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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

#71

Post by elicash »

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.

More than 30 arrests, and the scheme dates back to as early as 2019.

The article says "A cut OF THE PROFITS went to those who helped in the plot," implying that the $7m wasn't truly profit but actually revenue? The writing is unclear to me. I'm not sure if this is before paying out to 30+ people over several years, or after, but article implies before, that it's how much was taken from victims. That I think makes the difference on whether or not it was a decent payday. The profit would be how much supposedly went to fund their other operations, which the article does allege some went to.

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

#73

Post by cyrialize »

The story behind how Chauncey got his coaching job is kind of sketchy as well!

The blazers didn't really listen to Dame at all, and the GM has known Chauncey for more than 30 years.

At the time of Chauncey being hired, his only coaching experience was ~1 year of being an assistant coach.

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

#74

Post by codyb »

jfengel wrote: post #47

That seems like a lot of work. TFA said that they arrested 30 people, and got $7 million out of it. The fancy tech involved must have taken a good chunk of that. It sounds like each of them could get at most a six-figure payday out of this. Which is no chump change, to be sure, but it sounds like many of them could have made as much money without the risk of going to jail just by getting a desk job. Plus, there's no…

All these comments assume that 30 million is _all_ the mob has made with these machines, and that the tech must be very expensive.

Usually when they pull out the big piles of drugs for the TVs, I assume that's the tip of the iceberg. So why is it that here, with four families involved, we think the only money they've made is what's been shown to us?

Also, x-ray tables, rigged card shufflers, and funny glasses don't necessarily sound like they're the most expensive things in the world.

So my guess is...

Combined with these fellas other hustles this was probably a nice chunk of change to bring in for a relatively low amount of work post initial set up. I mean, you're sitting around playing rigged poker with a bunch of millionaires and basketball players or whatever. Probably having some drinks, I'd imagine there's pretty ladies around, cigars, cocaine. Whatever.

Sounds more relaxing than extorting deli owners block by block like all those movies about the 70s show.

And the best part? The people you're robbing are probably much less likely to resort to violence as recourse.

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

#75

Post by everdrive »

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

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

#76

Post by empath75 »

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…

There's a device that can scan the _sides_ of specially marked cards and tell you the complete deck order.

For the shuffling machine there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ20ilE5DtA

There are _so many_ ways to cheat at poker that you should basically never play a private game outside of close friends.

If you wanted to spend a year or so practicing, you can learn how to do false shuffles and cuts, bottom deals, cold stack a deck etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Mu7jocdew This guy was a professional card cheat for decades before going honest.

As someone who knows a bunch of card tricks myself, I have learned to resist the temptation to do an impromptu 'ambitious card' routine just because a deck of cards and an audience is in front of me before a poker game.

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

#77

Post by swores »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #56
consp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm pretty sure it was just marks on the back of the cards that glasses/contacts then converted into an xray-like view, not any actual technology for seeing through the cards.

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

#78

Post by CGMthrowaway »

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 read a theory that the poker winnings were not the scam.

The scam was that the criminal element would HELP the NBA players cheat at poker, and then blackmail them with that info to change the outcomes of NBA games, which they were betting on, from which they could derive greater scale of winnings.

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

#79

Post by empath75 »

codyb wrote: post #74
jfengel wrote: post #47

That seems like a lot of work. TFA said that they arrested 30 people, and got $7 million out of it. The fancy tech involved must have taken a good chunk of that. It sounds like each of them could get at most a six-figure payday out of this. Which is no chump change, to be sure, but it sounds like many of them could have made as much money without the risk of going to jail just by getting a desk job. Plus, there's no…

All these comments assume that 30 million is _all_ the mob has made with these machines, and that the tech must be very expensive. Usually when they pull out the big piles of drugs for the TVs, I assume that's the tip of the iceberg. So why is it that here, with four families involved, we think the only money they've made is what's been shown to us? Also, x-ray tables, rigged card shufflers, and funny glasses don't n…

The card shufflers and the phone app that reads marked cards would probably put them back a few thousand at the most.

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

#80

Post by IT4MD »

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…

Most criminals have a specific type of cleverness, but not intelligence. If they were smart people, they wouldn't do the crimes in the first place.

I dealt with a low-tech breach at one of the hospitals I worked for. The criminal worked in HIM, and used paper and pencil to note specific info about specific types of patients. Since they worked in HIM, it was expected for them to view many medical records in a day and no app detects paper/pencil, so quite clever so far.

Ultimately, they used this info to file false tax returns to steal the refunds.

The problem? They filed 881 false tax returns annnnnnd used the same address for all of them. DOH.

They were busted/arrested and off to jail they went.

Clever, right until the end, then abysmally stupid.

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