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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

#51

Post by dfxm12 »

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…

You don't want to extract more money per hand, you want to build up the fish (check the text message screenshots in the article) and then strike at the right point. The x rays remove the luck from those big hands.

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

#52

Post by raincole »

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…

> don't have time to learn to play perfect poker

Probably don't have time to play so many hands with you that the better player is statistically guaranteed to win, either.

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

#53

Post by rs186 »

Aurornis wrote: post #22
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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

The table didn’t actually use X-rays. They’re using X-ray to mean it could be seen through with special cameras, perhaps IR sensitive.

I looked up the term "X-ray table" but couldn't find anything relevant except very recent results about this specific news.

Sounds like FBI invented this very stupid/confusing name for the story when they could have used much something much better and clearer. X-ray really has nothing to do with this.

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

#54

Post by sigwinch »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #13
ClarityJones wrote: post #3

This is silly. People used to play poker, and cheat, and the whole thing was illegal. Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government to police their poker games and make sure they're fair. Complete waste of resources.

If there's a business that's being run fraudulently then I want them to be held accountable for that.

I’m expecting some pardons will shape the expectation that this all could have been avoided with strategic political donations. In this era, what would you accept as a substitution for accountability?

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

#55

Post by ClarityJones »

Aurornis wrote: post #18
ClarityJones wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don't want the government policing what is and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game. Operating a business that defrauds people is the domain of government enforcement. I think you’re trying to reduce this to some sort of small scale friendly poker game between friends. It was not. It was an organized crime business operation that was systematically committing fraud. Fraud is illegal and within scope of governme…

The raison d'etre for the offense of fraud is to protect commerce.

The state / society needs to enforce a basic level of trust for Business A to buy widgets from Business B, and for Customer C to be employed, etc.

Betting on sports / poker / etc. is not part of that. Nobody is creating anything of value when you spin the roulette wheel. At best, the house wins and most players lose... and that is a harm to society. At worst, the house cheats or some subset of players cheat, and most players lose... and that too is a harm to society. (Edit: At worse worst, it leads to violence, extortion, etc...)

Gambling does not deserve the legitimacy of being policed.

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

#56

Post by CGMthrowaway »

consp wrote: post #17
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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

Looks like near-IR of some sort but media calls everything x-ray since it's what people know. X-Rays would go through cards anyway. But you'd get nice pictures of peoples hands though, and cataracts after a night of play. edit: now I think of it: if the cloth is thin enough you don't even need near-IR. Old fashioned IR camera's (those without any fancy filter) from the '00 showed though some relatively thin opaque sy…

Could also be mm wave maybe? Cheap mm wave security gates and similar tech are ubiquitous now

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

#57

Post by prodigycorp »

mschuster91 wrote: post #39
prodigycorp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know if I buy that. If we were to put this in white collar terms, we'd all be questioning Tim Cook if he decided that selling ice cream was a great resource allocation decision.

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

#58

Post by binarymax »

JohnMakin wrote: post #42
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…

“just play better poker” like that’s an easy thing to do in a game of chance and incomplete information, with variance having years or decades long tails. not to mention it’s an unsolved game, so “better” poker doesn’t even really have a set definition and depends on tons of variables. and they literally knew what hole cards were coming - that’s vastly more of an edge than playing “better poker” than someone. Besides…

You can spend the time to learn the odds, and play the odds. Most people don't have even that basic skill.

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

#59

Post by actionfromafar »

mschuster91 wrote: post #39
prodigycorp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably going into crypto, the federal government even encourage it now.

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

#60

Post by kasey_junk »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #33
arresin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An nba coach was one of 30 people indicted in the scheme. He made about 5m a year at his straight job.
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