are interested in making
| a lot of money, you certainly want those strong hands more
| often than normal.
| btilly wrote:
| The trick isn't winning when the celebrity is at the table, it
| is in getting the celebrity to the table, then keepong the
| victim there.
|
| It's not about winning mote on each hand. It's about keeping
| the target happy as money drains away. And that was their aim.
|
| By controlling the whole game, they were able to
| psychologically manipulate the situation. The target was at tbe
| table with someone they respected. Saw others win and lose
| large amounts of money. Sometimes won themselves.
| Sammi wrote:
| Ooooh you use all these tools in order to _control_ the game,
| so that is is as fun as possible. So the victim still loses,
| as they would without the tools, but now they're happy as it
| happens.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Poker requires skill but there's still a major amount of
| chance involved. Removing the chance and conspiring against
| a single player turns the game into a show. You can set up
| cheap wins and expensive losses. It doesn't really matter
| how well the other players win or lose because they are all
| on the same team, you're the only one actually losing any
| money.
|
| I remember as a kid, I'd play battleship with my siblings.
| I was really good at it, they were not. They hated when it
| was obvious that I let them win but also hated when I beat
| them badly so I found a way to make the game go longer.
| Often we'd play on a glass table and I'd "drop" a piece so
| I could peek under the table and see where their pieces
| were. I could get a hit and then miss many follow up shots
| to slowly destroy their ship and give them more time to
| find and destroy mine. They'd gloat over their hard-fought
| win but I'd just smile and beat them for real next round. I
| could have done this without peeking but I wanted to make
| sure I didn't accidentally play too well.
| morkalork wrote:
| Exactly, to a pro poker player a celebrity or athlete looks
| like an easy target. Someone with a lot of money, likes to
| play for fun, and doesn't have the same skills as a pro. They
| are at the table to bait the pros. But now the problem is you
| need those same players to win in order to extract any money
| from the game, hence the high-tech cheating.
| ZiiS wrote:
| No need to learn; just hire players who are better than the
| fish and split the profits??? Once it is your shuffler, I could
| cobble together a Raspberry Pi to light a slightly different
| wavelength LED when it dealt them two pictures and would need
| to concentrate to lose enough to get all their money.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Organized crime groups are rarely interested in "the long
| game". They work on the assumption that the party will end
| sooner than anticipated. Each game must be total victory.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The self made ultra rich are quite smart on average.
|
| I doubt the same is true of these Cosa Nostra and NBA guys.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My understanding is that collusion is rampant in poker.
|
| If you get introduced to a 'friendly' game of 5 players there's
| a good chance that these guys are signalling to each other and
| basically folding to whoever's got the best hand. You can't win
| against that. Even if you have 2 new players showing up at a
| table existing players could worry about collusion.
|
| If you don't have the fancy trappings those guys did it is
| almost impossible to catch people colluding in poker.
| tqi wrote:
| They were also targeting pros, not merely wealthy players:
| https://x.com/OnlyFriends_Pod/status/1981379130190156129?s=4...
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| > just play better poker than them
|
| You really don't understand the mind of fraudsters and
| criminals. The reason they do what they do is because they
| don't want to "just be better at X than Y" and spend the effort
| for that, they want to take the shortcut and they think they've
| found the best shortcut considering their situation.
|
| Once you start to look at what people are doing with that
| perspective, things will start to make more sense.
| terminalshort wrote:
| But you are already breaking the law running an underground
| poker game.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > just play better poker than them
|
| That's a big "just".
|
| They were using sports celebrities as the draw to the table,
| not expert poker players.
|
| Cheating at poker also looks less threatening than playing
| against an expert, counterintuitively. Someone who cheats can
| pull out some big wins on some bets that look statistically
| bad. The target can see this and think the other party is
| playing poorly (betting on non-obvious hands) but simply
| getting lucky.
|
| Contrast this with a shrewd expert poker player who will be
| easier to spot.
|
| They want the target to think the celebrity sports figure is
| just getting lucky on bad bets, not that they're an expert
| poker shark who's going to take all of their money.
|
| EDIT: Here's a 2 year old YouTube video from before all of this
| confirming this https://youtu.be/G-TKR5ca5jI?t=1790 (Skip to
| 29:50)
|
| Having the cheating poker players look bad is a key part of the
| scam. It tricks the other players into coming back and betting
| big.
| alexpotato wrote:
| > Once you've convinced a wealthy person to play at your
| underground poker table, you've already won - just play better
| poker than them,
|
| This is why in the book Molly's Game [0], the author mentions
| explicitly that she didn't want professionals in her game.
