Hi,

Do you really things that if more money is engaged it will be harder to cheat?

Before I give my opinion you have to know that I'm not a professional cheater. Ok, the true is, I'm not a cheater at all, only interested by this world. (cheating, scamming etc etc...)

I've just been croupier in a little casino. (never dealt in Vegas)


So, in a game with high amount of money engaged, in my opinion, there will have more surveillance but from the staff only. A floor manager will not put a beginner dealer on a big table, a casino director will not put a beginner floor to manage a big game, and maybe on a big tournament, some "expert" will be engaged for the surveillance.

But I don't think people who play lot of money are more knowleagable on cheating than people who have less money. Yes you can thing, because 10 000$ is on the table, players will be more suspicious against cheaters. But I know people who win only 500$/month and they will defend their 500$ like if it was a gold bar. What is 10 000$ for a person who win 1 million/month?

Do you see what I try to mean?

Waiting for your reactions...


Jackouille

What is for sure is that big fishes attract big sharks. When there is a big bunch of money, cheating is never too far away.

I would second you though about how people care about their money. Rarely I've seen people throwing away the $50 they put in the buy-in. However, I've seen wealthy guys loosing several grand and merely giving less than a *** about it! I can go further than that. The easiest guys to cheat are rich people. Not the ones who made their money themselves though, but those we call daddy's boys.

Now, rich, poor or whatever you name it, seldom I've met people aware about cheating techniques. In the low games I'm playing I've seen very tough procedure though, which is pretty funny and paradoxical.

I don't know about the average rich players that are probably the majority of the players, but I know that a lot of the gamblers that will play in those high stakes games will seek out a cheater and pay them to learn some moves. Not in order to cheat, but to know what is out there. For example, Doyle Brunson admitted on paying for courses with cheaters so he could know what's going on. He did say he never cheated and that is was only to protect his bankroll. Still, I don't think it's the majority of the players that will give themselves the trouble of learning...

Slim

The difficultly of cheating a game is related more to the knowledge of the players, not to the stakes, especially in private games. A private game for high stakes among doctors, lawyers, business owners, executives and the like may be rather easy to beat with relatively simple methods, assuming one can get an invitation which may not be that easy to do. The again, smaller stake games among rounders, hustlers, scammers, dealers, floormen and so forth might be tougher to beat. Once again, it depends on the knowledge of the players. However, GENERALLY speaking, in higher stake games the players tend to have more experience, some may be a little more knowledgeable and have a tendency to protect their money better. So there is a greater tendency to run into someone in that type game who may ”know something.”


Regarding house games, while it is true in bigger games the personnel dealing and supervising will tend to be more competent and experienced, don’t assume they are competent enough to protect that game beyond very basic procedures. The player’s only real protection is himself, not the dealer, the “floor” or surveillance. While it is true a good dealer will enforce the procedures and eliminate minor problems, most dealers and floor know very little about game protection and poker protection is not a priority. The casino house games are THE priority because the house's money is at stake here. The main concern of poker personnel is to have smoothly running games so that they can continue to collect the rake and get as many hands out as possible.

When one gets into the area of professional cheating, a professional collusion team, (not a couple of idiot amateurs taking a shot), is almost impossible to detect unless you already know they are colluding. (Forget about the DVD exposes on collusion or the know-it-all explanations from half-smarts and poker rounders. A good collusion team can beat you out of your money and you won’t even know you were cheated.) These guys are regular players and their playing action is coveted by the joints as good customers, not as cheaters. Six and seven man professional teams that rotate on different days as to who plays are almost impossible to catch.

Then again, if the house dealer is in on a play, it is hard to catch a good play if done cleverly. If anyone catches dealer cheating with an “A” (confederate), or “As” in the game, it will most likely be a player, not the house. The methods used do not require Steve Forte sleight of hand consummate skill, or anything close to that. That is the great fallacy promulgated mostly by demo tapes, DVDs and magician type “experts.” Usually only moderate skill is needed in this regard. A dealer trying to use pull throughs, hoping the cut, seconds, greek bottoms???, etc., under camera surveillance is an imbecile who is not going to last very long and that is not the way cheating is done in profession house games anyway.

House games with a center dealer have created a false sense of security among players. In general, players are better protected and cheating is lessened in some degree, but when it is done professionally it is almost impossible to nail.

The TV super-stars of poker are just as easy to cheat as anyone else as they are so used to playing in a “protected” environment they are lulled into a sense of false security. I’m not saying they are cheated frequently, but that they are easy to cheat under the right circumstances should it be necessary. And some of them have done some cheating themselves.

