CARDSHARK Online™ Blog

ShuffleMaster 8-deck Shuffler

2012-01-31T23:12:00.004-05:00

If I don't publish a blog post tonight, the whole moth of January will go by without a single blog post. So, I better do it before the clock strikes midnight.

I've been meaning to blog about a casino scam that involved beating an automatic ShuffleMaster card shuffler. The scam is already old news, but since I'm not in the breaking news business I guess there's no harm blogging about it.

Automatic card shufflers are designed to accomplish two things, for the casino: make the games more secure and increase efficiency. The security is increased by eliminating the human element, i.e. the dealer who can make mistakes and/or cheat, while performing a manual shuffle. And the efficiency is increased by substantially cutting down on any down time. At least that's the idea.

Below is a picture of the ShuffleMaster 8-deck baccarat shuffler. The machine is easy to operate. You place an 8-deck pack of cards into one tray, press the button and the machine does the rest. When you want to retrieve the shuffled pack you press another button and the shuffled cards come out of the other tray. The dealer doesn't wait for the machine to perform the shuffle, which takes quite a while from start to finish. Instead, the dealer works with two 8-deck packs; while one deck is in use, the other deck is being shuffled. So, by the time the players go through an 8-deck shoe the other pack is already shuffled and ready to be retrieved by the dealer. All that the dealer needs to do is to exchange the packs and continue dealing from the fresh pack. That all sounds nice in theory. I'm not going to say that this is not a good idea. Perhaps communism is also a good idea, the only issue is the implementation.

In recent years casinos have been flooded with all kinds of electronic gadgets that are supposed to perform the jobs that were once assigned to skilled croupiers. In fact, some casinos are starting to resemble the Toyota assembly line, with robotic arms doing all the work and no humans in sight behind the pit. My point is, gadgets don't only bring solutions (often solutions to problems that never existed in the first place) they also bring a false sense of security and, of course, new problems that never existed before these solutions were implemented.

Many casinos that started using gadgets also started using less skilled, and cheaper, labor. Casinos basically started hiring cheap labor with minimal training. I think that's more or less the recommendation of many gadget makers. You'll save money cause you'll no longer have to spend a fortune paying skilled staff. Yes, our machines are expensive, but you'll make that money back in no time cause now you'll be able to hire minimal skill labor and you'll also increase efficiency.

That's the attitude that currently prevails amongst many corporate casinos. And some of them have already paid for their own ignorance and stupidity.

The ShuffleMaster 8-deck shuffler that you see here has already been compromised in at least one casino that we know of. From what I understand, the scam was so simple there's hardly anything to tell. The dealer simply didn't exchange the two packs of cards. Instead of placing the used pack into the machine and then taking the newly shuffled pack out, he simply placed the used pack next to the machine and then put it back in the shoe. I guess he also pressed a button on the machine to make it less obvious that he just recycled the same pack of cards, but that's not the point. The point is that if the casino had proper procedures, a scam as obvious as that one could never have happened. The casino simply put too much faith in the technology, forgetting that the people handling the machines needed to be watched as closely as if they were performing manual shuffles.

What is there to be learned from this scam? The scam is basically a variation of the good old baccarat slug scam. For those not familiar with the scam, the idea is to have one of the players log a sequence of cards, then having the dealer avoid shuffling that slug and then having a group of players bet the maximum on known outcomes.

Counterfeit 19th Century French Playing Cards

2011-12-30T22:20:00.000-05:00

This will be my last blog post in the year 2011. So, I better end the year with something interesting, like, counterfeit playing cards. Spotting fakes is all about the details, so this post will be quite elaborate. Hopefully it will also make some collectors wiser and prevent them from being duped; unless you're like me and you actually want to have a fake in your collection, as long as you were never fooled into thinking it was genuine.

When I think of counterfeit playing cards the first thing that comes to mind are counterfeit Bee cards, made in China. But those aren't the only kind of counterfeit playing cards. I've come across some fake antique playing cards. While fake Bee cards are intended to be sold to the general public (and I've even seen some fake Bee decks at a Duane Reade store), fake antiques are made to dupe collectors. Here is a picture of a fake 19th century French deck that I own. What's wrong with this picture?

One detail that any collector should be able to spot from across the room is the presence of corned indices on the aces. Why are the aces indexed? Corner indices are an American invention, from the 1870s. European makers started using corner indices in the 1890s. So, according to that historical fact, this deck would have to have been produced no earlier than during the 1890s. But the corner indices look odd. I've seen a lot of old French decks, some indexed and some not, but this is the only deck I've ever seen with this kind of corner indices (i.e. slanted suit symbols without the values). So, there are two possibilities. Either this is a very rare deck from the early 1890s, when French makers just started experimenting with corner indices. Or it's a fake. There are many other details that point to this deck being a fake. And there are for course some details that suggest this deck should be genuine. But isn't that the case with any fakes?