|
| This b/c her game was seen as a game between "regular/amateur"
| players who just happened to be famous and/or have a lot of
| money. This was also DESPITE poker professionals both asking
| her to play AND offering to give her a stake of their winnings.
|
| Granted, certain players (e.g. Tobey Maguire) were MUCH better
| than the other players but it seems that didn't matter as long
| as poker wasn't their primary source of income.
|
| 0 - https://amzn.to/4o05BFi
| nikcub wrote:
| Wealthy people aren't dumb - they don't join games where the
| odds are tilted against them. In these high-stake private games
| they can usually demand and set the rules like shallow stacks
| (100BB), enforced straddles, raising stakes after a loss,
| button games etc. that remove the GTO / poker element and make
| the game more gambly.
|
| Boring pros who play these games straight up and don't "give
| action" don't get invited back.
|
| This is how you can have some of the best poker players like
| Tom Dwan get absolutely wiped out while playing against whales
| in Macau
|
| If you want to see a more recent example of this - the amateur
| whale Monarch recently took on one of the best cash game heads
| up players Bjorn Lee. I won't spoil the result because it's
| highly entertaining and demonstrates how the game works at
| these stakes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCd7giB9s5U
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Sometimes the wealthy person is the shark, and you're the
| fish...
|
| In Molly's Game, Tobey Maguire was the celebrity shark. (In the
| movie he was played by Michael Cera). He could easily have been
| a professional poker player, but he makes way more from acting
| and he prefers the easy play in private games.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| [flagged]
| MetaMalone wrote:
| "An X-ray poker machine was employed to read facedown cards and a
| rigged card-shuffling machine was also used in the plot,
| prosecutors say."
|
| Would love to know more about such a machine, if anyone has any
| insight. Are these developed underground? How expensive could
| they be?
|
| If it can efficiently take in a deck of cards and
| deterministically return a rigged deck in a reasonable amount of
| time, I would be fascinated at how they solved that problem.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Maybe it doesn't return rigged orders, but records the order of
| the output deck with high speed cameras.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Slight of hand? You put the deck to be sorted at the "in" side,
| the machine shuffles it, then it ejects a different rigged
| deck.
| ogig wrote:
| The rigged card-shuffling machine method is documented in this
| recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ20ilE5DtA
| MetaMalone wrote:
| Thanks for the link. So basically, you are at a private game
| and if everyone has their phones out (and you are also an
| unsuspecting idiot), you are screwed.
|
| Crazy that there is a USB port exposed outside the machine.
| nikcub wrote:
| > you are at a private game and if everyone has their
| phones out
|
| I play private games. At any reasonable stakes electronics
| have been banned from the room for years now.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Many shuffle machines read all the cards, do the shuffle in
| software, then sort the cards accordingly. Here's a guy on
| Wired showing how to rig a poker game:
|
| https://youtu.be/JQ20ilE5DtA
| empath75 wrote:
| There's a device that can scan the _sides_ of specially marked
| cards and tell you the complete deck order.
|
| For the shuffling machine there is this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ20ilE5DtA
|
| There are _so many_ ways to cheat at poker that you should
| basically never play a private game outside of close friends.
|
| If you wanted to spend a year or so practicing, you can learn
| how to do false shuffles and cuts, bottom deals, cold stack a
| deck etc...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Mu7jocdew This guy was a
| professional card cheat for decades before going honest.
|
| As someone who knows a bunch of card tricks myself, I have
| learned to resist the temptation to do an impromptu 'ambitious
| card' routine just because a deck of cards and an audience is
| in front of me before a poker game.
| koolba wrote:
| > There are _so many_ ways to cheat at poker that you should
| basically never play a private game outside of close friends.
|
| Playing in an actual regulated casino or poker hall
| eliminates most of the technical risk of a fraudulent
| shuffle. The risk to the enterprise of losing their gaming
| license keeps things honest. Imagine the net effect of
| Bellagio's shuffling machines or dealers being rigged.
|
| But nothing can eliminate collusion of players. You're best
| bet for that is your own self awareness. If your spidey sense
| is tripping, listen to it.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Regulated casinos take a certain % of every pot and players
| don't want to give up $5 or $10 a pot to pay for
| regulations/oversight/etc.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The card-shuffling machine is an obvious vulnerability.
