Cheating Expert Answers Casino Cheating Questions

My name is Sal Piacente.

I catch casino cheaters.

Let's answer your questions from the internet.

This is Casino Cheating Support.

[upbeat music]

Absurd_Name-5231,

Do you think any casinos rig the deck

in blackjack using the shuffle machine?

Yes, back in the old days when the mob ran things,

casinos did cheat.

For example, one way the mob would cheat is a cooler.

In blackjack, 10, jack, queen, kings are 10.

So here's a 10, 10, 8,

10, 10, 9,

4, ace, 5, 2, 3,

6, 7.

Set these cards up in this order and do it four times.

When you have the cards set up

in this particular order,

no matter how ideal these cards are,

you make a big bet, look at that.

You have a 14, you have a 19, I have a 20.

You can't win.

That's how the mob used to cheat.

Today, casinos don't need to cheat.

They have math on their side.

All of these games are mathematically designed

for the casinos to win.

You can get lucky, you can win,

but if you're winning consistently over time,

there's something wrong.

And that's what the casinos have to figure out.

And if they can't figure it out,

then, they call me. [keyboard clicking]

Turbulent-Maximum596 asks, [upbeat music]

Has anyone experienced dealers cheating?

Absolutely, there are many way dealers could cheat.

One simple way a dealer could cheat is here,

you make a bet. [chips clacking]

Let's say 75.

So when I pay you, I should just size into you

and pay you 75. [chips clacking]

But if you're my partner and no one's looking,

I really gave you a hundred there.

A more sophisticated way a dealer could cheap

would be something like this.

You're working with me, you're my partner,

you make a bet of $25, [chips clacking]

but when you win, I come out and I pay you.

And it looks like I just paid you $25.

Where in reality, I didn't.

I used a chip cup.

This is the Trojan horse of chips.

This stack right here looks like a stack of five.

It's not.

It's a hollow stack of chips, where inside it,

I conceal higher denomination chips.

So even though it looks like I'm giving you a stack of $5,

I'm not.

I'm giving you 400. [chips clacking]

Another way a dealer could cheat is the second deal.

For example, if I know this nine of spades is on top,

and I want to save that, when I deal these cards out,

I want to keep that nine right there.

But I would do it on the pitch.

As I push the top card over,

the second card is exposed right there,

and I'm taking it right from the upper right corner,

and I pull the top card back.

If I did it face up, it would look like this

and that card stays on the top.

As a matter of fact, [keyboard clicking]

there's an old joke.

The dealer was so crooked, the top card was getting dusty.

NoobSlayerxz wants to know,

How do you guys check if the dice is loaded?

Well, if you look at a casino die,

these dice are made to perfection.

However, when the crooked dice maker makes these dice,

he drills certain spots deeper

and puts a heavy metallic alloy into it,

thus, making certain sides heavier.

How do we check for that?

This is a balancer.

If I take a regular casino die and I put it right here,

and I spin it, watch how that die acts.

That's a regular die.

Now, let's put this dye into it, which is the loaded dye

and let's see how that one acts.

And you're gonna see it's not balanced.

This is called a dead ace.

If you rolled this die on the table,

more than percentage dictates,

a one will come up on this die.

I could roll this die a hundred, there's a one.

I could keep rolling it.

There's a four.

There's another one.

A one will come up more often, but it's not guaranteed.

When you're gonna put crooked dice into a casino,

you need a guarantee.

So let me show you how that would happen.

If you look at these dice, they look the same.

Look at the one, you'll see the casino name,

and if we roll these dice, there's a hard eight,

there's a five with a one and a four.

But you know what you're not seeing?

A seven.

These dice cannot make a seven.

On the bottom of that four should be a three.

It's another four.

And the bottom of that five should be a two.

It's another five.

There are only one, four, or five on these dice.

These dice cannot make a seven, and you will win guaranteed.

That is the reason why craps tables have mirrors around it.

So the boss could look into the mirror

and see the opposite sides.

So now you're probably wondering,

how do the cheaters switch the dice?

How do you get the dice into the game?

I'll bring in the green dice.

