Casinos Need to Better Protect Their Games

A disturbing trend is coming out of Atlantic City. Unprotected games are being discovered and the outcome is affecting innocent players.

It all started in April 2012. Golden Nugget spread a baccarat game with unshuffled cards due to an alleged error by the manufacturer.

Some baccarat tables use preshuffled decks. This allows players to handle the cards and even bend and destroy them because the deck is taken out of action after each shoe.

A deck used in action was not shuffled. It appears that players picked up on this and took the house for $1.5 million over 41 hands. Apparently, the dealer, supervisors in the pit, as well as surveillance, all missed something the players picked up on quickly, even after stacks of chips were leaving the dealer’s tray after every hand.

A judge ruled that the baccarat game in question was illegal under state law since the cards were not shuffled properly. Golden Nugget does not have to redeem the $1 million in outstanding chips from the game and that it can recover the $500,000 in cash paid for chips already redeemed.

In January, fake chips were discovered in the first 2014 Winter Poker Open event. The tournament was canceled with 27 players left. It took three months for a resolution to be announced. Refunds were taken out of the remaining prize pool for players that played the same flights and days as the alleged cheater. Borgata only covered the $60 admin fee that was refunded to these players. The remaining 27 players covered the actual portion of the buy-in that went to the prize pool in what was a controversial and difficult ruling handed down by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Phil Ivey was accused of edge sorting at Borgata in four separate session spanning six months. The house allowed the dealer to set important cards in a specific way per Ivey and his companion’s request, according to the lawsuit. A specific type of cards were requested, including the color.

The cards were from the same company that allegedly supplied unshuffled cards to the Golden Nugget in the baccarat game mentioned earlier in this article. There were also other agreed upon terms for this game, according to sources.

Borgata decided that after Ivey took the casino for $9.6 million, they would file a suit in an attempt to recover these funds.

All of these situations have one thing in common. The house did not protect its game. Of course, the house cannot see everything no matter how closely it watches. In the Ivey baccarat case, the house went out of its way to allow a player to have his way with the rules and only balked after it lost on four separate occasions.

Casino employees are trained to spot suspicious situations. Players that act a certain way are watched closely. Special requests must be scrutinized for security purposes. Complaints from players must be taken seriously if the allegations affect the outcome of the game.

The two baccarat situations involved decks introduced into a game and dealt by the house where no player rules were broken. An unshuffled deck of cards is easy to spot. The proof there is that the players managed to win an average of $36,585 per wager over 41 hands. The session lasted for 2.5 hours, according to reports. One has to wonder how this incredible run did not get noticed sooner.

All companies make mistakes. I am not advocating players take advantage of them. However, it is important for casinos to own up to their errors, especially when in hindsight the mistakes seem obvious. To do otherwise risks not just the reputation of the casino, but can also create a situation where players that were not aware of the mistake get caught up in a false positive. That creates a scenario where players can get freerolled for doing nothing more than playing in a game the casino spread to them, one players expected to be dealt fairly. The possibility of that situation is unacceptable.

Hopefully casinos will work harder at protecting games to prevent a situation in the future where they must decide to go after winning players or eating a loss that came from dealing a game that was less than secure.

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