Game Protection

Cheating can be reduced by employing "proper procedure" - certain standardized ways of shuffling

cards, dealing cards, storing, retrieving, and opening new decks of cards.

Most casinos are obliged to have an extensive array of security cameras and recorders which monitor

and record all the action in a casino, which can be used to resolve some disputes. Some casinos use

facial recognition software to detect known cheats and criminals.

The correct training programs should investigate the possible cheating scenarios which normally do not

take place in casinos. If a game is not really performed in a standard way by a dealer for a long time,

then there is a chance of cheating. The first and the most crucial step in game protection is always

procedure which should then be followed with surveillance to ensure that everything goes according to

the plan.

One of the best ways to ensure safety and game protection in casinos are still informants when it comes

to insider actions and employee theft. In today's casinos though, insider jobs are quite uncommon to

come across.

Over the last few years, the gaming industry and the casinos have grown quite rapidly. With this growth,

the need for trained and qualified personnel has grown immensely. Casinos need employees who

understand the concepts of casino security issues and table game protection and can detect fraud and

cheating, as the most possible casino crimes. This need is being dealt with by training the table game

supervisors and surveillance staff on how to protect the table games better.

The training efforts had been almost non-existent recently and, in fact, were not even needed.

However, things have changed today for casinos. Training is given today to casino staff members on

game protection methods, advantage play issues and on basic game process.
However, most trainers in the field are selling a training mode which is based solely on cheating and

game protection. Also, most trainers train the casino staff members by installing a fear in them and by

putting emphasis on large scale elaborate cheating methods which are very miniscule. This results in the

staff members looking for signs and things that do not even exist. Most importantly, for table games, it

is all about accountability and procedure.

Thorough and complete understanding of the casino game process, the equipment and cheating moves,

the possible cheating moves used when the procedure is not right game protection will prevent

cheating. Complete attention is to be paid to the operation of the game and to the procedural

compliance and the accountability of the casino supervisory staff.

Casino security refers to the measures that are taken at casinos to protect the establishment's money,

property, and patrons. The security protects the casino and its customers from violent crime, theft, and

other inappropriate behavior. Given the copious amounts of currency that are handled within a casino,

the temptation exists for both customers and staff to commit crimes.

Over the years there has been a series of cheating and fraud in casinos that require the casino to

provide a fair and safe environment for its customers. Casinos require a plan for protecting their casinos

from illegal activity.

Precautions have been made for advantage play where surveillance and training are used to protect the

games from callous mistakes. There are standards for the dealer to follow using the proper procedure in

protecting their game from cheaters stealing at the table. There are regulations that the casinos follow

to prevent collusion on the games. Casinos are required to have a minimum and maximum bet

allowance for their customers. Customers have a time limit of playing at the tables. Precautions are

made to prevent the addicted gambler from betting or winning too much.
Casinos train their dealers to watch for cheaters. Dealers are to notify their supervisor if anything

unusual happens at their table. Dealers can detect card counters and prevent customers from aggregate

betting frauds. Whenever a player is betting aggressively it is unusual. The dealer can prevent card

counting by penetration of the deck. The dealer can do a triple shuffle to mix the cards so that card

counting can be prevented.

The eye in the sky can detect fraudulent behavior. There are technical devices used to detect daubing

or marking of cards. Modern technology is used when cards are marked by inferred light. Inferred light

will show that. Anything unusual where the player is winning too much, the dealer is aware. The dealer

will notify surveillance and surveillance will run back the surveillance tape to detect cheating. Anything

unusual such as capping bets and past posting can be detected by surveillance.

Slot machines can detect illegal activity. Customers can use slugs and other devices to steal coins or

money from a slot machine. Casinos have developed technology used to prevent customers from using

slugs.

When it comes to table games, it is all about the dealers following the correct procedures and the

supervisors watching the tables. If all the procedures which are set are followed and are intact, the

cheating techniques cannot take place. However, Eye in the sky system which is so widely being used in

casinos today and is emphasized on is a way to help the casino staff and is also of utmost importance.

The correct training programs should investigate the possible cheating scenarios which normally do

take place in casinos. If game is not really performed in a standard way by a dealer for a long time, then

there is a chance of cheating. The first and the most major step in game protection is always procedure

which should then be followed with surveillance to ensure that everything goes according to the plan.
One of the best ways to ensure safety and game protection in casinos are still informants when it comes

to insider actions and employee theft. In today's casinos though, insider jobs are quite uncommon to

come across.

