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Group accused in $225K 'dice sliding' cheating scheme at Las Vegas casino
- nlh 3y agoI’m super ambivalent about stories like this. Ignoring what the actual laws are for a moment - this is a game designed by the casinos to their advantage. If a player can figure out a way to get his or her own advantage, more power to them! I think the casinos can and should of course be allowed to ban people from playing if they don’t want them to play (their house their rules, literally). But criminal charges? That feels just wrong. Falls in the same bucket as companies who pursue criminal charges against white hat hackers / security researchers.
- akiselev 3y agoNot only are the games designed by the casinos to their advantage but if someone actually starts consistently winning, they just get banned and sometimes refused a payout. It's set up to be heads the house wins, tails the customer loses.
- wincy 3y agoI watched a documentary on this the other day, with a guy traveling around the country playing blackjack. Multiple times he had to call the gaming commissioner or the sheriff to get his $40,000 in chips cashed. Even one time when he hadn’t played a single game.
- shocks 3y agoDocumentary name? I’ve also been following Steven Bridges on YouTube and it’s super interesting!
- kelnos 3y agoWait, I don't get the last bit. Did he go to the casino, exchange $40k in cash for chips, not gamble at all with them, and then take the chips to the cashier to get it changed back to cash? That's... weird? I feel like as a casino it'd not be unreasonable to think something fishy was going on, like the guy was making a (somewhat clumsy?) attempt to launder money. But overall... yeah. Certainly a casino has the right to refuse service to whomever they want -- such as someone who's counting cards (not that counting works at blackjack these days, since no casino deals out a single full deck at a time anymore) -- but the idea that they don't feel they have to honor whatever payouts owed up to the point of kicking someone out... messed up.
- School-Cotton 3y agoThe chips were probably from a previous session.
- analog31 3y agoI suspect if it doesn't work that way, we will start bailing out the casinos that go bankrupt, and subsidizing them, because jobs.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoReno and Stateline are casino company towns. Also, the Native tribe casinos are similar operations but probably don't have the same political clout.
- paulpauper 3y agoNot only are the games designed by the casinos to their advantage but if someone actually starts consistently winning, they just get banned and sometimes refused a payout. It's set up to be heads the house wins, tails the customer loses. It is not sometimes. They will strait up not pay if fraud is suspected.
- stavros 3y agoExactly, this is the casinos basically saying "come play, you can win tons of money, as long as you don't actually win!".
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoI think we would have much more ethical gambling if customers getting an edge wasn’t criminal.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dmbche 3y agoThis particular one is about sliding dice - throwing them in a way that they don't tumble. I'm sure it's understandable that that's outside the acceptable way to play a game - counting cards, for example, is done while respecting the rules of the game. I kind of see this one as stealing from the casino, rather than players getting an edge. But I'm cool with casinos getting robbed!
- amrocha 3y agoIMO the casino is responsible for enforcing the rules of the game. If the players sliding dice didn't trigger some sort of detection, that doesn't make it a crime to slide the dice.
- angry_octet 3y agoExactly, it's up to their dealer or put boss to stop it when it happens, not some kangaroo court criminal charges months after the fact.
- bluecalm 3y agoWhy do you apply this standard to cheating at games and not for example stealing? I find the view ridiculous. "If not a crime if you didn't catch me red handed" kind of ridiculous.
- amrocha 3y agoBecause stealing is against the rules/laws of the game/society. The article is scant on details, but it sounds like this happened at an auto table. If the auto table allows dice sliding, and they weren't warned by a dealer that they were not allowed to slide the dice, then they were playing by the rules. To flip it around, why is the casino allowed to stack the odds in its favor, but not the player? If there's an exploit in the rules that players can use to gain an advantage, then it's on the casino to update its rules
- kelnos 3y ago
- tesdinger 3y agoIt's entertainment and you pay for it in losses. That's the deal you make with the owners of the casino when you enter the game. If you try to profit off it by cheating, you are failing to comply to your part of the deal. You don't have to accept the deal if you don't like it, just don't go there. If a company doesn't allow you to test their security, just let it go.
