Nevada casinos and enforcement agents take a dim view of fraud

May 11, 2013

Nevada casinos and enforcement agents take a dim view of fraud

Article provided by Sprenz & Associates, P.C.
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Las Vegas has seen its share of schemes designed to defraud the city's gambling casinos. Rules governing gambling are enforced by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, or NGCB, whose agents work in plainclothes and observe casino activities.

The Gaming Control Board

About 90 agents of the NGCB work in the Enforcement Division, in five offices in the state. Their training is comparable to that of police officers, and a number of agents have experience in law enforcement. Agents must not participate in gambling and must have a clean background, free of criminal history. Some Enforcement Division agents work in Field Services and are available 24 hours a day to respond to calls claiming misconduct by casino employees or cheating by casino patrons.

Other agents provide supportive services, conducting background investigations and analyzing intelligence reports, along with routine operations and clerical work. The "black book" is a list of prominent cheaters, compiled and maintained by the NGCB, who are banned from Nevada casinos. About 30 people are currently listed in the black book, many with organized crime connections.High-profile incidents

Actual casino fraud may be less spectacular than it's portrayed in Hollywood heist movies, but some real-life fraudsters are the stuff of legend. Some schemers have attempted to rig slot machines. One individual who has a place in the black book is known for inventing tricky slot machine devices. He drew on experience in television repair to create an electronic wand that could be inserted into a slot machine, tricking the mechanism into dispensing hundreds of dollars.

This perpetrator of casino fraud has been convicted of cheating once in New Jersey and twice in Nevada. Another slot machine trick dates back to the 1970s, when a cheater made imprints of the keys carried by mechanics who serviced the machines. He and his partners in crime distracted the mechanics to gain access to the keys and copy them and then used the keys to reset the machines to give them winning combinations. The man is said to have cheated casinos out of $16 million. He has twice done prison time for his activities and is now on the black book list.

Card cheaters need to be skilled at sleight of hand. One team of blackjack scammers in the 1980s employed card-switching to win money by stationing two adjoining players at a table, where they would surreptitiously exchange cards to strengthen one of their hands. Another member of the team was a lookout or worked to block the cheaters from the view of observers. In 2010, a more high-tech crew began working baccarat games, using a miniature video camera to record the order of cards coming off the decks. The cheater had to act quickly, dragging a finger over the corners of the cards in a deck when asked to cut the cards. The tiny camera, hidden in a sleeve, would then scan the card order and provide an advantage to the player.Less glamorous, but still a crimeThe great majority of the people enjoying Nevada's casinos are nothing like those on the black book list and have nothing to fear from the NGCB. However, it is common for people to be accused of defrauding casinos by skipping out on their gambling debts. When a casino advances markers to players, allowing them extra funds for gambling, players are expected to repay the markers in a timely fashion. Failing to pay back a marker is potentially a criminal offense.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and an experienced defense attorney will know how to protect the rights of anyone who is accused of casino fraud, including persons with unpaid markers. It may be possible to negotiate a settlement that will avoid criminal charges entirely.