The casinos are required to act upon preventing any suspicious behavior on their game. Dealers are

asked to report unusual behavior. In Blackjack, the customer may be suspicious of exchanging cards. The

casino may place their logo on the cards to prevent exchanging of cards from other places. Customers

are always required to keep their hands in view. Casinos will always allow the customers to use one

hand on the cards to avoid switching or daubing cards. In Craps the player always must keep their hands

in view to avoid switching dice. Dealers are always required to keep their hands above the table in view

during the game.

With the proper measurements to protect their customers, casinos can prevent crime, theft, and

inappropriate behavior from reoccurring. Security today consists of cameras throughout the property

operated by trained individuals whose job function is to locate cheating and stealing from both players

and employees.

Modern casino security is divided between a physical security force, of training professionals who patrol

the casino, writes reports of criminal and suspicious activity. The casino will train their employees on

cheating to prevent it from happening at their casino. The casino wants to ensure the safety of their

guest as well as the casino’s assets to prevent crime.

A casino is required to prosecute any unusual activity they report. Games are venerable while

surveillance is there to protect the games. Advantage players and cheaters cost money. Game

protection will have multiple decks to give an edge on the game.

There are frauds in all departments where theft is detected. Mechanical machines can be manipulated,

and false jackpots set up. Buckets of coins can be stollen. The casino loses millions of dollars in theft or
fraud that cost the casino money. It is important to have a fair game by preventing the loss and making

it fair to the casino and the customer.

It is important that a casino develops an operation plan for security and surveillance department to

develop the best practice and policies to train the casino team with the proper training on how to

prevent training. Internal control and casino procedures including evaluation of documentation and

preservation may be used as evidence in training casino employees. These practices can be evaluated

and used to train proper game procedures to prevent cheating. Technology can be used to create an

efficient way to protect casino games. A casino can train their employees game procedures to cheating

frauds and discuss how to handle those situations. Training should be ongoing to train to detect new

frauds. Training on Basic Strategy and card counting is important. Detecting card counting, hole card and

top card play is crucial to detecting advantage play and cheating activity. An analysis of play should be

recorded to prevent counter play. Evaluation of policies used to determine compliance with internal

controls and jurisdictional regulations should be performed by a casino.

Cheating in casinos is much more common than casinos like to admit. Although game protection is

important to casinos, it is about impossible to catch every cheat. Dealers are trained to report suspicious

behavior that may allude to cheating. It is impossible to detect every professional player.

Some of the biggest frauds today, as well as some of the most effective advantage plays (legal methods

used by players to gain an advantage over the house, as opposed to cheating), require memory skills

that can be easily acquired with a bit of training, though practice is needed to be proficient enough to

use those skills effectively. A trained memory is a powerful weapon to those who like to see a casino. A

2008 news article from the Macau Daily Times reported on a dealer who was caught with more than

500,000 Hong Kong Dollars in his bank account, 20 percent of a $3 million score.
Shuffle tracking is when a player uses card counting to track where the good cards are in the deck so

that he can bet to his advantage. the relationship between memory and certain advantage plays. For

card counters (a type of advantage player or AP), a great memory is not necessary, as they are only

keeping track of one or two numbers at most: the running count and the true count. A player looking to

legitimately capitalize on a blackjack game using an advanced strategy would need a stronger memory.

For example, let us look at slug tracking and sequential tracking or “ace tracking,” as it is commonly

known, both being forms of shuffle tracking.

Shuffle trackers can identify a clump of high-value cards during play, then follow that clump to the

discard rack and through the shuffle, so that they can exploit the information during the next shoe.

Knowing when that clump of high cards will be dealt, shuffle trackers can increase their bets accordingly

and gain a significant advantage over the house. This may sound simple, yet it requires well-cultivated

skills.

Slug Tracking is identifying a post shuffle slug that is rich in high (aces and 10-value cards) or low cards.

To shuffle track, players must be able to keep several different running counts in their heads at the same

time, then refer to those numbers at a later point, at which time they must add to or subtract from

those numbers. Each shuffle is “mapped” so that these players know which segments of cards will be

joined through the shuffle procedure.