- girvo 3y agoRight! But explain to me how what you've described should equal criminal charges?
- tesdinger 3y agoNot following the games rules to gain a monetary advantage is criminal. If the casinos owner would do the same while dealing cards, you would be saying the same.
- zdragnar 3y agoFraud, probably. The rules of the game require the dice to tumble.
- kelnos 3y agoThere's a simple remedy, though, for people who don't want to follow the rules: ejecting them from the game or the casino. Casinos do that all the time. And consider the usual case at a normal "manual" craps table: if someone tried to slide the dice, or throw them in a way that wasn't allowed, there are three (and sometimes four) casino employees around the table who will quickly call "no roll" and tell the shooter what they did wrong, and have them go again. If they keep doing it, they'll get kicked out. No need to involve law enforcement here. But once we talk about an "automatic" craps table -- which exists mainly to cut down on labor costs to the casino -- now they're pissed that they failed to enforce the rules properly, and have -- through their clout and government legal capture -- turned that into criminal charges against the people who slid by.
- 3y ago
- duxup 3y agoIf you don’t get caught you win ;)
- lb4r 3y ago> this is a game designed by the casinos to their advantage. While I more or less agree with everything you said, could there really exist a casino where players have an advantage against the casino? I feel like even a casino that tries to be perfectly fair, and make a profit on other things like food and alcohol, would eventually go belly up because they would logically attract more 'cheaters' than any other casino, even if they did their best to stop them.
- gerdesj 3y agoI'm not sure I could go quite as far as super ambivalent but I can certainly get quite ambivalent about it 8) The whole point of a casino is for the house to eventually win. That is the nature of a business. However we are also talking about gambling - the taking of odds and rules of the game and paybacks etc. So someone outflanked the house, via dextrous skill. Now here's where it gets a bit murky: where do we draw the line between fiddling the odds potentially into your favour via skill and otherwise? I think that skidding the dice was always an available option and hence should be accounted for say with a trip obstacle that the dice must cross. I think that skidding in this case is different than earpieces and card marking and other cheats. I also don't think that counting in Black Jack is wrong - fix the bloody game. Gambling is often painted by the industry as a game of skill. Please don't penalise skill but do have the good grace to realize when you have lost. Pick yourself up and adjust the rules and crack on. You have destroyed so many lives over the centuries, so why not own it and grow up?
- htag 3y ago> where do we draw the line There's actually clear rules about dice handling at carb tables. The dice are expected to hit the far wall, the dice are expected to be tossed, and to not slide. Throws that do not meet standards might be deemed 'no roll'.
- kelnos 3y agoAnd a call of "no roll" in that case is fine. But criminal charges? C'mon.
- bluecalm 3y agoI don't agree. I think it should be legal (as long as going business offering gambling games is legal which is another thing to consider) to offer a deal: "Let's play a game where you have 0.98$ ROI for every dollar staked. In exchange we offer high variance and thus a chance you win big". As long as the casino offers a game true to the promise they should have protection against people looking for loopholes the same way there is protection in contract law. Gambling games are a form of reverse insurance. With insurance you pay to reduce variance/risk. In gambling games you pay to increase it because apparently a lot of people enjoy it. As long as the deal is "come play this game, we offer negative ROI in exchange for high variance" and not "come at us, try anything to win at the game we have here" the house deserves protection imo.
- jsheard 3y agoMirror: https://archive.is/Sjzdz https://archive.is/Sjzdz (site is "not available in my region", presumably they're blocking GDPR countries)
- abduhl 3y agoThe article is unclear about this but what is the illegal part here? “The cheating method involved dice sliding and sliding occurs when the shooter slides one or both dice across the table in order to prevent the cubes from rolling,” the documents said. “The dice will be in the same position as they started, allowing the shooter to control the outcome of the game.” What portion of this is illegal? The casino should be running these games so that this isn’t possible.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoI'm pretty sure the official rules of table craps said that the dice have to both tumble at least once and bounce off the wall. If you slide the dice, the tumbling part doesn't happen.