Finally, if the floor is involved on a play and a team is playing “top” paper, you would be better able to catch “lightning in a bottle” than catching the play. When playing in big stake house games, you can forget about 99% of the “super-star” BS moves you see demonstrated on DVDs that go back 100 plus years, you can forget about all the latest “hush-hush” esoteric marked cards sold on the internet, forget about the “magic-juice” that fools everyone??? that only a few thousand magicians know about. When the cheating is at this level, the real pros are so far ahead of the gambling average player/hobbyists/magician/dilettante that once again, you might as well try to catch lightning in a bottle. And if you do suspect something is wrong, remember you are the stranger in the game, not they.

Let’s face it, guys. When you are in a high stakes game, up against a professional team of players, with years of experience, a nuanced feel for all that can occur during play, great grift sense, people who are aware of all the moves and gaffs, you are not going to beat them at their own game and most likely will lose you money and not even know you have been ripped off.

Of course, fortunately for most BB members, they are not going to play in the higher stake house games where this can be most damaging because most will not play for these stakes. Also, with all the games in existence, the odds favor not encountering this type activity. But if you play for big money and you do run into this, you are in big trouble. Trying to catch lightning in a bottle may be a less expensive endeavor.

Arnold:

Agree with you that people (even from the staff point of view) rarely care about cheating (in casino environement, I speak only for my country, France). Because the casino take 4% on every pot, they think all is fair, and, honestly I think it's true most of the time. (in France) I think that the most common cheating technique that occurs is the collusion.

Slim:

Maybe you are right about big player paying some cheaters to show them some moves, but, honestly, do you think a REAL cheater will give his techniques!!?? What they will see is just a gambling demonstration, not a real cheating technique and the risk is they will think they can't be cheated, a false sense of invincibility against cheating. No?


Cag:

Every post you write could be a chapter of a book!

When you say ""top" paper,", you mean "marked card" right?

Otherwise, what to say.... Nothing. Just read, enjoy and learn...

Thanks for the compliment.

Top paper refers to extremely deceptive and little known marked cards. Most pros make up their own paper, and the cleverness of application combined with its unique methodology adds to its indetectibility. (I am not talking about the stuff that is sold on the internet or bandied around among magicians. Once it gets that well known, it is no longer top paper although it may have been at one time.)

But the real skill, and the most difficult “move” one could ever master is the ability to play top paper under fire, without being detected and better still without creating suspicion. This is all these guys do or have to do and they have years of experience. If any heat or suspicion starts to come down, the play gets pulled.

Keep in mind, any fool can cheat a game and get heat. It takes a real pro to beat a game and be welcomed back over and over again as a valued player in the game.

A croupiers best bet perhaps is to learn, to learn the game, learn everything about the dealing and the operation etc, with a view to setting up ones own private game. To run or control, directly or indirectly, the functioning of a game gives one lets say, better opportunity.

In my experience playing with nonprofessional gamblers, the lower-stakes players seem to be more uptight about their bankroll and sweat things a little more, likely because they have less resources to afford it. The higher-stakes players in general seem to care less about the game because the money matters less to them as there's plenty more where it came from. Again this is what I've seen among nonprofessional gamblers. In the professional sense I figure it would be the opposite due an increased knowledge of the game and how they arrived at higher stakes in the first place.

Tommy, did you said that because I mention I was a Croupier? I've learn as much as I can during the one year I've been croupier, but you have to knows, in my little casino, it was not Vegas. Examples!? We had only one poker table, open only Friday and Saturday, and most of the time, stay closed because no players. So, how to learn when you don't practice every days?

Since I'm not croupier, I learn as much as I can on this forum and other, books, DVD etc etc... I'm still working in casino, but not as croupier, so, I learn other procedures...

Well yes I was thinking that you were a croupier, but the reason I said what I said was, it is another way of getting into high stakes poker, a way that had not been mentioned above. Having your own high stakes poker game means that you can do a lot of things, things that you could not do in a casino high stakes poker game. If you wanted to that is.

Do you induce me tu run my own (illegal) poker room!? ;-)

Well yes! I will explain how to go about it later.

A private high stakes game does not have to be an illegal game and you can still make money from one as a croupier can make good money from just tips in a high stakes poker game a fair amount in an ave game. A good croupier can earn in tips a couple of grand in a high stakes game as a matter of fact.