In ace tracking, another AP technique and more elaborate form of shuffle tracking, the dealer

legitimately shuffles the cards, and the AP can predict, with good accuracy, when an ace will appear

(based on information memorized from the previous shoe), giving them the opportunity to bet big at

that point with a substantial advantage over the house. In blackjack, when a player knows that the first

card of a hand dealt to them will be an ace, they have a 52 percent advantage over the house.
The player would memorize the three cards (suit and value) in sequence, called the key cards, which will

be on top of the targeted ace after the dealer picks the cards up and places them into the discard rack.

The ace (with suit) is also memorized, so that the order for this sequence would be queen of hearts, four

of spades, seven of clubs, and ace of spades, in that exact order.

False shuffles for crooked dealers, are skilled at sleight of hand and employed false shuffles after their

accomplices wrote down the order of the cards from the previous shoe. The accomplice would then

leave the table to calculate all outcomes of the slug recorded. After identifying key cards during play, the

scribe and confederates would know exactly when the slug would appear and whether to bet player,

banker, or tie (or even the many side bets now available) for multiple hands to follow because they

knew the exact order of the cards that were about to be dealt.

One of the biggest baccarat frauds ever (up until that time), swindling casinos across the U.S. and

Canada out of an estimated $7 million. They used a network of players and dealers, whom they

recruited and trained to do false shuffles (that annoying sleight of hand skill). A team member would

record a slug during one shoe by writing it on a baccarat score card. Then, the dealer would employ

some false shuffles, but not for the entire shuffle procedure, to retain the order of the slug. Knowing the

exact order of the cards, and thus the outcome of the hands involving those cards, the team would

capitalize on the information.

In response to this fraud, some casinos have eliminated baccarat score cards and have installed

electronic scoreboards instead, which display the results of the hands of the current shoe. Many

legitimate baccarat players are superstitious, so they sometimes like to bet with a trend when they see

it. Electronic scoreboards are a great tool for them to quickly walk by a table and spot a trend they

would like to bet on or against (like banker shown to win many times throughout this shoe), and

subsequently, an ingenious marketing tool for the casino.

A dealer removes the cards from the shuffle machine, gives a player the cut card, then presents the

cards for the player to cut. Somewhere between offering the cards for the cut and placing the cards into

the shoe to deal, the dealer “accidentally” spills the cards onto the table with many of the cards landing

face up fanning the cards to the player informing the player of card locations in the deck.

Memorizing the cards after the deck is cut in Baccarat can help the player to memorize the order of the

cards. During the shuffle, the dealer would riffle the cards too high. This enables him/her to see the

index, and thus the value, of the card at the top of the segment in the left hand. The dealer memorizes

the card and continues the shuffle procedure. On the next riffle, the dealer will again riffle high to see

that top card in his/her left hand, and using sleight of hand, deliberately place the peeked card directly

on top of the card on top of the pile in the right hand, which is the first card peeked and memorized.

A trained memory is not just a device for those looking to take advantage of or swindle a casino game.

Memory can also aid casino staff in observing a play, whether it is during a review or while watching it

live, and to increase productivity. Those who can efficiently recall players’ names, account numbers,

table and pit numbers, camera and zone numbers, buy-ins, wagers, payouts, win/loss, etc., can get the

job done more efficiently and accurately, and provide better customer service to patrons than someone

who must constantly refer to something else, like a touchscreen or piece of paper for information, at

which time they may also miss something important that is happening on the game.

Marked cards are quite common but more so in private games. Special dyes can be added to cards. The

dye is invisible to the naked eye but can be seen with infrared cameras and special lenses. The light can

be detected by the mobile phone camera. Casino surveillance often believe that the use of infrared

illuminators would be detected by CCTV cameras. Surveillance can detect the marks by monitoring the

flashing light, shadow, and reflections. CCTV cameras can detect 25 or so frames per second to detect
the marks through the light and viewed by the footage of the camera. Cheating devices can be built into

mobile phones, but any electronic device used at the table surveillance can pick up.

Fraud and cheating can cost the casino billions of dollars per year. Examples of how math may be used

to cheat is card counting. By decreasing deck penetration will lower blackjack revenue production as

well as lower the game win/drop hold percentage ad how greater deck penetration would increase the

casino’s overall profitability.