- iancarroll 3y agoIt seems strange that it wasn't noticed? The mentioned game is meant to have fewer dealers operating it, but it says pretty explicitly that it should be supervised and have >=1 dealer. https://aruzegaming.com/table-games/roll-to-win-craps/ https://aruzegaming.com/table-games/roll-to-win-craps/
- ufo 3y agoThe company says the table can be operated by a single dealer, and many casinos do just that... It's a cost-saving measure that they can get away with because the electronic table doesn't use betting chips; but it also means that there are less eyes to spot the cheaters.
- iancarroll 3y agoWhen the betting and cash in/out process is handled entirely digitally... surely the dice roll is about the only thing the dealer is even handling? I just don't understand how they don't notice the lack of them rolling.
- tesdinger 3y ago
- Cockbrand 3y agoNon-geoblocked: https://archive.ph/2023.05.26-084312/https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/group-accused-in-225k-dice-sliding-cheating-scheme-at-las-vegas-casino/ https://archive.ph/2023.05.26-084312/https://www.8newsnow.co...
- wuliwong 3y agoI was a little disappointed to learn that "dice sliding" is literally just dice sliding. :)
- brewdad 3y agoI read this as dice slicing and was disappointed to learn they weren't shaving off bits of one side to gain an advantage.
- QIYGT 3y agoLooks like autocorrect got to them: > the cheating involved multiple suspects and occurred on the Azure Roll to Win Electronic Craps table It's actually Aruze: https://aruzegaming.com/table-games/roll-to-win-craps/ https://aruzegaming.com/table-games/roll-to-win-craps/
- nvader 3y agoWow, they call it a ruse! It's right there in the name!
- elhudy 3y agoI’m awestruck that anybody would take the time to devise such a scheme and not recognize the insanely high/low:risk/reward for swiping their players cards.
- omginternets 3y ago$200k is a lot of money for many (maybe even most?) people.
- elhudy 3y agoOh certainly. But they didn't need to swipe players cards to get the 200k.
- pests 3y agoCan anyone find what they were actually charged with? Like others here I don't see was illegal about this. Did they have to circumvent access controls or something? The article did mention it was an electronic craps table. How does that even work? Is there someone running the game? Is it totally self-serve? How exactly were they 'sliding' dice? Is there even any rules that the dice must "roll"? What if you threw the dice and it landed perfectly with no sliding and no rolling, is that still a legal throw or did they just accidently cheat?
- knute 3y agoTypically you're supposed to throw the dice far enough that they bounce off the back wall. Maybe the electronic table doesn't enforce that?
- throwaway675309 3y agoThat's correct, but expert dice manipulators can usually throw a slide so that it hits the corner at almost 45° and not the wall, which gives them a statistical edge.
- pzo 3y agoThat still sound like skill than fraud. It's same with software tester trying corner cases - it's software developer fault not taking it into account. Casino could make some bumps on the table and make table circular to "fix this bug"
- pests 3y agoCraps is not a game of skill though - it is purely a game of chance.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoCraps is technically deterministic and there are tall tales about magicians being able to narrow the odds on a throw by throwing very precisely (a legal throw, not a slide), but I have yet to hear of a confirmed case here. Roulette and blackjack are just easier games to beat.
- austinjp 3y agoFor anyone else who gets a message about the content not being available in your region, it looks like this is the same story: https://thehill.com/homenews/4021669-group-accused-in-225k-dice-sliding-cheating-scheme-at-las-vegas-casino/ https://thehill.com/homenews/4021669-group-accused-in-225k-d...
