Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 288 posts

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#241

Post by whycome »

codyb wrote: post #81
prodigycorp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This plus a lot of the soft greed. The insistence on a foul-centric game that leads to over 50% longer games, the ridiculous lack of investment on its own broadcast infra, the refusal to shorten the season (which is the longest in pro sports, longer than baseball's season, despite being less than half the games), and the consultant-driven management decisions - I have so much contempt for Adam Silver for making me ha…

That is _nuts_ that the basketball season is longer than the MLB season. I never would have guessed that. Let's go Jays! Looking forward to this World Series. Also not a fan of the constant inundation with gambling ads even if they have literally no interest to me. Just seems like a net negative for a society that realized cigarette ads are bad, but can't seem to figure that out for alcohol or gambling. At least the…

Public education is one thing. But kids aren't protected from the ads and can't even have reasonable discussions about it. They're just being brainwashed around it. They see superstars and celebrities endorsing it all. Then all the language around it is "play" and "game" and "fun" and "win" which has very specific appeal to children. The prominence also makes it seem vetted and okay in a kids eyes (if it were bad, it wouldn't be in these places). I'd legitimately rather my kids see ads for smoking cigarettes. The conversations to be had around it are much much easier. Gambling and other psychological addictions are tougher to convey, but potentially very damaging nonetheless.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#242

Post by mrandish »

JohnMakin wrote: post #160
_the_inflator wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Structures, men behind, organizations involved, networks and other crimes indicated or discovered for example money laundering, betting. It takes time to build a case. Some laws need people working together and a one time event testing a new table and accidentally having lots of cash in the bags as well as so-called famous people showing up can simply happen by chance. It is complicated.

I'm not sure I believe this. It seems you can just walk into one of these places and roll the whole place, confiscate electronics, and make all the necessary connections fairly quickly. These games aren't a secret and never have been. I don't like the private (illegal) scene because it's killed action in casinos and games I used to love playing in. The risk to me of breaking the law, being robbed/scammed, or worse is…

> NY families must have fallen a long way

I spent a fun few hours a couple years back deep diving into what has become of the old-school "Goodfellas"-style mob these days. Looking into both media reports as well as posts by 'mob fans' - niche forums of those who obsessively follow mob and mob adjacent activities via open-source intel methods - I got the sense the traditional Italian mob families have indeed shrunk to a smaller, sadder version of what they once were due to being eclipsed by new, different kinds of organized crime.

Guys who are known "made men" getting out of prison after doing 10-15 and then ending up doing relatively nickel and dime crimes like daylight armed robbery of a jewelry store themselves for lack of enough income. 25 years ago guys like that wouldn't normally do that stuff themselves. Others have even sunk to basically LARPing being old-school mobsters on social media.

It seems there are two key drivers behind the decline: the real money in organized crime has shifted to new kinds of activities which scale better and can grow much larger. That's attracted new competitors. Some are smarter, some more brutal and some which are both. There's also an aspect that these new, bigger opportunities are far more complex, long-term and can also require successfully operating legitimate businesses as one necessary component. I guess it's not surprising. Even illicit industries undergo accelerating change over time. The old crime families still exist and can certainly still be dangerous - they're just no longer the top of the criminal food chain in terms of earnings.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#243

Post by [deleted] »

breakpointalpha wrote: post #228
everdrive wrote: post #75

This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people

You don't have to lie to win at poker, you just have to bluff sometimes. The game is similar to chess when played at a moderate to high level.

[deleted]

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#245

Post by Arrath »

everdrive wrote: post #75

This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people

It entirely depends on the vibes, the company, and the game, in my opinion.

At one job, we used it as a social time, 6 to 15 people from work (had to run two tables for those big nights) got together Saturday night, bbq'd some food, maybe watched a game on tv if there was a good one, and played a friendly game. Had a few drinks and enjoyed the company, while cards were played in the background.

Mildly competitive, but it was a flat $40 buy in with no more money allowed so the stakes were never incredibly high.

At another company, one guy in particular was the driver to get games going and he always wanted the stakes too high (for my taste) with lots of money moving around. I only went to two of those, wasn't my style.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#246

Post by Arrath »

empath75 wrote: post #95
everdrive wrote: post #75

This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people

Texas hold 'em is quite fun for casuals under these conditions: The amount of money involved is small compared to the incomes of those playing, where most players have the expectation that they won't get money back and that is fine for the enjoyment they get out of the game, and the pot isn't big enough to be worth cheating about. Everyone puts in the same amount of money. You play texas hold 'em no limit with escala…

Yeah this is really the best way to do it, I've even played friendly family games with candy or baked goods as the chips. Great fun! Problematic when you're munching on your bank though.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#247

Post by Arrath »

brianbreslin wrote: post #34
jackric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next podcast sponsor fad: lead-lined underwear. PbUndies

wasn't tim ferris promoting one of these products years ago? was like a faraday cage for your nether region.

My cousin (submarine nuke plant operator) has stories of his compatriots using lead foil to line their pants.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#249

Post by mrandish »

comrade1234 wrote: post #7

X-ray table? That can't be good for your balls or ovaries.

I don't think it's literally "X-Rays". A couple years ago I saw an infrared transparent table being demonstrated as a product prototype by a distributor of magic props at a conference for professional magicians. I played with it a while because I thought it was quite remarkable and had never seen anything like it. The top surface was a half-inch thick hard black plastic which appeared completely opaque. It was perfectly convincing as it even had faux wood grain texturing on the surface. It looked for all the world like a table you'd see at IKEA or Target. I put my phone's flashlight on full brightness under it pointing up and couldn't see any light coming through, even shading the spot with my hand.

The table had a bunch of IR emitters pointed up built into the supports holding the table surface but they were at least two feet away and well-obscured into the table leg design by more normal-seeming smooth plastic I associate with being IR-transparent. Of course, if you suspect the use of IR, it's quite easy to detect with your camera phone. There was a camera hidden into the middle of the table supports looking up which transmitted the image wirelessly to a monitor nearby. My own face-down playing cards were visible on the camera plain as day, so it doesn't require special cards.

Interestingly, the magic distributor showing it wasn't giving out any info on who made it, what it cost or when it might be available. They just said they were "showing it to gauge interest" and might carry it at some point in the future. They're a large, long-time, reputable distributor of other people's products so I don't think they were involved in creating it. It hasn't made an appearance at subsequent conventions, so they must have decided it wouldn't be popular with magicians - which makes perfect sense. It would have been expensive and pretty technically involved for a limited-use magic prop. Good magicians have a many easier and cheaper ways to learn the identity of hidden cards :-). But the fact such a thick, textured, optically opaque surface could be IR transparent was pretty nifty.

As a former magician I was surprised to read the gang was using 'reader' cards (backs marked with ink visible to special glasses). No one uses those anymore as there are so many better ways to do the same thing. Seems like this gang was just into various tech toys and kind of lazy. In reality, once you control the environment, cards and have confederates in the game - cheating to win is trivial without any tech if you know what you're doing.

Re: Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

#250

Post by allthetime »

everdrive wrote: post #75

This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people

Everyone at the table agrees to those conditions.
Post reply on HN