So let's suppose I want to switch the green dice

for the red dice.

When it's my turn to shoot, as I reach for the red dice,

I switch 'em for the green.

It's called a palm switch.

Out of all the cheating moves,

that is the hardest one to do.

But now watch how that looks with the same color dice.

I cannot tell you the last time I've ever heard

of crooked dice being used and getting caught,

but I do know they're being made.

[keyboard clicking]

And they're not made for entertainment purposes.

Pyrmale wants to know,

What is it like working security

at a casino? [upbeat music]

You're looking for things out of the norm.

For example, a dealer should never turn off a game.

If a dealer ever turns off a game to look at me,

the only reason that dealer is looking at me is

to see if I'm looking at them.

And usually, that means that they're about to do something.

Now, when you're a dealer,

you're looking for the players to cheat.

And some of the signs that you're looking

for is distractions,

trying to make a dealer look elsewhere

while you're gonna hit 'em on the other side of the table.

Or when they start putting their hands too close

to their bet, that means they're about

to pinch a bet or press a bet.

If they win the bet, they're gonna add to it.

If they lose a bet, they're gonna pull some back.

Or when hands leave the table,

those cards always have to stay in view.

When these cards leave the table,

the player can be switching cards, could be marking cards,

definitely up to no good. [keyboard clicking]

Paypalou23 wants to know,

Can somebody teach me how to count cards?

I'm ready now. [upbeat music]

Counting cards is very, very simple.

Each card is assigned a value.

2, 3, 4, 5, sixes are assigned the value of plus one.

7, 8, nines are zero.

Tens and aces are minus one.

If the dealer just dealt you these two cards,

your count's minus two.

Every time you see cards dealt,

you just get an accumulative count,

and that is the running count.

However, all decision, whether it be betting, playing,

or insurance, is done with the true count.

What is the true count?

It is the ratio of high cards versus low cards

in each single deck that remain.

As soon as the true count hits plus two,

that means the cards now favor you.

That means now it's time to increase your bet, not by a lot.

The bigger the plus count, the more you increase your bet.

So in a nutshell, card counting just means

that you're keeping track of what's left.

When there are a lot of high cards left to be played,

now the cards favor you.

When there are a lot

of low cards to be played, [keyboard clicking]

now the cards favor the house. [mouse clicking]

VastCoconut2609 asks,

How magnetic dice are used [upbeat music]

to cheat in casinos?

Well, magnetic dice are mostly used in private games,

but a man, I believe it was Thailand.

He had magnets implanted into his hands

to cheat on the dice cups that were there for 40 years.

But because he was gonna travel, he was afraid

that the magnets might get detected.

He surgically had to take 'em out.

So what are magnetic dice?

If we look right here, you can see I have one die made

where the spots were not filled in,

and these dice right here are balanced.

You could roll 'em, they're they're regular dice

until you put a magnet near 'em.

When you put a magnet near 'em, then you could control it.

So the cheaters would get a magnet under the table

or on the sides of the table.

One scam that happened was a magnet was actually concealed

in the wheelchair of a player,

and the battery that controlled the wheelchair

also controlled the magnet.

So when the shooter threw in the magnetic dice,

the guy in the wheelchair just hit the button

and they won a lot of money. [keyboard clicking]

Flying Dutch Madden wants to know,

'Casino' the movie, any truth to this?

Was Las Vegas really different back when

and really run by gangsters? [upbeat music]

Absolutely.

The movie Casino is a great deal

on showing you what it was like when the mob ran things.

A common question asked to me today,

Sal, do they really beat up players

and cheaters the way they used to back then?

Well, no, they don't.

Today, they'll prosecute you, they'll back you out.

But when the mob was running things,

yes, violence was the solution.

And guess what?

It was an effective solution.

If you're a dealer that was cheating

and you just saw some guy walk out with two busted hands,

you're gonna think twice before you steal from that person.

Now, in the movie Casino,

the Robert De Niro is the casino manager,

and he's walking through the pit,

and he noticed a dealer lifting the hold card up.