- m3kw9 3y agoSo just slide the dice across the table, that’s it? It the tables fault for not preventing that by adding bumps
- fortran77 3y agoHere's an explanation of "dice sliding" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1qmoDJIunY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1qmoDJIunY
- DigiDigiorno 3y agoIf this is just vanilla sliding/fraud (distract the dealer and then slide the dice without any air time), then this is just a normal case of cheating/fraud... However, this isn't a normal felt craps table, instead of felt it's an electronic screen.* I wonder if the they were able to get the dice to slide after landing due to the physics (coefficient of friction/restitution?) of the screen being very different from felt. If so, this may** be a little more interesting. *I think the type of table looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w9gZAjwqZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w9gZAjwqZs **I imagine it is still quite a small chance this gets more interesting. But FWIW a possible interesting scenario would be the Nevada Gaming Commission finding that they made a legal throw or something
- nateberkopec 3y agoGenerally players like this target specific games for specific reasons, so I agree that there might be something to the table surface that makes it easier to slide dice.
- ChuckMcM 3y agoI'm dead: Gaming board investigators identified the suspects through surveillance video and their players’ club cards,* documents said.* Didn't want to miss out on their bonus points.
- 542458 3y agoIf these are partially electronic machines I suspect the cards may be non-optional, with all of a user’s chips tracked on the card.
- fleshdaddy 3y agoThe players club cards are also part of the upside. Up until recently many of the locals casinos still had the poker games where if you played correctly you could break even or make a little profit. My friends dad supplemented his social security by playing those all day, you don’t make much money but he had so many points he could eat and entertain himself for free basically.
- duxup 3y agoI’m confused, is nobody monitoring the people throwing the dice and noticing that they aren’t rolling at all?
- readme 3y agowhenever you walk into a casino you are constantly being watched, but the dealer isn't the one who does it
- duxup 3y agoAnd yet they didn’t seem to notice right away. Dice not rolling seems like you could spot it.
- tesdinger 3y agoGiven that players register with their name and card, checking using random samples, or spot check, is enough to catch cheaters. They probably also have statistical data of the wins and losses.
- HWR_14 3y agoThe dealer isn't the only one who does it. They also watch you. And they are also being watched to make sure they aren't cooperating with you.
- tesdinger 3y agoIf they weren't monitoring, there wouldn't be a lawsuit, so logic says, they were in fact monitoring and noticed it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paulpauper 3y agoA 9-5 would pay more if they all pooled their money. Casinos invest considerable $ in fraud detection, and are very close with law enforcement and DAs despite the matter being more civil than criminal. Casinos hate to lose even if it's not that much money. They will review the same tapes hundreds of times to catch even a small cheat.
- omginternets 3y agoIsn’t this just being good at the game?
- tesdinger 3y agoNo
- fleshdaddy 3y agoI see some folks in this thread underestimating casinos and exactly how far the odds are tilted against the players. I grew up in Vegas and have a lot of family and friends who work in the casino industry. A particular family member is an executive at one of them and told me that he has control over the odds on machines (within the legal limit) down to a particular machine being used by somebody. Apparently this means if they need a particular high roller to stick around for awhile and spend some money they can go ahead and grease the odds on the machine they’re using to give them some winnings to spend. Then they can just make it back the next day or whatever by cranking it back and making the odds worse. Honestly at first I thought he might be exaggerating but some time later I had a friend who worked corporate finance at one of the big casinos independently tell me the exact some thing. These casinos though are really no joke. It’s one thing to skew the odds, and most people understand that, but being able to skew them in real time feels a lot more rigged. I assume some machines don’t operate this way because for many years the smaller casinos had machines that you could break even or win a bit consistently in poker, and some casinos even advertise odds. Still though its pretty shocking if my understanding is correct.
- tempfortwitt90 3y agoI wonder if it's even worse.. by law they are required to have a certain statistical payout right? What if the casino can enable "win mode" for their favorite customers staying in high priced rooms, and then turn it to basically zero for foot traffic. At the end of the month the machine paid out the correct ratio... Except you as a general player had zero chance to win because it paid out to their loyal customer earlier in the day.