|
| But I'm provisionally calling BS on the "X-ray table." Based on
| (admittedly limited) experience with X-ray imaging, I don't
| believe that X-rays can read ink on playing cards. It would
| have to be a backscatter machine, which is even less
| discriminatory than a transmissive machine. Would need to see
| some evidence that this is possible.
|
| If nothing else, the sheer size and bulk of such a machine
| renders the concept incredible. If I could build something like
| that, I wouldn't use it to cheat at cards, I'd sell it to the
| TSA!
| cattown wrote:
| Doesn't sound that profitable to me. $7m is a lot of money. But
| not that much after building all of that custom tech, setting up
| a dedicated space, training and paying a whole bunch of people to
| run these games. Then whatever's left over gets split between
| multiple crime families? Seems like a lot of work.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well it's kind of an annuity. A million a year ain't nothing
| for a small operation.
|
| But yeah they surely make much more selling fentanyl.
| ranadomo wrote:
| as others have speculated, the real money was probably in
| blackmail and rigged sports betting.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| That was my first thought, especially because they could get
| similar results with a marked deck. To me, this leads more
| credibility to it being part of a bigger operation.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is likely one part of a larger operation including
| blackmail opportunities, as others have mentioned.
|
| However, don't overlook the value of $7 million in cash and
| cryptocurrency. For an organized crime operation that's a lot
| more valuable than $7 million in revenue from an actual
| business subject to taxes, business records, and bank tracking.
| This was an easy way to get millions of hard to trace dollars
| into accounts they could use.
| Noaidi wrote:
| Seems like Trump is going after his old enemies in New York.
|
| Also, they spelled "Bonnano" wrong in that article. It is
| Bonanno.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanno_crime_family
|
| Bon Anno = Good Year
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| Bon Nano = Good Text Editor
| Noaidi wrote:
| No idea why people are disagreeing with this, you are not from
| NY and you do not know the history here. You do not do big
| business in NY with out the mob.
|
| https://www.gao.gov/products/t-osi-88-7
|
| https://www.amny.com/news/the-mob-is-making-a-comeback-in-co...
|
| And...
|
| https://www.americanprogress.org/article/donald-trump-crimin...
|
| "One of the key figures involved in these deals has been the
| Russian-born, mob-linked businessman Felix Sater, who plead
| guilty to racketeering for his role in a $40 million stock
| fraud scheme involving the Genovese and Bonanno crime
| families49 and was convicted of stabbing a man in the face with
| a broken margarita glass in New York."
|
| "Despite their long association, Trump has repeatedly denied
| knowing about Sater's criminal past, notwithstanding the fact
| that Sater widely represented himself as a Trump associate in
| business deals."
| chidog99 wrote:
| Chauncey Billups was mentioned by name 2 years ago for running
| scam high stakes poker games [26:41]
| https://www.youtube.com/live/G-TKR5ca5jI?si=TBsKcTi2ZG1-h1G0...
| jfengel wrote:
| That seems like a lot of work. TFA said that they arrested 30
| people, and got $7 million out of it. The fancy tech involved
| must have taken a good chunk of that.
|
| It sounds like each of them could get at most a six-figure payday
| out of this. Which is no chump change, to be sure, but it sounds
| like many of them could have made as much money without the risk
| of going to jail just by getting a desk job.
|
| Plus, there's no way a conspiracy that big is going to remain
| secret for long.
|
| Maybe the expected to get away with it for longer and get a
| bigger payoff. But wow, it seems like a ton of effort.
| codyb wrote:
| All these comments assume that 30 million is _all_ the mob has
| made with these machines, and that the tech must be very
| expensive.
|
| Usually when they pull out the big piles of drugs for the TVs,
| I assume that's the tip of the iceberg. So why is it that here,
| with four families involved, we think the only money they've
| made is what's been shown to us?
|
| Also, x-ray tables, rigged card shufflers, and funny glasses
| don't necessarily sound like they're the most expensive things
| in the world.
|
| So my guess is...
|
| Combined with these fellas other hustles this was probably a
| nice chunk of change to bring in for a relatively low amount of
| work post initial set up. I mean, you're sitting around playing
| rigged poker with a bunch of millionaires and basketball
| players or whatever. Probably having some drinks, I'd imagine
| there's pretty ladies around, cigars, cocaine. Whatever.
|
| Sounds more relaxing than extorting deli owners block by block
| like all those movies about the 70s show.
|
| And the best part? The people you're robbing are probably much
| less likely to resort to violence as recourse.
| empath75 wrote:
| The card shufflers and the phone app that reads marked cards
| would probably put them back a few thousand at the most.
| iambateman wrote:
| If these folks had used this level of creativity and
| determination to make something useful...I bet their results
| would've been fantastic.
| ranadomo wrote:
| This is a common fallacy. Criminals often turn to crime because
| they're not very good at honest endeavors. Having failed to
| succeed on a fair playing field (hard), they victimize the weak
| and take advantage of others' naivety and trust (easy).
|
| Almost nothing about crime is indicative of an intelligent mind
| that could be put to good use. It's a lot of lowlife midwits
| who are bitter they have no chance to compete or associate with
| real players.
| dboreham wrote:
| And then they run for office..
