Greatest Gambling Cheats Part 5: The Roulette Section.

The Roulette Section:

In order to successfully carry-out this move, participants in the scam must make use of the method of ‘chip-betting’, this referrers to a number of different betting strategies where two different individuals on the team, known as ‘chip-bettors’ , make bets with numbers and with specific chip denomination, in a manner that they have determined prior to the game and which corresponds to the teams desires to make the dealer act in a certain way; placing specific bets mean that the team will know where the dealer will be in relation to the table, where he will be directing his eyes and his body.

In orchestrating the dealers move to such a degree, the scam team manages to create certain points of vulnerability in the security mechanisms that are in place in many casinos to prevent cheating. The vulnerability is exploited by another member of the team, the ‘mechanic’, this is the member of the team who is charged with the act of switching the chips, and the distraction of the chip-bettors allows the small window of opportunity needed by the mechanic. Additionally, because the casinos are fully aware of the fact that roulette draws in many cheats that use a past-posting method (past-posting= switching chips so that winning bets are paid out at a higher value), anyone attempting a scam in this area needs also to be an excellent player.

The ‘Roulette Section’ is usually practiced in the third section of the table, the lower third of the layout table, which represent the numbers from 25 up to 36 and also the 3^rd dozen box that borders the left-hand side of the lower third section. Once the members of the team are in the correct positions, the chip-bettors buy-in for roulette, meaning that they buy chips that are only playable at the roulette tables. Of themselves, these chips have no value; they only mean anything in relation to the game of roulette. Each chip-bettor plays the value chips that they are willing to risk in relation to the casino limits. The chip-bettors should always play with the lowest denomination chips, that could be anywhere from $0.25-$1.00, but this varies from casino to casino as do the game limits. By playing specific bets, in terms of their placement and value, this allows the team to minimize their losses and maximise their profits.

One of the chip-bettors needs to play chips which they have placed in stacks behind the dealers chip well, so that they are slightly obscured from the dealers view, the colour of the chips in the stack are irrelevant. The position of the chips behind the dealers well means that the dealer will have to move slightly and direct his eye-contact away from the whole table at once, in other words they force the direction of his vision. Next, the other chip-bettor needs to play bets using chips of a specific colour, these need to be the darkest chips, and where these chips are placed in relation to the dealers well is irrelevant; the only reason that these latter chips are placed on the table is so that the mechanic can past-post a black chip into the darker coloured roulette chips- it is less easy for the dealer to identify the switch if the colours are similar.

The chip bettor, who placed his chips behind the dealers chip well, bets a stack of 20 chips on the outer 2-1 third dozen box on the layout. When the bet wins, the dealer is forced back into the well in order to get two 20-chip stacks to pay the winning bet, and this action requires the use of both of his hands; it also means that he has to re-orientate his body and take his eyes off the table, and it is within this small distraction that the mechanic makes his moves and past-posts a low denomination chip for a high denomination chip. The chip-bettor, who had used a dark chip-stack as part of the scam, placed a bet straight-up on all numbers from the 3^rd section, comprising the numbers 25-36. Because the mechanic past-posts using the dark coloured stack, the high denomination, black chip, is easily camouflaged.

In order to undertake the move, the mechanic needs three of the chip bettor’s dark chips. He procured them by stealing them from the layout table. Because they would risk revealing themselves as people who know each other, the chip-better cannot pass his chips overtly to the mechanic; rather, the swap needs to be made when the chip bettor is spreading his chip across the layout. At only one point in the scam, the chip-bettor needs to place 3 dark chips in a number in the second section of the layout, allowing the mechanic to pick them up as he laid his own bet. Because there are so many arms and hands on the layout all placing different bets, it is highly unlikely that the removal of chips from one player to another is ever noticed by the other players or the dealer.

The mechanic must not buy-in for roulette, but must instead use the casinos generic chips and only places bets in the 2^nd dozen boxes, this means that he will lose a bet every time a number in the 3^rd dozen box wins, and this is intentional. Due to this method, he is able to leave the table at any given moment and never needs claim a winning bet- sound strange? Yes, but it means that he never needs to interact with the dealer.

The act of past-posting a $100 chip straight up on one of the 3^rd section numbers that incorporates the dark chips chip-bettors bet means that a winning bet pays $3,500. Once the chip-bettors and the mechanic are all in position with all their chips, the ‘claimer’ (the member of the team that actually collects the money) then arrives at the table, once they receive the OK from the mechanic, and bets a legitimate black-chip bet in full view of the dealer in the 3^rd section of the layout. This part of the scam is the set-up. A dealer will always make known to the floor man when a black chip bet is placed on an inside number, the floor man will then approach the table and check-out the roulette player who has placed the bet, the floor man will remain until the wheel is spun, the ball has landed and the payoff is won. Regardless of whether the claimer wins or loses, they leave the table and escape to an area of the casino where neither the floor man nor the dealer is able to see them, but stay within eye contact of the mechanic, who will signal when the claimer should return to the table to claim. The idea is that both the dealer and the floor man will remember the claimer and the fact that they have bet a high-denomination chip (they will remember because the event is relatively rare in a casino).

Once the set-up has been successfully completed, the next part of the scam is the move sequence. Prior to the claimers first appearance at the game, there was no need for the chip-bettors to make particular bets. This is because no move (i.e. part of the scam) could yet be carried out; only chips could be placed strategically on the layout. However, once this part of the scam is entered into, the chip-bettors need to begin placing four dark chips within the 3^rd section of the layout; that means a stack of 20 on every spin. Occasionally another player, one who is not a member of the team, will place a bet in a location that is strategic to the team, you can then try to past-post their chips, but it is recommended that the team backs off at such a point and waits out that particular bet, the more innocent people are involved, the more likely you are to get caught.

Once the team is in position at the table, the move can go on once a number in the 3^rd section has won. At the point at which a winning number comes out, the claimer is signalled to return to the table and they stand behind the first section of the layout, opposite the dealer and as far away as possible from the part of the wheel where the move actually happens, this means that they are eliminated from any suspicion as they are not close enough to tamper with the chips in the 3^rd section. The moment at which the dealer takes his eyes off the layout, the mechanic lifts the dolly, removes the chips the chip-bettor placed on the winning number and swaps them for the 3 identical roulette chips he had earlier removed from the layout, plus the black chip that was underneath. This means that the winning chip is now beneath the dolly; the winning bet comprises one $100 and three $1 chips, making it appear that the claimer placed one $100 and the chip-bettor had placed three $1.

Once the move has been successfully made, the claimer then claims the $3,500 win, and because he has already made his name as a $100chip bettor, the dealer and floor man accept the bet much more readily than they otherwise would. This method can occasionally draw suspicion, but is successfully carried out around 75% of the time.

Copyright © www.online-casinos.co.uk, 2009. All Rights Reserved.