- tapland 3y agoDon't think its worth the risk. You'd lower the average percentage player payout from like 98% (might be defaulted lower in Vegas, not sure) to low 90s and bump a few to over 100? it doesn't sound worth the risks. regular high rollers will still go there and still be profitable with regular slot odds.
- llamataboot 3y ago
- xpressvideoz 3y agoHow could the incident happened in 2021 be revealed in 2023? Do they retain the videos from the surveillance camera for that long?
- gumby 3y agoI'm curious what kind of law might prohibit this. I'm not doubting that such a law might exist in a state like Nevada, just not sure how it might be written. On the casino side I can imagine a a slot machine might be required to have some kind of certified RNG and some requirement of statistical behavior, or that a roulette wheel must have some certification of symmetry etc. On the player side I can imagine ordinary false currency laws to prohibit putting slugs in slot machines etc, or marking or switching out cards, using fake chips etc. But in a game with an affordance that permits moving the dice in this way, how would you write such a law? In a craps table the dice must travel far from the hand and must bounce off the back end so the technique in the article is mechanically impossible. I'd think that this is the casino's mistake, not the players', but apparently some law says otherwise.
- dec0dedab0de 3y agoReal craps tables also have a wire down the middle to prevent sliding. Before the wire was in place, the trick some cheaters would do is to spin the dice and slide them down the table, so they look like they're rolling. This was a digital craps table that somehow allowed the players to get away with sliding. So who knows what the actual technique was.
- alanpca 3y agoI have never seen a wire on any table, ever.
- raldi 3y agoMe neither, and I’ve played Craps in many cities in several countries. I can’t find any google results for [craps table wire] either.
- dec0dedab0de 3y agoThey're definitely on every Atlantic city and las Vegas table I've ever seen. But they blend in and are very subtle. It's just enough to make the dice tumble if they're being slid instead of rolled. Most people never even think of it because the stickman should be telling you to throw the dice to the back wall anyway. Next time you're at a table look in the middle right in front of the boxman.
- vallismortis 3y agoNevada, seriously. This is an 'electronic craps table' where the House controls _literally_ all aspects of the game, and the players are being prosecuted for 'playing wrong.'
- nateberkopec 3y agoIt’s partly electronic. Players still throw real dice, there is no computer RNG.
- Zanni 3y agoThere are still real dice being thrown. Only the betting is handled electronically.
- Justin_K 3y agoWas there anyone working on behalf of the casino to state that they threw the dice wrong? That's what seems to be missing.
- LanceH 3y agoI've wondered about this asymmetry between company and individual. Player throws the dice wrong -- crime. Hotel overbooks and doesn't provide what was already paid for -- oops. Don't scan something at Walmart? Arrest and prosecution. Get double scanned -- who gets arrested? Who will pick up that prosecution?
- balderdash 3y agoGlad it’s not just me that this drives insane. And perversely, it’s the ubiquitous essential services in quasi-cartels that are the worst (airlines, telecommunications providers, etc.). Seems like a bunch of hertz executives should be in prison rather over the spate of false arrests of drivers. https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/business/hertz-lawsuit-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/business/hertz-lawsuit-settle...
- HWR_14 3y agoFor the scanning issue, the problem is intent. Accidentally not/double scanning is not a crime. Its easy to convince a jury that someone not scanning steak after scanning bananas, potatoes and corn is doing it to steal steak. It's hard to prove that a cashier scanning steak twice to make Walmart more money was doing so intentionally. If it was official Walmart policy to do so, and obviously intentional, I imagine it would be a huge news story and a lot of state AGs as well as class action suits would get involved.
