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Internet Interlopers

One of the easiest ways these days for the casinos to infiltrate the ranks of card counters is over the Internet. Every day in cyberspace, you can find card counters electronically congregated, sharing vast quantities of information. You may enter these discussions anonymously, and represent yourself as being anyone you want to be.marked cards

In the Spring '97 issue of Blackjack Forum, I stated:

" . . . casino personnel are lurking on every gambling website, and are specifically targeting the 'players only' forums and chat rooms . . . There are no 'players only' areas on the web! 'Safe' areas are a myth! Surveillance guys are just like writers; they go wherever the hell they want, and they believe they have a right to do this, by hook or by crook. It's their job! They're paid to do this . . . I know five players who have been added to the Griffin book . . . because of information initially published 'anonymously' on a popular blackjack web page. Casino personnel read the posts, put two and two together, and identified the players. Protect yourself. Always assume that anything you post on the Internet will be read by casino pit and security personnel, possibly at the very casinos where you play."

There were, in fact, five players I knew who found themselves with names (some with photos) in the dreaded Griffin Book as a direct result of posts on a public blackjack Web site.

With respect for these players' privacy, I will only say that a discussion about a unique playing opportunity in a specific location, with a veiled reference to a large blackjack team, led a casino lurker to investigate the possibility that this play might be going down in his casino. He struck pay-dirt. Five big money players who had been welcome comped customers found themselves booted from the blackjack tables in one fell swoop. Within days, they found themselves unable to play in any of the casinos where they had previously been welcome.

They were not yet in Griffin, but � as with that Berkeley doctor in Tahoe � the casinos in this area were now faxing their names and photos around to each other. American casinos refer to these local agreements they have with each other to immediately fax information on suspicious or undesirable players as a S.I.N. (Surveillance Information Network), an appropriate acronym. card cheating

I learned about this Web site fiasco from one of the players who called me and asked me to look on the Web site in question to see if I could find the posts that got the team busted. The player told me he'd asked one of the casino hosts whom he'd known for a long time why they had all been barred so suddenly. The host told him there were some Internet posts that made the casino suspicious.

"We never posted anything ourselves," he said, "but one of our guys called a friend about the potential value of the promotion we were playing. He made no mention of the specific casino. Unknown to us, the guy he'd called posted a message about it on that site, and someone else who we don't even know followed up with a message that contained a blackjack team reference. The promotion was unusual, so it wasn't hard for the casino to figure out they were being discussed on the Internet. So, they went looking for a blackjack team and just like that, we were busted." The following month, all five players learned they were in the Griffin Book, perfect examples of the old World War II adage: "Loose lips sink ships."

Many card counters are naive about casino surveillance. In the old days, surveillance was almost solely dependent on the intelligence and experience of the pit boss. If you could fool the boss, you had it made.

Counters who still think this way are setting themselves up for a fall. Surveillance in the major casinos these days takes place behind the scenes. Pit bosses are no longer expected to be detectives and bouncers; they are glorified clerks and bookkeepers who specialize in employee and customer relations. It's their job to continually record player betting levels, making sure the dealers' check racks are replenished as necessary, the cocktail waitresses are keeping the glasses full, the VIPs are getting the comps they want, the dealers are rotating and taking their breaks properly, the number of open tables is appropriate for the crowd conditions, and any disputes that arise in the games are settled quickly and fairly. Keep everything running smoothly; that's the prime job for a pit boss.

Surveillance is a different department. These are real detectives, not former dealers who rose up through the ranks. Surveillance departments today have lots of full-time employees and multi-million dollar budgets. Back in the mid-'80s, Harrah's Tahoe physically sent a floorman 200 miles into California to infiltrate my blackjack roundtable. Today, the surveillance cops don't have to travel so far; they surf the net.

When I go into many of the blackjack web sites today, I am astonished at the amount of sensitive information posted on public message boards by players. There seems to be no consciousness whatsoever that the casino surveillance folks are right there, and in many cases may be the ones who are asking the questions, joining the discussions, and attempting to milk players for whatever they can get out of them.