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| Or they were raised with terrible and predatory culture.
| Screwing other people to get ahead is something that is
| frequently taught in childhood by parents and older role
| models that were also taught that mentality. We've all seen
| the Mafia movies and shows, these are family organizations
| where everyone's Aunts, Cousins, etc. is somehow "connected".
| There's a big uphill battle for a kid to come up in that
| environment and turn out like a model citizen. No excuses...
| cyrialize wrote:
| The story behind how Chauncey got his coaching job is kind of
| sketchy as well!
|
| The blazers didn't really listen to Dame at all, and the GM has
| known Chauncey for more than 30 years.
|
| At the time of Chauncey being hired, his only coaching experience
| was ~1 year of being an assistant coach.
| beoberha wrote:
| Former players being hired as head coaches without much other
| coaching experience is fairly common in the NBA.
| cyrialize wrote:
| Yes, but in this case the blazers head office said they were
| going to search for a coach, and they also took input from
| Dame on what coaches he thought would be good for the team.
|
| They didn't do any search at all, and just went straight to
| hiring Chauncey.
|
| This partially contributed to Dame leaving - it also didn't
| help that Chauncey and Dame didn't quite get along (and also
| deciding to bench him in the last 10 games of the season to
| tank).
|
| I'm honestly fine with players being hired as head coaches.
| Before looking into it I thought it was totally fine with
| Chauncey, especially given his track record as a leader on
| the Pistons and being a phenomenal classic point guard.
|
| The main issue for me is just telling people you're going to
| do a search... and then not doing it.
| everdrive wrote:
| This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why
| people actually like gambling and poker:
|
| - high likelihood you lose money
|
| - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers
|
| - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours
|
| - the only victory condition is that you take money from other
| people
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _- high likelihood you lose money_
|
| When I play games like this, I don't bet more than I can afford
| to lose - and paying $20 to sit at a table with friends playing
| poker is actually cheaper than going out to a bar with them.
|
| > _- the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers_
|
| Are there _any_ games with hidden information that you find
| interesting? Or any competitive games at all? Things like
| Werewolf, or Go Fish, or Settlers of Catan? For that matter,
| even in a game without hidden information, like chess, you 're
| _still_ trying to outwit your opponents.
|
| > _- you 're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for
| hours_
|
| I mean, you can leave if you're not having fun.
|
| > _- the only victory condition is that you take money from
| other people_
|
| But you also spend time with friends.
| q3k wrote:
| because it's very fun
| empath75 wrote:
| Texas hold 'em is quite fun for casuals under these conditions:
|
| The amount of money involved is small compared to the incomes
| of those playing, where most players have the expectation that
| they won't get money back and that is fine for the enjoyment
| they get out of the game, and the pot isn't big enough to be
| worth cheating about. Everyone puts in the same amount of
| money. You play texas hold 'em no limit with escalating blinds
| starting with a pretty big stack of chips, just like a real
| tournament. When people are out, they can't buy back in. You
| play until everyone is out, and the Top N players get some
| money back.
|
| Lots of fun games involve lying, but you can play all night
| long and never tell a single lie and still win. Your only
| necessary verbs in a game of poker are "Call, raise, fold".
| Everything else is optional. If you bet big on a hand, you
| aren't saying anything about what is in your hand, lie or not.
| All the interpretation of what that means is in your opponents
| head. Lots of very good poker players don't talk about the
| hands at all.
|
| My family quite commonly plays Texas Hold 'em for _no money at
| all_, everyone just gets a stack of chips.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Different strokes. (It doesn't appeal to me at all either fwiw,
| but I'm sure what I do for fun doesn't appeal to plenty of
| people)
| pests wrote:
| It's fun?
|
| Would you pay for an experience somewhere and then call it a
| loss because your bank balance is now lower?
|
| It's not lying, it's a game and everyone knows the rules.
|
| Cant the victory condition be... having fun? Why so
| transactional
| everdrive wrote:
| >It's not lying, it's a game and everyone knows the rules.
