Poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by ecshafer » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

The FBI is going to take time building up the case, flipping people, getting recordings, and trying to get as many people involved to not just stop the games but hopefully take down the entire crime families involved. LA Poker pros will start talking as soon as they suspect something fishy.

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

#62

Post by runjake » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

From the photos it looks like regular IR photos to me. Also note you don’t see the bones in the hands at the top of the photo.

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

#63

Post by dudeinjapan » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

Noaidi wrote: post #38

Seems like Trump is going after his old enemies in New York. Also, they spelled "Bonnano" wrong in that article. It is Bonanno. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanno_crime_family Bon Anno = Good Year

Bon Nano = Good Text Editor

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

#64

Post by jjmarr » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

MetaMalone wrote: post #35

“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 a…

Many shuffle machines read all the cards, do the shuffle in software, then sort the cards accordingly. Here's a guy on Wired showing how to rig a poker game:

https://youtu.be/JQ20ilE5DtA

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

#65

Post by mb7733 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

You don't need to launder it, it was acquired legally

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

#66

Post by sojournerc » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #40

sojournerc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What's the narrative? Human rights abuse is bad, speaking out about it got him fired? I have a hard time seeing some nafarious angle to what he talked about other than China doesn't want their shit called out.

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

#67

Post by hsuduebc2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

mckirk wrote: post #21

y-curious wrote: post #6

I can’t help but think this recent Wired video[1] has some accidental overlap with how they cheated. 1: https://youtu.be/JQ20ilE5DtA?si=_MHmhjKGMKk4sobB

Sorry to be completely off-topic, but: I'm really reluctant to click on anything with these 'share IDs' and usually remove them from any link I share with anyone. I don't want to make it even easier for the platforms to build networks of associated accounts.

I do the same thing!

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

#68

Post by SaltyBackendGuy » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #51

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.

Exactly. You want zero risk asymmetric payouts.

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

#69

Post by otherme123 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

Some professional poker player told me this anecdote: he was playing at a table with a celebrity. He quickly noticed he has a tell (he did something with his chips when he had a powerful hand or was bluffing, don't remember), and half the table also noticed the same or similar tells. They proceeded to clean his stash.

At the table statistics matter between pros, but if you are not aware of your flaws, you might as well play with your cards face up.

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

#70

Post by duped » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 1:50 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #61

JohnMakin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

The FBI is going to take time building up the case, flipping people, getting recordings, and trying to get as many people involved to not just stop the games but hopefully take down the entire crime families involved. LA Poker pros will start talking as soon as they suspect something fishy.

The FBI is also struggling for legitimacy at this point in history