The player at another table will see that card,

and then, signal it back to the person playing.

Well, when De Niro saw that, they got the two players,

they brought the person downstairs,

and they broke his hand with a hammer.

When the mob ran casinos,

they definitely did things a little differently.

The people that they hired

to watch the games were ex cheats.

They actually knew the moves, they knew what it looks like.

They were more qualified to catch it than anybody else.

Today, it's not that way. [keyboard clicking]

Let's see, bigcuzelswick,

Could you actually pull off an Ocean Eleven heist

in real life? [upbeat music]

Theoretically, could it be possible?

I don't think so, personally.

Well, you're wrong.

Las Vegas is definitely iconic.

The Las Vegas Strip, the mob, the Rat Pack.

However, the gambling mecca of the world is Macau.

It's a small island outside of Hong Kong,

and the gambling that goes on there is unreal.

You'll see people betting 300, 400,000,

a million dollars, one hand.

So what happened out there?

They flew a high roller in,

he was met at the airport with a limousine.

They chauffeured him to the hotel.

They had the managers outside waiting for him to greet him.

They escorted him in.

They brought him upstairs

to a high limit room on the 23rd floor.

It was a private suite.

They beat him, let's just say 25 million.

And then, when that player came back to the casino

and say, listen, I lost 25 million

on your private VIP suite on the 23rd floor.

The casino said we don't have a private suite

on the 23rd floor.

These cheaters or these scamsters took a private suite,

took all the furniture out of the suite

and pushed it into a bedroom and set up a mock casino.

They had phony surveillance cameras,

they had phony supervisors with suits and badges,

they had cocktail waitresses, and then, they beat 'em.

Now, I do happen to know the surveillance VP at the time

and I said, Is there any surveillance footage?

And he said to me, Sal, what footage?

All we have is people walking into the room.

We know who they are and what they look like,

but there's nothing of the actual play.

Of course, it's a hotel room.

[keyboard clicking] That's Oceans Eleven.

YankinAustralia wants to know,

Marked cards, [upbeat music]

how often do you find them?

Marked cards been behind some

of the biggest scams in the casino industry.

A simple way of marking cards, they sell these pastes.

It goes on the finger.

The professionals, they'll keep it right on the table,

and they'll just mark the cards like this.

How?

This little tin is concealed inside the chips.

So as you're playing, as you're dealing,

I'm playing with my chips. [chips clacking]

Now right here, I just got it on my hand.

I wanna mark these two cards, right?

I don't know what they are.

So when I come over, I see it's a four and a six.

I'm hitting the six right here.

Now, I spin 'em, and I'm hitting the six again.

Now, I transfer the cards,

and now, I'm hitting it dead center.

Now, I'll be honest, if your eye is not trained

to see that, good luck.

I don't care how you mix these cards up.

When these cards are on the table, from right here,

I can't miss it.

There's your four and there's your six.

A real simple and effective way of marking cards,

a real fine emory board,

where you can actually sand off some of the back.

Let's suppose I want to get these aces.

I could take these cards, file 'em down in the middle,

and by filing down in the middle,

[Sal blowing off sanded cards]

what you're gonna do is you're gonna make these aces look

like an hourglass.

You can't see it, but they're shaped like an hourglass.

So what's the big deal?

So in theory, when I shuffle this deck right now,

when I grab them in the middle, I'm coming in contact

with every card except an ace.

So now I should be able to pull those aces right out.

These are called end strippers.

Why end?

Because the center is cut in.

And believe me, [keyboard clicking]

there are a lot more ways of marking cards

than what I just explained.

Shufflupaguss wants to know,

No way they have special cards like Austin Powers

in real life. [upbeat music]

Now, these cards are marked from the back.

Can I see it?

No, I can't.

However, I take these glasses off,

I put these glasses on, and now it's a different ball game.

A blind person could see this.

That's a three.

There's your ace, there's your jack, and so on.

And these can be read at great distances

from across the table.

The glasses are only for demonstration purposes.

In real life, you buy the contacts.

And then, no one knows you have contacts on

and you can read these marks

[keyboard clicking] across the table.

