The World Game Protection Conference is the annual event aimed directly at executives in the casino industry responsible for security and surveillance. Held last month in Las Vegas, WGPC always offers cutting-edge information to help combat crime, fraud and other activities that threated a gaming enterprise. And this year’s show was no different. Here’s just two examples of how the show provides attendees with important information.
Jeffrey Robinson, an expert on casino security and author of 30 books including The Laundrymen, told gaming security professionals at the World Game Protection Conference that the newest money-laundering threat prevalent in casinos comes from criminals using vendors in back-door deals.
Robinson highlighted a case in the U.S. in which the Bicycle Hotel & Casino paid $500,000 to settle anti-money laundering violations after a Chinese player did more than $100 million in transactions over 10 months in 2016.
Robinson said the likely connection is Chinese gangs who have flooded the U.S. with fentanyl and methamphetamine and have now outsourced the manufacturing and smuggling to the Mexican cartels.
Robinson said the money-laundering scams do not involve the obvious gaming vendors such as card and dice suppliers. He said that the Nevada Gaming Control Board told him “we know every card supplier and every roulette supplier and every dice supplier. You can’t supply a casino without getting past us.”
The money-laundering could be facilitated through vendors of something as simple as paper napkins. If a criminal organization bought a paper-manufacturing company and approached casinos with a deal that would save them millions of dollars on a higher-quality napkin, casinos would likely agree to that without knowing what’s happening, he said.
Then, the manufacturer produces accounting books that show it sold the napkins for a higher price than the casino paid, as a way to launder the money and make it legitimate, Robinson said.
“What do you think the headline is going to be if it ever hits the fan? Paper manufacturer launders money? No. World’s greatest Las Vegas casino caught in money- laundering paper-napkin scam. It’s going to be on the evening news and in every newspaper.
“Corporate is going to call and ask, ‘How did you get caught in this scam? This is terrible. Have you seen what happened to our share price? Have you seen that our guest rate is down because no one wants to deal with a casino that’s laundering money?
“The Control Board is going to call and say we’re holding hearings. Congress is going to call. Your reputation is now in the toilet and you never saw it coming. Why not? Because you were thinking about money laundering. You weren’t thinking about this base crime of fraud.”
Security Experts ID Top Scams
Among the top presentations at the World Game Protection Conference was on casino scams. Willy Allison, founder, managing director and “chief education officer” of World Game Protection, presented what his company considers the top five casino scams of the century.
The five scams were part of a list of the top 20 scams dating back to the year 2000 that WGP had planned to present at the 2020 edition of the conference, however that edition and the 2021 edition were canceled due to Covid. Global Gaming Business reported on the top 20 scams in its February 2022 issue.
According to Allison, the No. 1 casino scam of the 21st century is the “Baccarat False Shuffle Camera,” responsible for losses of as much as $100 million. Crooked dealers are hired by players to conduct false shuffles. During the last step of the shuffle, the dealer “high riffles” approximately two decks of cards followed by a “step through” false shuffle. A woman accomplice seated at the table rests her bag on the table while the dealer shuffles. The bag contains a concealed camera that records the shuffle. She leaves the table, returns to her hotel room and plays back the video to obtain the sequence of cards. She relays this information to players back at the table who wait until the slug appears and bet accordingly.
No. 2 on Allison’s list, also potentially resulting in $100 million in losses, was “Exploitation of Asymmetrical Cards.” A woman searched for casinos that used automatic shufflers on baccarat, open-faced shoes and poorly designed and manufactured cards that could be “edge sorted.” Conspiring with a big player, they requested and were granted changes in the casino’s standard procedures. The most significant changes were dealing cards face down and having the dealer reveal each card to them individually before she instructed the card be turned straight over, or to the side. This facilitated a scheme where high and low cards could be identified before wagering in future rounds of play, gaining a considerable edge over the house.
No. 3 was the “Cut Card Camera.” A baccarat player who volunteers to cut the cards has a camera up his sleeve connected to a video storage device. The colluding dealer turns the eight decks 90 degrees to the player. Before inserting the cut card, the player glides it across the top of the cards and scrapes his fingernail across the corner of the cards to reveal the indexes of a sequence of cards to the sleeve camera. The player leaves the table after the cut, reviews the video in a private place, and relays the sequence to players at the table. Losses contributed to this scheme could exceed $100 million, Allison said.
No. 4 was the “Crap Call-Bet Collusion Caper,” accounting for more than $1 million in losses. Craps dealers in collusion with players pay long-odds “hop bets” that don’t exist. Since there are no spots on the layout for hop bets, as the dice are rolled, one of the players mumbles some instruction to the dealer that no one can understand. After the dice come to rest, the crooked dealer pays the player for a winning hop bet.
No. 5 was the “VIP Host with Inside Information.” As a precautionary measure, a casino uses a machine to check that pre-shuffled cards for baccarat with eight decks are shuffled correctly. However, the machine exposes the entire sequence of the cards to a surveillance camera before they go to the tables. A VIP host persuades management to give him access to the casino surveillance system claiming that his high-roller client requested independent oversight. After reviewing video of the deck-checker machine and recording the card sequences, the VIP host relays the inside information, including the shoe identifier serial numbers, to his high-roller accomplice.
