A Las Vegas poker room has banned gadgets at the tables due to cheaters
Poker rooms across the US have faced a wave of cheating incidents at the tables. Players in Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other cities have fallen victim to the same scheme: a chatty "amateur" works in tandem with a silent partner who is likely using a hidden camera to identify hole cards.
One Las Vegas cash game regular gave an anonymous interview to Crush Live Poker, revealing that he ran into cheaters at the Aria casino. According to the regular, given the alias "Joe," this summer such an "amateur" started playing alongside him frequently at tables with limits from $5 to $20. He played loose, ran a wide range of hands and bluffed often, but never did so against the nuts, as if he knew when his opponent had weak cards.
The "amateur's" accomplice always played at the same time as him but sat in silence. His face was covered with a mask, and a baseball cap lay in front of him. This player never took part in hands and never won anything, so he remained beyond suspicion for a long time.
However, after a couple of weeks, the other players began to doubt the honesty of these two opponents, who also always sat as close as possible to the dealer. Joe suggested they had hidden cameras that filmed the cards during the deal for a third party outside the casino. This third accomplice could then relay that information to the active "amateur."
The players reported their suspicions to Aria management, but the room could do almost nothing due to a lack of evidence. So the poker players began questioning the suspicious pair directly. After that, the two spoke to each other for the first time in a foreign language and soon left the casino. According to Joe, he learned that the "amateur" and his accomplice had previously been banned at the Venetian and Wynn.
Amid the spread of this scheme, the Red Rock room, where the culprits likely took part in $2-$5 games, banned the use of any electronics at the poker table. So far this is the first casino to introduce such a measure in response to the cheaters' actions.
📰 Subscribe to Pokerflow
One Las Vegas cash game regular gave an anonymous interview to Crush Live Poker, revealing that he ran into cheaters at the Aria casino. According to the regular, given the alias "Joe," this summer such an "amateur" started playing alongside him frequently at tables with limits from $5 to $20. He played loose, ran a wide range of hands and bluffed often, but never did so against the nuts, as if he knew when his opponent had weak cards.
The "amateur's" accomplice always played at the same time as him but sat in silence. His face was covered with a mask, and a baseball cap lay in front of him. This player never took part in hands and never won anything, so he remained beyond suspicion for a long time.
However, after a couple of weeks, the other players began to doubt the honesty of these two opponents, who also always sat as close as possible to the dealer. Joe suggested they had hidden cameras that filmed the cards during the deal for a third party outside the casino. This third accomplice could then relay that information to the active "amateur."
The players reported their suspicions to Aria management, but the room could do almost nothing due to a lack of evidence. So the poker players began questioning the suspicious pair directly. After that, the two spoke to each other for the first time in a foreign language and soon left the casino. According to Joe, he learned that the "amateur" and his accomplice had previously been banned at the Venetian and Wynn.
Amid the spread of this scheme, the Red Rock room, where the culprits likely took part in $2-$5 games, banned the use of any electronics at the poker table. So far this is the first casino to introduce such a measure in response to the cheaters' actions.
📰 Subscribe to Pokerflow