Civil_Aside_359, How casinos prevent people from stealing

or mass producing chips? [upbeat music]

Well, this is money.

So if you could counterfeit this

the way you can counterfeit money,

you're actually counterfeiting money.

So the way casinos stop you

from doing this is they put RFID into these chips.

Now, when I was in Macau one time,

I actually went to mainland China.

And there was a place that actually made chips.

He says, if you bring me any chip, I can make it.

I asked this gentleman, How do you get 'em back to me?

Not that I'm gonna do this,

but I was curious for information,

'cause this is what I do.

I train, I want to know.

He said poker sets.

If customs was to open it up,

the first chip will say World Poker Tour.

But every chip after that will match the casino

that you gave him.

People collect chips.

They'll go in, buy a chip, and take it home.

Nobody's taking home $500 chips just for collection.

Now, another way casinos catch this is by inventory.

The casinos know exactly how many chips they have,

and on a monthly inventory,

if they realize they're over, [keyboard clicking]

they know they have counterfeit chips.

Ladylala22, How did the MIT blackjack team ever make

so much bank when card counting only gives you a 1% edge

according to Wikipedia? [upbeat music]

In this business, people lie.

Math doesn't.

If you have a small edge over the house dispersed

over a long period of time, you're gonna make the money.

And with a big bank role, you could do that.

And with a lot of players, you could do that.

Back in the early '90s, the MIT team, students formed a team

to beat the casinos using card counting.

They definitely became popular later on with the movie 21,

the book, Bringing Down the House.

A team is a group of people, very skilled at blackjack,

that will go into the casino, count,

and as soon as the cards favor them, put the big money in.

You would have, for example, 20 blackjack tables.

You put 20 players on each table.

So you have one counter on each table betting very little,

but as soon as those cards favor you,

then you call in another team member called the BP,

which means the big player.

He's the person that's gonna be betting the big chips.

So as soon as those cards become favorable to the team,

they will call that team member in.

They do not want the casinos [keyboard clicking]

to know that they're working together.

Next question by brandonwhite,

Super random, but this drunk guy at the casino asked

if I was using a thumper.

What is that?

It's a electronic ceiling device used for players

to communicate to each other.

It's called a thumper, because it's vibrating.

When they push down on the transmitter,

the receiver vibrates or thumps you

with morse code telling you what to do.

So I might give you a signal to come over

to the table.

In poker, I might give you a signal to raise me.

I might give you a signal to fold.

A great example of a thumper being used is

in the movie Casino,

where one player was signaling information

to another player sitting at another table.

Usually, a thumper could be on the thigh,

and then, you just push down on the button

with your hand in your pocket.

But it could be anywhere [keyboard clicking]

as long as it's concealed.

I like corn wants to know,

Question for the blackjack market.

Does anyone know

where I could find a perfect strategy computer?

I'm looking to hit the house or maybe a few.

They're not as easy to get as they used to be,

because they're highly illegal in a lot of jurisdictions.

In some jurisdictions, they're not.

However, in Vegas, if you get caught with one of these,

you can be prosecuted.

Now, what is a perfect strategy computer?

It's a computer that keeps track of every card being dealt,

so it knows how many tens are left, how many aces are left,

how many threes are left,

and can play blackjack better than any brain.

Now, a perfect strategy computer is normally worn

in the shoe, where there are four toe switches,

one above the left toes,

one below the left toes, one above the right toes,

one below the right toes.

And they're assigned numbers, 1, 2, 4, and eight.

So when the dealer deals a six,

you hit the two and a four key.

If it's a nine, you hit one eight.

So the computer is actually knowing every card

that was dealt, and it signals to you how to play the hand

by a small vibrating device,

normally worn on the heel of the shoe.

The signaling normally is a small set

of long and short vibrations.

For example, [Sal imitating vibrations]

two short vibrations might mean stand.

[Sal imitating vibration]

One long vibration might mean hit.

[Sal imitating vibrations] [keyboard clicking]

That might mean double down.

Skramer00,

Why is card counting illegal?

They don't throw you off jeopardy

for remembering things well.