One detail that could be taken as a sure proof this is a genuine antique deck of cards is the presence of the watermark. All French decks from that era were printed on watermarked paper. That was a distinct characteristic of French decks. All the makers were required to print their playing cards on watermarked paper that they had to purchase from the French government. That's how the French government, at that time, made sure all the decks were taxed.

In countries where paper currency is printed on watermarked paper people usually look for the watermark to quickly check that the money is good. It is easy to understand why someone might believe this deck is genuine, due to the presence of the watermark. But the watermark on these cards is not quite right.

The watermark is very clearly visible on all the cards, especially on the red-suited aces. That might sound like good news, but the problem is that the watermark is too clear. Perhaps I should say, too good to be true. Usually the watermark is not nearly as clear on any of the old French decks that I know for a fact to be genuine.

When I compare the watermarks on these cards with the watermarks on genuine decks I can see, relatively easily, that the images are not identical designs. I can see the differences simply by placing two cards side by side. I believe that the watermarks should be identical on all the decks. After all, isn't that the whole purpose of a government watermark?
Another problem is the quality of the paper. Again, these cards were supposed to have been printed on government paper. So, if you found a watermark on a banknote but the paper didn't feel right, would you believe the money is real?

One reason why the paper doesn't feel right is because these cards were printed on a single-layer sheet of paper. So, if you look at the backs of the cards, and tilt the deck against light to produce a reflection, you will see the watermarks on the backs. That is never the case with genuine decks, because those were printed on double-layered paper; the layer of paper on the face of the cards is watermarked and the layer at the back is just high quality stiff paper. I tried to make a picture of the watermark showing at the back of the cards, as best as I could.

The deck is thinner than genuine period decks and the paper feels stiff and shiny, as if it had been sprayed with varnish (which I believe is actually the case). The cards don't fan at all and it is impossible to manipulate the cards in any way. It would be impossible to play a game of cards without constantly licking your fingers, in order to fan the cards in your hand; which brings me to the next point.

On a hunch I licked my thumb and tried to smear the ink, to see what would happen. The ink did smear. Luckily I had a feeling that it would, so I did it very lightly. I believe the paper was in fact prayed with varnish and the card designs were printed on top of it, which might be one of the reasons why the ink smears. The other reasons might be that the ink is not the right kind.

The edges of the cards are also not quite right. It looks to me as if the edges were colored with some kind of alcohol-based felt-tip pen, the produces a shiny finish. I am also not too sure that the corners are right.

From the first moment I picked up this deck of cards I never thought they were genuine. My first impression was that the deck was a fake. That was before I even looked closely at the cards.

One other thing that doesn't feel right is the condition of the cards. The deck is in mint condition, and yet, the cards are completely warped and there is not wrapper. How did the cards survive in mint condition for over a century without their original wrapper? Why did someone remove the wrapper if the did not use the cards to play a game? If they did play a game, that ink would have smudged. Why are the cards warped if they haven't been used?

I bought the deck from a dealer in Paris, knowing it was a fake. I even explained to the dealer what didn't look right, but I still decided to purchase the deck because I liked the idea of having a counterfeit antique deck. That's something I would want to have in my collection, but if I wanted to look for one I wouldn't know where to start looking. So, when I was holding a fake in my hands I realized I wanted to have it. So, I paid for it and gave it a home.

When I brought the deck home I discovered some other details, upon closer examination. The most obvious detail is the back design, seen through a magnifying glass.

The Scottish-plaid pattern back design is just too perfect to have been produced with 19th century printing technology. The naked eye sees only lines crisscrossing, but the magnifying glass reveals that the lines are actually made of little dots. That's also the case with genuine decks, but with some very important differences.

The previous two images are photographs of two back designs. One shows the back of the fake deck, and the other one shows the back of a genuine 19th century Grimaud card. Guess which is which?

When you look at a genuine card you can easily conclude that those Scottish-plaid pattern back designs were printed with two separate rollers, crisscrossing, on two separate runs. The Grimaud deck is printed in blue and red and as you can see the dots from one roller never perfectly align with the dots from the other roller. In fact, it would be impossible (and totally unnecessary) to align the two rollers so that every single crossing dot from the left side falls perfectly on every single crossing dot from the right side. But if you look at the fake deck you will see that all the crossing dots align perfectly. That's something that was printed on a computer printer, and not with two 19th century rollers. Plus, there is no natural smudging of the ink, as seen on the Grimaud card, and the dots are so small they are only visible under a magnifying glass.

Hopefully this blog post will help some collectors identify fake antique French decks. I have many antique decks in my collection and this deck stands out like a black sheep, so there is no doubt in my mind that it's a fake. But I have to admit that the presence of the watermarks make this deck a good fake, one that's worth collecting. After all, one day this fake will also become a genuine antique fake, and possibly a rare one.

Unused Antique French Playing Cards

2011-11-18T00:02:00.006-05:00

Earlier this year I made a post about Early 20th Century French Playing Cards, in which I show an image of an original wrapper that was used to wrap the deck, as well as a facsimile deck with a reproduction of a wrapper. Here is a picture of two near mint condition early 20th century French decks, still sealed in their original wrappers, that have survived a century and ended up in my private collection.

