A former Bellagio craps dealer and accomplice pleaded not guilty to stealing more than million from the casino via “phantom” craps bets over two years.
Mark William Branco and his brother-in-law, Jeffrey Martin, in Clark County on October 6 entered their pleas and had bail set at $160,000 and $125,000, respectively.
While working as a craps dealer, Branco, 42, from about July 2012 to July 2014 allegedly paid Martin, 38, and two others for fake bets placed during particular times when the craps tables were very busy and casino bosses more distracted.
One of the accused accomplices, Anthony Granito, 49,recently underwent heart surgery and is scheduled to appear before the court on November 3, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
The Bellagio says at times Branco’s accomplices would utter little more than gibberish upon a roll and receive chips for their fake bets, the casino claims.
They also won verbal hop bets at consistent and astronomically high rates of 452 billion to 1 that are impossible to do without cheating, an MGM Resorts International statistician said.
Hop bets pay off at 19-1 and were not marked on the gaming surface at the Bellagio at the time but are now.
“Their play over that period was so out of line with the mathematics that it’s practically no way they could have been playing a fair game of chance,” MGM Gaming Statistician Zachary Levine told a grand jury.
“We have some very extreme high-end play at the Bellagio that can result in pretty wild swings, and we have some winners, so we’re not saying that winning is impossible, just nobody, even bigger bettors, won to this level,” he told the grand jury.
The scheme was tripped up after another Bellagio craps dealer became suspicious of the group’s activity and reported it to security. Gaming Control agents determined Branco and another former dealer, James R. Cooper Jr., 43, were throwing the games for their friends.
Cooper is cooperating with prosecutors, and the four men each face up to 60 counts of cheating and theft.