Card counting is not illegal.

You cannot get arrested.

You cannot get detained for card counting,

providing you're not using a device.

But to use your brain, it is not illegal.

When you count cards, you have the edge.

And the casinos don't want you to have the edge.

They wanna keep the edge.

In some casinos, they are not allowed to kick you out

for card counting, but they are allowed

to back you off blackjack and actually say to you,

Your skill is too good for us.

You're allowed to play any other game

in the casino floor, [keyboard clicking]

but you're not allowed to play blackjack.

Amazing_User_name,

What are some clear signs

that people are working together

at the poker table? [upbeat music]

This is gonna be very hard to detect.

The reason being is, when a person folds,

you don't see what they have.

Let's suppose we're playing poker right now.

I look at my hand, I have a pair of kings.

What does this person have?

I have no idea.

But my partner says, Sal, I got a pair of tens.

So what am I gonna do?

I'm gonna signal to her get out.

I'm going to tell her just like that.

So she's gonna fold.

She's folding a pair of tens.

She would never fold these.

Why is she folding tens?

Because I'm telling her, I got a pair of kings.

If this player wins with a pair of aces,

did he just get cheated?

Absolutely, he got cheated.

He should have won her money.

But the only problem is when this person folds,

you don't get to see what they have.

It goes right into the muck.

There are many ways of signaling.

You could do hand signals.

Here, that's one pair, that's two pair,

that's three of a kind.

That's a straight.

Two fingers on top is a flush.

If I'm using chips, right there, that's an ace, king.

That's an ace, king suited, [chips clanking]

ace, queen, ace, queen suited, ace, jack, ace, jack suited.

If I go inside, that's a pair of aces,

pair of kings, pair of queens.

If I go like this,

I just told her right now I have a low pair.

That's a medium pair, that's a high pair.

There are a lot of ways players could work together.

One way you could possibly help yourself

to give yourself a better edge is simply pay attention.

When you see people getting dealt, look at their eyes.

If they're looking at other players' cards

before they look at their hand,

it's possible they're looking for signals.

Poker is a social game.

Players talking to each other, [keyboard clicking]

no one's paying attention to the cards.

Next question, What's the wildest example

of cheating you uncovered

in all your years in casino security?

One of the wildest examples of scams that I've ever heard

of is something that happened in Atlantic City.

They did a cooler.

A cooler is a prearranged deck of cards

that they're gonna switch in.

What happened was in Atlantic City, they needed everybody

to be distracted, or as the cheaters call it, the turn.

Because everyone is turned away

from where the move is happening.

And this one person stands up at a blackjack table

and yells, I think I can fly!

And he rips open his shirt, and there's a Superman T-shirt.

So everybody right now is looking at this nut,

but no one saw six decks of cards being switched in

on the table next to 'em. [keyboard clicking]

@JapanPulse_,

I wonder how many gamblers are able

to successfully beat the system at casinos.

Well, there are many, and usually, they all get caught,

because the casinos have books full of them.

So when you walk into a casino

and they recognize you're in the book,

they know you are one of the ones

that could beat the system, and they back you out.

They ask you to leave ,and you're not allowed

to play anymore.

The records the casinos keep on players,

tn the old days, they were actually binders

called The Griffin.

Casinos actually subscribed to it and received binders.

Today, it's a digital database, for example, Biometrica.

When you get put into that system, all the casinos

that subscribe has access to the database.

So once you're put into that database,

all the casinos could bring it up,

and with facial recognition, [keyboard clicking]

could see if you're in that system.

Natatha855,

What's the biggest scam [upbeat music]

or threat that casino surveillance

should be looking out for this year?

The biggest scams that are going on today are with cameras,

small cameras, recording cards,

and transmitting information.

For example, one casino in Singapore got hit

for half a million dollars before they got caught.

They were transmitting cards outside

to another player who was putting them

in an Excel spreadsheet, and then, transmitting information

back to the player at the table on how and when to bet.

And they beat the casino for half a million.

Now, technology aside, the most common scam

that happens at casinos are dealers dumping the game.