|
| It's deception at a minimum. Lying could have a stricter
| definition depending on who you're talking about.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Right. But everyone knows you're all attempting to deceive
| each other; it's part of the game. It's consensual.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I hate casino games but I enjoy poker. I don't play often
| anymore but I used to play online a lot, multi tabling.
|
| There's something very satisfying about making thousands of
| decisions that have a positive expected value and seeing the
| math win throughout the variance, resulting in a proven edge.
|
| Like anything in life, it's fun to get good at something and at
| some point it's beyond the math and theory, it feels like the
| cards become transparent at times, you just have a gut feeling
| that this hand, this person is trying to bluff. It can be based
| on what you know about them or just how fast they clicked or
| their bet size, but this guy wants you to fold so you'll call
| with almost nothing and still win.
|
| But overall as a profession fuck poker, you don't contribute
| anything to the world.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| As a former poker pro: I hated gambling, I just was willing to
| do it when I had an edge and at poker I had an edge. I almost
| never gambled at anything else unless I was getting an edge
| from promotions. Still don't.
|
| There's a approximately a 45% chance of losing money on any
| given day, even for the best players, but it decreases over a
| big sample. It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. That's
| true of most things worth doing though.
|
| It's not lying when it's part of the game, and kinda silly to
| view it that way. Is it lying by omission to not tell your
| chess opponent your strategy?
|
| You are stuck sitting at a table, that's true. But you choose
| when you're there and the only rules really are basic civility
| so I never found that part difficult.
|
| Money is the scoreboard. Everyone who sits down knows that. I'd
| argue it's a lot less bad than how most tech companies make
| money these days. I'm not selling anyone's data without them
| knowing about or understanding it. I'm just taking money from a
| guy who is trying to take my money. We both voluntarily put the
| money up to be taken and can stop doing so at any point.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| This tracks. Not a pro here, but if you have a 5% edge at a
| $20 8-seat home game your EV is BEST CASE maybe $20/hour.
| Which is good for entertainment but not much else
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well, if you're paying NL against people who don't know
| what they're doing, your win rate should be much higher.
| But yeah you can only take however much money is on the
| table so nobody makes a living playing the really low
| stakes.
|
| Back in my day most cash games were limit hold'em (it's
| been awhile) and you could pretty easily get to making $50
| an hour beating up an amateurs. That was equivalent to
| about $90/hr today which is pretty great if you're a young
| kid playing a game you enjoy.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'll share my experience. Playing a small pot poker game every
| now and then can be fun between friends. I've had a few groups
| of guys I'd go play poker with from time to time throughout the
| years.
|
| The buy in would be something kind of low for everyone playing,
| like $20. No repeat buy-ins. So the loss if you didn't win
| wasn't much, and the payout wasn't exactly life changing but
| like take your spouse out to a nice date night with the
| winnings kind of thing. I'd often spend $20 or so doing some
| other kind of event with friends from time to time anyways, so
| its not like its some large amount being spent on
| entertainment. Paying for a batting cage for the evening or go-
| karts or renting a karaoke booth is also a 100% chance of
| losing money, should we also never do these things?
|
| There's lots of deception to be played in tons of card games
| and board games, I don't know why poker would be held as
| something odd. Any game where you're holding a secret hand
| pretty much involves some amount of hidden motivations. One
| might also bluff in Catan or deceive their opponents in their
| strategy, should we also avoid playing that game? I'll try and
| hide my routes from everyone else when I'm playing ticket to
| ride, is that bad?
|
| I'm stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours.
| Like any other board or card game. People are stuck sitting at
| a table and following rules for hours playing tabletop role-
| playing games as well. To me, it was a chance to catch up with
| these friends, which at that point in time in our lives
| catching up at the poker game was kind of the big quarterly
| check-in with each other. I loved spending the time with these
| friends, sitting around the table and sharing life with each
| other, often also partaking in meals and drinks.
|
| The victory condition is winning the pot, yes. Which, as
| mentioned, for at least in my games wasn't exactly some life
| changing amount of money one was taking from friends. We all
| went in knowing we'd probably be out the $20 in the end, and in
| the end the winner would have a small amount of money as a
| little bonus. And as mentioned, most of us would use it to take
| our significant others out on a date the next night.
|
| I honestly don't see it as any different from spending a night
| playing any other board game or roleplaying game with friends,
| other than with a small bit of money involved as well.
| Obviously, other people go way harder with this gambling, which
| quickly just becomes an addition to the high of winning.