- kelnos 3y agoEhhhhhh, I agree that criminal charges for dice sliding is way unreasonable, but I don't think your examples are quite the same. "Player throws the dice wrong" is really "player knows that what they're doing is against the rules and gives them a huge edge, but does it anyway". And "hotel overbooks..." is -- unfortunately -- "hotel overbooks, which they are legally and contractually allowed to do, but will refund your money and at least attempt to find you a room elsewhere". I think it's a shitty practice, and if I ever got "bumped" from a room that way, I'd shitlist that hotel chain. But I don't begrudge them their right to do that. "Doesn't scan something at Walmart" is more like than not "stealing" than "an accident" (though I do expect that when accidents happen, people still often get railroaded). "Cashier double scanned" is pretty much always an accident; punishing a cashier seems fantastically unfair and predatory.
- spoonjim 3y agoThey forgot the #1 rule: the house always wins, even if they have to take you to the courthouse they own.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoFree my kings
- Miner49er 3y agoIf I had found a flaw in a game like this I wouldn't assume exploiting it is cheating and definitely wouldn't think it would be illegal. If the game allows something that can happen accidentally (and especially if it is electronic) I would assume it is allowed.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoYou're playing craps, not playing a new sort of game. If what you do is illegal in craps, it would be illegal here.
- Miner49er 3y agoI've never played craps. My understanding is the rules are normally enforced by a dealer at the table. Do you know if these electronic tables have the rules that aren't enforced in the game's code displayed on them or something?
- pclmulqdq 3y agoYou don't magically get to break the rules of soccer just because the ref isn't watching at the time. The dice are physical and the game is exactly the same as craps, but everything else about the table (ie betting) is electronic. Clearly, the game's code doesn't enforce the rules about dice rolls.
- Miner49er 3y ago> You don't magically get to break the rules of soccer just because the ref isn't watching at the time. Well that's actually a great analogy, because you kind of can, can't you? And in professional sports there's tons of money on the line, but if a player does something against the rules and isn't punished for it at the moment they aren't charged with fraud.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoPlayers routinely get fined after the fact by these organizations for rule-breaking during the game, even when it gets past a referee. Those rules are not legislated, but defined in a civil contract. If they were legislated like the rules of gambling gmes, it would be a crime.
- bigbacaloa 3y agoIf you win consistently in a casino, then you are cheating, and the casino will not pay out. First claim is self evident to anyone who understands the odds on these games. Second is self evident to anyone who understands the gambling business minimally.
- martyvis 3y agoI am shocked, I say again, shocked, that it is possible to cheat in casinos.
- jwr 3y ago"This content is not available in your country/region." This should be removed from HN: the content is not on the Internet.
- xabi 3y agohttps://archive.is/Sjzdz https://archive.is/Sjzdz
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- unpopular42 3y ago[flagged]
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoOr the site operators could simply use less invasive analytics/adtech. It’s been a few years now, GDPR compliant analytics/advertising is a solved problem.
- unpopular42 3y agoSolved by an insanely stupid pop-up on every website on the internet. No thanks, I prefer the old way.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoUnless you're dealing with some country in turmoil, at high risk of a revolution, and the government is currently engaged in suppressing dissent, the most likely case is that the content provider is making a business decision to exclude certain geographical locations. Could be market segmentation, could be them wanting to avoid having to follow a very good and beneficial set of laws, which prevents certain abuses and thus cuts into their profit margin (a well-known example here starts with "G" and ends with "R"). Either way, the point stands. Region-locked for bullshit reasons = not on the Internet.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
- ranting-moth 3y agoI've never heard of Craps or Electronic Craps so I googled. The last time I searched for a game that was gambling related, the ads I got for the next 2 months were nearly all gambling ads. It was craaaaazy. I don't gamble and never have, but the thought crossed my mind that if this happened to someone recovering from a gambling addiction, he wouldn't have had a chance.
- Kaibeezy 3y agoGood short video explanation of sliding. Roll one, spin the other on 6. It’s very specific. https://youtu.be/W2Jz9UenEPg https://youtu.be/W2Jz9UenEPg
- pbj1968 3y agoAnd the casinos get millions in free advertising and people now think there’s a secret way to gain an edge. The house always wins.