The dealers working in collusion

with the partner, paying losing bets.

If you lose, they just pay you.

There are thousands of cameras

in some of these biggest joints,

but a lot of the rooms are understaffed.

The chances of them missing [keyboard clicking]

that move could be good.

Illustriousoul,

Like, do you know [upbeat music]

how many cameras are in casinos?

If you talk about a small casino off The Strip,

there might be hundreds of cameras.

You go into a major casino in Macau,

there are thousands of cameras.

Now, remember,

and a lot of surveillance rooms are understaffed.

However, these cameras are high def,

which means they could zoom in and zoom out after the fact.

Before, when they only had VHS tapes, you had one week,

and then, those tapes were gone, they were erased.

Today, surveillance could record that footage,

and then, look at it a month later.

Many companies that own several casinos are actually going

into one surveillance room.

So one surveillance room could be watching

up to four or five properties.

Now, even though companies are centralizing

surveillance rooms, casinos do keep in touch

with each other.

So if you get backed out of one casino

and walk into another casino that's owned

by a different company,

chances are good a call was made already.

So even though you walk into another company,

surveillance rooms do keep [keyboard clicking]

in touch with each other. [mouse clicking]

Let's see, newscrash,

How long until most casinos have computer vision AI

keeping count and using that info

to back off players?

It's too late.

It's already there.

Many casinos have systems and computer software

that keeps track of cards

and know if a person is counting.

There's one casino in downtown Las Vegas,

they actually take your driver's license, scan it,

and have you look at the camera,

so they know who you are,

they know when you're leaving that floor,

when you're entering the floor, how long you've been there,

where you are.

They can keep track of you [keyboard clicking]

from the moment you go on property,

to the moment you leave.

Mwisme wants to know, Can you false shuffle?

That's a great question, 'cause when a person's gonna cheat,

usually, that's the first thing they learn.

I'm gonna explain to you and show you how to false shuffle,

and I'm gonna turn the top cards face up.

The first shuffle, I pull back the top card,

and that leaves a bookmark.

We call it an in jog.

And then, I shuffle for real.

But right below this ledge are the cards

that I want to control.

The next shuffle, I just push up on that bookmark,

and it forms a break right above the cards that I want.

And I just shuffle them right back to the top.

The next shuffle was the Hindu Shuffle.

I just took 'em from the middle.

I'm just shuffling 'em from the middle.

That's all I'm doing,

and I just kept those cards right here.

Oh, this is a poker force.

See those four aces?

I go to throw 'em in the middle, the last second,

I drop these, and I go right back on top.

But it looks like that.

Then, I pick these up, throw 'em onto the table.

They're right here.

I kick these out, I push them back to the top,

and I just go like this.

And now, they look like they really got mixed,

but those aces are under my control.

This shuffle is called a in the hands riffle.

They take the cards, [cards clacking]

and they shuffle 'em like this.

And all I'm doing is I'm just keeping these cards on top.

How?

The left hand, I let the cards fall faster

than my right hand,

and these cards go right back on top.

And as you're talking

and you're not paying attention to your hands,

it's very deceptive. [cards clacking]

This is the casino shuffle.

I keep the cards I want on top.

When I cut, I hold the break right above them,

and then, I strip to that break.

Now watch that face down.

That's a false shuffle. [keyboard clicking]

This is from No Stupid Questions subreddit.

Is it theoretically possible to put a camera in glasses

that can accurately predict

where the roulette ball will drop?

Absolutely.

There are people selling roulette prediction computers.

I've seen demonstrations.

I still have my doubts.

Laurance Scott wrote a great two volume treaties

on visual wheel prediction,

where you can mentally track the ball speed

and the rotor speed.

However, there are so many factors involved.

You need a dealer to allow you to bet right up

until the ball drops, which is a breaking procedure.

Also, the way the roulette wheels are being manufactured

today, the base is lower.

So the cone, it's a lower profile,

they're putting more deflectors on it.

And all these are to help increase randomness.

So I gotta be honest, [keyboard clicking]

it's not as easy as you think.