| simonsarris wrote:
| I mean, one could write something like "I cannot imagine why
| people actually like ski resorts"
|
| - 100% likelihood you lose money
|
| - the point of the game is fly down a mountain and not hit any
| trees (about 45 more deaths per year than poker in the US)
|
| - you're stuck sitting in a lift or a line and following rules
| for hours
|
| - there are no victory conditions
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Skiing is downright sisyphean. I'm only sort of joking - I
| live in Switzerland and since I started ski-touring, where
| you climb up the mountain and then ski down it, this feeling
| is even stronger.
|
| But I think Sisyphus must have gotten at least some
| satisfaction for almost reaching the top.
| banannaise wrote:
| Camus strikes again.
| DavidWoof wrote:
| I have Sisyphus as my wallpaper. When people ask about it I
| say he's the patron saint of software development.
| metabagel wrote:
| > 100% likelihood you lose money
|
| Paying money for a service and losing money gambling are two
| different things.
|
| > the point of the game is fly down a mountain and not hit
| any trees (about 45 more deaths per year than poker in the
| US)
|
| It's not a game. It's an activity.
|
| > you're stuck sitting in a lift or a line and following
| rules for hours
|
| Not the whole time.
|
| > there are no victory conditions
|
| Right, because it's not a game.
| Nicook wrote:
| paying money for a service and gambling are not totally
| different, especially if you more or less know your odds
| before entering. ./when I play blackjack (rarely) I
| understand I am more or less paying to play a game for
| enjoyment.
| croes wrote:
| Why do people smoke?
|
| Reason is rarely our motive.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Reason cannot be a motive.
|
| (Reason can be how you get from a motive to a chosen action
| to fulfill that motive, though.)
| kenjackson wrote:
| This is honestly an odd take. For most people the money is in
| exchange for having fun (there are pros and likely addicts
| though for which the money is the goal). I play in fantasy
| sports leagues and I pay into them. I don't even care about
| winning the pot - I enjoy the game. The victory condition is
| having fun. Winning money is a bonus.
|
| The point of the game isn't to lie to friends. Is this how you
| see the point of chess or sports in general? Or any game where
| revealing your strategy would diminish your chances of winning?
|
| I don't think your comment is very HN typical, but it does
| indicate some other qualities you may have - not bad or good,
| but not typical.
| xandrius wrote:
| With that mindset literally anything is unfun. Do you enjoy
| anything in particular that does not produce value? If so,
| you're also very likely losing something, stuck somewhere, etc.
| dimal wrote:
| I dislike all gambling except poker. Anything that is purely
| chance and not within my control at all (roulette, sports
| betting) is dull and stressful. The odds are always against
| you. Poker has a big element of chance of course, but it's
| really a game of skill. It hits a sweet spot of mathematics and
| social engineering that lights up a lot of neurons in a very
| engaging way.
|
| When it comes to lying, in the real world I tend to be
| hypermoral and honest to a fault. It's fun to have a game
| structure where dishonesty and aggression are acceptable.
| jm4 wrote:
| Poker is a great game. There are so many aspects to it where
| you can go down a rabbit hole of strategy to improve your game
| - there's math, making decisions with incomplete information,
| deduction, reading people, all kinds of non-verbal
| communication, etc. Although there's chance involved, it is
| undoubtedly a skill game. The gambling is one of the
| unfortunate aspects, but it just doesn't play the same without
| some money involved. You can get around that a little bit with
| house games where everyone throws in $20 or small buy-in sit
| and go games at a casino.
|
| Another game that's worth checking out if some of this sounds
| interesting but you really don't like gambling is "Blood on the
| Clocktower". It's a social logic and deduction party game.
| There's chance, bluffing, incomplete information, trying to
| figure out what other players have, etc. It's completely
| different, but it can scratch some of the same itches and it's
| a blast to play. My friends and I play it with our kids.
| capncleaver wrote:
| Yes. See 'Thinking in Bets' by Annie Duke for a good summary
| of why Poker is interesting / useful. World is Casino!
|
| Blood on the Clocktower is great! My 15yo son is always
| trying to get a group of 8+ together for a game.
|
| Came here to recommend Skull, a quick and easy to learn
| bluffing game, of which the designer said he was aiming for
| 'the feelings of poker without the money or luck' and I would
| say succeeded.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| There's also Match Poker, which makes a Team Sport out of
| Poker and removes all the gambling and chance -
| https://matchpokerfed.org/match-poker/
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Right so what are the downsides?
