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

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

#31

Post by arresin »

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #25

This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win…

It seems like so much work for relatively so little payoff. There’s a lesson here for non criminals also.

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

#32

Post by bbstats »

ClarityJones wrote: post #8
bbstats wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"previously people could cheat, now they can't" ?? how is that bad.

That's not the part that's bad. I don't care whether they cheat or not. I don't want the government policing what is and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game. I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes backroom / mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those left from this one) can say "Look, those other guys got arrested. The law protects you. We don't want that to happen to us. Our game is definitely fair…

did you read the article?

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

#33

Post by Forgeties79 »

arresin wrote: post #31
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #25

This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win…

It seems like so much work for relatively so little payoff. There’s a lesson here for non criminals also.

> In what sounds like an Ocean's Eleven film plot, prosecutors say these "unwitting" victims were cheated out of at least $7m (£5.25m) in poker games - with one person losing at least $1.8m.

Definitely a lot of work but that seems like a half decent payday to me.

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

#34

Post by brianbreslin »

jackric wrote: post #11
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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

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.

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

#35

Post by MetaMalone »

“An X-ray poker machine was employed to read facedown cards and a rigged card-shuffling machine was also used in the plot, prosecutors say.”

Would love to know more about such a machine, if anyone has any insight. Are these developed underground? How expensive could they be?

If it can efficiently take in a deck of cards and deterministically return a rigged deck in a reasonable amount of time, I would be fascinated at how they solved that problem.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] »

Aurornis wrote: post #27
tw04 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of cash? It says “at least $7m” over 6 years across supposedly 4 crime families and how many people? They’d have been better off opening up a Jimmy John’s franchise.

The key is a lot of cash, or cryptocurrency. If you run a Jimmy John’s, most of your customers will pay with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You can’t launder that easily. It’s all traceable. It’s all taxable. Run a poker operation and you can get your marks to give you crypto, cash, or small transfers. $7 million in pure cash and crypto proceeds from a poker game is a lot more valuable than $7 million i…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by cattown »

Doesn’t sound that profitable to me. $7m is a lot of money. But not that much after building all of that custom tech, setting up a dedicated space, training and paying a whole bunch of people to run these games. Then whatever’s left over gets split between multiple crime families? Seems like a lot of work.

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

#39

Post by mschuster91 »

prodigycorp wrote: post #28
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #25

This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win…

I think it's revealing of how diminished the la costa nostra is. This is such trivial work and, yet, this was a multi-family operation.

Diminished? More like, matured into white collar crime. There's no need to murder people on the street any more, that kind of dirty work is left to some random Southern American cartels, and the white collar crime brings in more than enough profit while also being way less risky should the feds catch up on it.

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

#40

Post by tclancy »

sojournerc wrote: post #30
Mistletoe wrote: post #2

Between all these recent gambling stories with coaches and players and the Kawhi thing I think I’m done with the NBA. The NBA’s gambling push has done nothing but gross me out. Greed unbridled. They saw the 1919 World Series and said “Let’s bet on this shit.”

This interview with a former Turkish NBA player who protested things happening in China with simple statements on his shoes convinced me the NBA has no morals whatsoever. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3LUPh7waoWtydoiwjEgP16?si=-...

Eh, even as a Celtics fan I would be cautious of taking what Enes Freedom has to say as gospel. He definitely has a narrative he’s pushing
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