Vaishnaroy wants to know,

Can you hack the slot machines?

I don't know.

Now, can the casinos alter the machines?

Absolutely.

By the turn of a screw, they can make the machines looser,

which means more payouts, or tighter, meaning, less payouts.

It is a hundred percent illegal to make those machines

where they cannot pay out at all, but it can be done.

I was told by a slot tech that they keep the machines

that pay more closer to the entrances.

They're not the big jackpots,

but it's enough to bring people into the casino,

where they think they have a chance.

And when they go for the slot machines

with the bigger jackpots, those are gonna be the ones

that are tougher to win on. [keyboard clicking]

DeerBoi157,

How do you cheat sports betting?

Well, in the casino, if you want a big money scam,

you gotta get the dealer involved.

If you wanna cheat at sports, you need the players.

Arnold Rothstein set up the World Series,

where they got the White Sox to throw the game.

Aria Casino wants to know,

What is chip dumping [upbeat music]

in poker?

Chip dumping means taking your chips

and purposely losing them to your partner

to make them the chip leader.

So if me and two other partners are on the table,

me and my other partner will dump our chips off

to the third person [keyboard clicking]

to make them the chip leader.

DankPoker wants to know,

Did Phil Ivey cheat, [upbeat music]

and what is edge sorting?

Phil Ivey is a world famous poker player.

He became a baccarat player

with a partner named Kelly Sun.

And they were able to beat the casinos

for millions of dollars.

Now, is it illegal what he did?

This is the biggest debate in the casino industry.

Half the industry said this was cheating,

the other half says he wasn't.

So you're probably sitting there saying,

what is edge sorting?

Well, let me just give you a simple example.

If I take this casino deck of cards,

yes, there are circles in the middle,

because before the casino sells them

or gives them away, they drill 'em,

so they can't be reintroduced.

If I take this deck, and I shuffle 'em,

and I'm gonna try and tell you where the tens and aces are,

is that a ten or an ace?

No, it's not.

It's a low card.

How about that one, Sal?

That's a low card.

That's a low card.

Oh, that's a ten or an ace, I guarantee it.

How about that one?

That's a low card.

This is a low card.

There's your ten or an ace.

So you're probably saying, how is he doing this?

Because of the manufacturing process

on how playing cards are cut, it is impossible

to cut a card evenly.

This is called a Diamondback.

This card's a staple in the casino industry.

If you look on this edge right here,

you're gonna see this edge is a half a diamond.

Where on this edge, it's a full diamond.

So in this particular deck, every card is cut the same way.

However, if I could somehow get cards turned around,

I could distinguish one from the other.

Even though they're shuffled, if I look down,

I see this is a full diamond.

That is a low card.

I see that as a half a diamond.

That is a 10 or an ace.

Very simple.

The hard part is getting the casino

to turn the cards around.

So how did Phil Ivey get the casino

to turn cards around for him?

Well, first of all, Phil Ivey's a big gambler.

Casinos want the money.

So all Phil Ivey said was, we want the cards

to become pre-shuffled, and we don't want a wash.

That's where the casino takes the cards

and scrambles 'em all over the table.

The casino says, no problem, no wash.

Then he says, we want the cards shown to us first,

and then, we want to tell the dealer

how to pick up the cards.

Plus, we want to bet after the cards have been dealt.

So let's play around Phil Ivey style.

Now, Phil Ivey makes his bet, a little bet.

We'll bet here.

Now, the casino has showed Phil Ivey each card.

If Kelly Sun said that card is unlucky,

she wants it turned over this way.

Unlucky, that's unlucky.

Lucky cards get turned over that way.

So because certain cards were turned over this way,

certain cards were turned over that way,

no matter how these cards get shuffled,

providing they're not spun around,

you could look down and see, wait a minute, big diamond,

big diamond, big diamond, little diamond.

There's your eight or nine.

So what does that mean?

Bet big on the banker.

'Cause you have a big edge

over the house right now, [keyboard clicking]

knowing this is an eight or a nine.

So those are all the questions for today.

Thanks for watching Casino Cheating Support.

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