| mgfist wrote:
| Poker is so much fun with friends. It's not about winning, it's
| about hanging out and being a little competitive. It's a great
| way to hang out in real life for a few hours in today's online
| world.
| metabagel wrote:
| Playing poker on a more than casual basis seems like work. But,
| then again so does something like Farmville. Gotta keep
| grinding.
| rideontime wrote:
| "the only victory condition is that you take money from other
| people" is also why I cannot be interested in day trading or
| cryptocurrency speculation, and will likely die penniless.
| floam wrote:
| You don't just get to beat and be handed currency from people;
| you get to keep their money (now it is your money!)
| matwood wrote:
| I don't consider poker gambling (that would be something like
| craps which I also find fun). It is a skill you can build and
| not necessarily lose money. I also don't consider it lying when
| everyone at the table agrees to how the game is played. Playing
| 'good' poker requires folding a lot and it can get boring
| sitting at a table.
|
| Poker is a lot like business distilled down. The player is
| managing resources and deciding where to use them while dealing
| with incomplete information.
| adolph wrote:
| > - high likelihood you lose money
|
| Loss aversion is a cognitive bias that has to be worked on like
| any other. Poker might be a good method to address it.
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| You don't have to lie to win at poker, you just have to bluff
| sometimes.
|
| The game is similar to chess when played at a moderate to high
| level.
| zone411 wrote:
| You got many answers already, but a couple more points:
|
| Poker doesn't require lying or table talk. Bluffing is rule-
| legal strategic deception expressed through betting. More like
| a feint in sports than cheating.
|
| If "sitting at a table following rules" is the issue, that's
| true of most games. And formats vary: many are short and cash
| games are leave-anytime.
| Arrath wrote:
| It entirely depends on the vibes, the company, and the game, in
| my opinion.
|
| At one job, we used it as a social time, 6 to 15 people from
| work (had to run two tables for those big nights) got together
| Saturday night, bbq'd some food, maybe watched a game on tv if
| there was a good one, and played a friendly game. Had a few
| drinks and enjoyed the company, while cards were played in the
| background.
|
| Mildly competitive, but it was a flat $40 buy in with no more
| money allowed so the stakes were never incredibly high.
|
| At another company, one guy in particular was the driver to get
| games going and he always wanted the stakes too high (for my
| taste) with lots of money moving around. I only went to two of
| those, wasn't my style.
| allthetime wrote:
| Everyone at the table agrees to those conditions.
| logtrees wrote:
| This one would be an amazing film exploring both the intersection
| of tech and the NBA and the families involved too. It would be a
| stunning production if done with high quality in mind.
| mastazi wrote:
| > including members of La Cosa Nostra crime families,
|
| I'm not sure if this reflects common usage in English but in
| Italian, Cosa Nostra is just a synonym for Mafia, not the name of
| a specific family. Also, in Italian it's never preceded by the
| article "La".
| Lucasoato wrote:
| Cosa Nostra is a well defined organization operating in Sicily,
| that term isn't used for other Mafias around Italy or other
| Sicilian criminal organizations. Among its past leaders you can
| find Bernardo Provenzano and Matteo Messina Denaro.
| croes wrote:
| Mafia nowadays is used as a synonym for organized crime so Cosa
| Nostra makes it clear it means the original Mafia.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| La Cosa Nostra is the umbrella term for the American Mafia, as
| opposed to the Sicilian Mafia (Costa Nostra)
|
| The term was coined by the FBI specifically to make that
| geographic distinction.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Isn't legal gambling default profitable? The house is allowed to
| remove players who are good at games that involve skill and set
| the win ratio on games that don't (as specified in regulations).
|
| Is this a case of bureaucracy forcing people into illegality?
| debo_ wrote:
| This is like starting a YC company with fewer steps.
| zwog wrote:
| Semi related: A couple of years ago a waste facility in Berlin
| measured increased levels of radio activity and traced it back to
| a restaurant where 13 cards laced with radioactive Iodine-125
| were found:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42157129
|
| I couldn't find anything about how the cheat actually worked,
| though. In Mongolia they found radioactive dice at an airport:
| https://conferences.iaea.org/event/16/contributions/7187/att...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45684548
| whycome wrote:
| Yessss. "Earlier" or "Other Discussions" are good ways of
| framing it. 'Dupe' isn't apt. Thank you.
