As billions of dollars pour into Asia’s gleaming casinos, they are becoming the front line of a sometimes hugely lucrative battle between cheats and the house, experts say.
Both sides look to employ the latest, most advanced technology, but security consultant Sal Piacente says a scam in the Philippines last year took the gaming security world by surprise.
An Asian syndicate used an improvised camera hidden up a member’s sleeve to film the sequence of cards in a deck as it was cut on a baccarat table in Paranaque City in May last year.
Photo: AFP
The order of the cards was relayed digitally to another gang member who, after analyzing the footage in slow-motion, returned to the table as the deck finally came into play hours later.
Piacente, a 47-year-old from Brooklyn, said the multimillion-dollar “cutter scam” showed that as long as Asian casinos were the most lucrative in the world, they would attract the most skillful cheats.
“The scams that happen here [in Asia] are a lot more sophisticated than in the States,” he said at the Global Gaming Expo Asia in Macau, which generates five times the annual gambling revenue of Las Vegas.
“What was happening here in Macau five years ago, is happening in the States now,” he said.
Asia is in the midst of a casino building boom, fueled by wealthy VIP gamblers from China, with billions of dollars being invested in huge integrated casino resorts from Macau to Manila Bay and Singapore.
The new properties bristle with cutting-edge surveillance technology, but the cheats are coming up with their own high-tech innovations, such as the sleeve-camera used in the Philippines.
“If you go to a place like this in Macau, where the surveillance is a lot better trained, then the cheats have to be more sophisticated,” Piacente said on the expo floor at the glittering Venetian Macau resort.
Most of the exhibitors at Asia’s largest casino expo, which ended on Thursday, showed off the latest slot machines or video gambling innovations, but Piacente’s booth consisted of himself, a baccarat table and a bag of tricks.
Loaded dice, split chips and reflective gold rings are some of the more traditional tools of the cheater’s trade, which Piacente, president of UniverSal Game Protection, demonstrates with a magician’s flare.
He is also a master of sleight of hand — false shuffles, second deals, card palming — and can memorize a deck of cards instantly from sight.
He has worked a lifetime to perfect his skills, but tells his clients in the gaming world that the real cheats will be smarter, faster and better — especially in Asia where so much more money is at stake.
“I sit at home and practice thousands of moves for hundreds of hours. They’re at home practicing one move for thousands of hours. They do that one move better than I could possibly imagine,” he said.
“An amateur practices until he gets it right; a professional practices until he can’t get it wrong,” he said.
It is a constant battle.
Hoffman Ma, deputy chairman of Success Universe Group, which owns the Ponte 16 casino in Macau, said US anti-fraud system manufacturers were tailoring their latest products for Asian casinos.
“We do probably have one of the most advanced systems,” he said. “Technology helps you to be more efficient ... and with the huge traffic [of casino gamblers in Macau] you really need that assistance,” he said.
Nevada casinos, in contrast, were hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis and are struggling to keep up with surveillance technology, experts said.
“I hate to say it’s archaic,” said Douglas Florence, business development director at Canadian security camera company Avigilon, adding that many Las Vegas casinos still relied on grainy video stored on VHS tapes.
“Asia has been digital almost since day one because everything is new,” he said.
Avigilon has partnered with South African company Cheeteye, which offers casinos software that scours data from multiple sources to identify suspicious behavior patterns, such as increases in a certain player’s average wager.
Cheeteye representative Graeme Powell said the company’s revenues had doubled in the past two years as casino managers, particularly “young, tech-savvy” ones, adopted the system.
As for the Paranaque City cutter scam, several suspects have been arrested, while the alleged ringleader, Singaporean lawyer Loo Choon Beng, was reportedly found dead in a Chinese hotel room in August last year.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of