| bobafett-9902 wrote:
| All this potential jail time and reputation lost for $7 mil
| stolen over multiple years total??? And how many criminals split
| those winnings?? So the take home pay for an NBA HOF was like
| under $1 mil? Billups just signed an extension as an NBA head
| coach making well over that amount EVERY YEAR. Just sad imo
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I think what happens is that many of these professional
| athletes grow up in communities and circumstances where it's
| just normal and expected to be "hustling," getting away with
| things, and avoiding the law. Wrong, but maybe understandable
| under those circumstances (poverty primarily).
|
| But then you take that person out of the "hood," and give him a
| $1M/yr sports contract, and the mentality doesn't necessarily
| go away. It's still about the hustle. They might not stop to
| consider that they don't NEED to hustle anymore. And they're
| probably also surrounded now by grifters/"friends"/family who
| do still need/want to hustle, and essentially using these guys.
|
| It is sad.
| dopamean wrote:
| I can tell you right now that the kinds of dudes who play
| high level college ball and then go on to play professional
| ball were not hustling as kids. Many did grow up in
| unfortunate circumstances (this is less true as the years go
| on) however their talents generally were identified early and
| the track they were on was pretty clear.
|
| I think the simpler answer is that some people are especially
| poor at risk vs reward analysis. Others enjoy the thrill of
| getting away with something. It's been 30+ years since
| Chauncey Billups has had to worry about money. I think your
| point about friends around them is very fair though. Lots of
| these guys have hangers on with their hands out and despite
| making lots of money in their careers they cant just give
| cash to everyone. So I can imagine them thinking "hey place a
| bet on my under for the next game because I'm going to go out
| early" seems like a low risk, not so evil way to put a few
| dollars in a friend's pocket.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| These guys are competitors. They crave it. Gambling is a way
| they scratch that itch.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| This can be done with no tech at legit casinos. Just have a group
| of people with a predetermined "tell" system so that only the
| best hand in the group competes against the fish. In a 4 player
| game, with 3 teamplayers and 1 fish, thats 75% of games you'll
| win. With zero tech.
| metabagel wrote:
| Wouldn't this be discovered and get you banned by the casino?
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| And get your hand smashed by a hammer in the back room
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Which hand?
| awb wrote:
| A few issues:
|
| * The casino takes a rake, so you lose money every hand, but
| you only win when the fish bets and loses. You're also expected
| to tip the dealer
|
| * Everything is on camera and dealers remember players, so
| there will be a lot of witnesses and evidence
|
| * Seats often open one at a time, so you'd potentially lose
| money at other tables waiting to play together. Or, you all
| show up at once and ask to start a new table together, which
| would get suspicious.
|
| * If you don't know the fish's cards, there's still a chance
| you lose and lose big
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| Collusion in live casinos is a real thing for sure, but it's
| not exactly easy to pull off.
|
| 1) Most card rooms these days are 8 or 9 players, so your team
| would need to be at least 3, maybe 4 to really swing the odds
| in your favor.
|
| 2) You need a subtle but effective way to signal to your team
| the relative strength of your hand. Think baseball signals, but
| way more low key. "If I touch my watch, I have an Ace" etc.
| You'll probably want to mix these up across the hours or days
| of play.
|
| 3) Seats typically do open one at a time, and you want to
| trickle in your team to avoid suspicion. Higher stakes games,
| like $5-10, where there are thousands of dollars in front of
| most players are your goal, and good news is that these are
| typically more rare so there may be only one table running.
| Your teammates will have to wait it out, but once at the table,
| they can stay for hours.
|
| 4) You'll never know exactly what your targets are holding, but
| knowing that your teammates folded a flush draw for example can
| help you narrow your opponents cards to a smaller range of
| possibilities. You'll want to position your teammates around
| the table to create "squeeze" situations where two of the team
| can trap a target in between.
|
| It takes some creative subtlety, but it can be very hard to
| impossible to detect collusion in live games.
| anxman wrote:
| https://www.markedcardsshop.com
|
| This appears to be the / a source for the devices in question.
| It's worth reading over the technical details of how it all
| works. It's both terrifying and impressive. Cards can be
| identified using a barcode encoded on their thin edge from meters
| away.
| I_dream_of_Geni wrote:
| X-Ray tables?? Seriously? Why are the feds looking at the
| gambling, and NOT the uncontrolled beaming of raw x-rays into a
| room full of people. There's GOT to be a law covering that...
| exabrial wrote:
| Where they actual X-Rays? Exposing people to ionizing radiation?
| Or was is this used in a figurative sense
| silexia wrote:
| Yet another reason to not watch pro sports. Entitled and overpaid
| athlete criminals.
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