Both of these decks are by Grimaud, which I believe to be the oldest surviving maker of playing cards in the world; although Cartamundi claims this title, although that company is actually the product of a merger of three makers (Brepols, Van Genechten and Biermans) and the name Cartamundi never existed before 1970. Whatever the case might be, I have here two antique Grimaud decks in their original wrappers.

Due to the fact the wrappers were just cheap packaging, at the time these cards were made, most of the decks that reached the old age of 100 survived without their original wrappers. However, the maker's name never appeared on any of the cards from any of the Portrait Officiel decks, so the decks that survived without wrappers are sometimes difficult to identify. One clue that connoisseurs use to identify the makers is the color palette of the court cards. Each maker used a different palette at different times to hand color all the court cards. So, the best way to identify the maker of any particular deck is to reference it to some decks that were never separated from their wrappers.

Below is an image that shows exactly what I am talking about. Both cards came from decks that were produced around 1910. The jack of clubs on the left is from a Grimaud deck and the jack of clubs on the right is from a Dieudonné deck. The line art on both cards is identical, but the coloring is different, basically a choice made by the makers.

Another identifier is of course the back design of the cards. Some patters were commonly used by many makers, but there were still some subtle variations that can now be used to identify the makers.

I am not really sure how much these decks could be worth. They are certainly worth as much as someone is willing to pay for them. What I do know is that the number of decks that survive is gradually decreasing, as time goes by, and the number of collectors is gradually increasing, as the population of humans continues to grow. I also know that any deck accompanied by its original wrapper carries a higher price tag, simply because most wrappers are long gone.

In closing, I might as well mention that there is a useful online resource for antique French playing cards on the Cary Collection of Playing Cards page.

19th Century French Playing Cards

2011-11-10T11:57:00.003-05:00

In my earlier post, Early 20th Century French Playing Cards, I spoke about some of the characteristics of French playing cards, from the early 20th century. In this post, I would like to describe some of the characteristics of 19th century French cards. The purpose of this post is to share some of the information that I know, to help collectors. Here are a couple of 19th century French decks, from my own collection.

The basic designs of the cards are the same as the early 20th century decks, known as Portrait Officiel. The most noticeable difference between late 19th century and early 20th century French playing cards is the absence of corner indices, from the decks that were made before the 1890s. The corner indices were actually an American invention that first appeared in the 1870s, but European makers did not start copying the idea right away. So, if you ever see an antique French deck of cards that has corner indices, you can be pretty sure that it does not predate the last decade of the 19th century.

The other important detail is the tax stamp.

The two decks shown in the photograph both have a tax stamp on the ace of clubs. That indicates that these decks were produced in the late 19th century. Earlier French decks had no tax stamps because the cards were printed on watermark paper, which had to be purchased from the government. It should be noted that French decks continued to be printed on watermarked paper even after the introduction of the tax stamp on the ace of clubs.

During that era, French playing card makers didn't print their names on any of the cards. The names of the makers were only printed on the wrappers. Most wrappers got lost, so identifying the makers takes a bit more knowledge. I once stumbled across a French site that described the colors that various makers would use on the court cards, at certain times. The court cards were printed and then colored by hand. A good source of information would be any unused deck of cards that has survived to this day, with its wrapper intact. I happen to own two such decks and will be making a blog post about them at some later time.

In this post, I've described just some of the main characteristics of 19th century French playing cards. Of course, there are a lot more details that I did not mention and I wish to save them for another post. I also happen to own a counterfeit 19th century French deck, that I purchased knowing it was a fake. I will do a separate post about it and describe some additional characteristics of 19th century French cards.

Marked Cards: Research and Development

2011-10-07T15:48:00.002-04:00

Marked cards have probably been around for as long as playing cards have been used for gambling. In fact, the first marked cards were likely to be unintentionally marked by their makers, as the first playing cards were hand made and thus subject to inconsistencies. But as playing cards evolved through history so did methods of marking them for the purposes of cheating. In our time there have been many ingenious ways of marking cards and as time goes on there will undoubtedly be more ways to do it.

Since there is no single source for information on marked cards and since there's always been a great deal of secrecy to protect the "recipes," as card cheats would say, it takes a little legwork to get the information. Also, since playing card manufacturers continue to change the methods of producing playing cards, continued research and development is needed for those of us that wish to stay up to date with all the latest information. Some of the old recipes might have worked great in the 1960s, but doe to some of the changes in playing cards there is no guarantee that the old recipes will still work. In fact, some old recipes are totally outdated and have become useless.

I have spent a great deal of time and money researching various ways of marking cards. Here is just a small portion of some of the substances I've experimented with, through the years. Most of the substances I've tested did not produce satisfactory results, but I still decided to keep it all stored away in boxes. After all, I've paid for all that stuff.

The selection of vials you see on this photo just came from one box, from a specific time period. I have a lot more than that stashed away, but at this time I don't particularly feel like digging through my old stuff just to take a picture for a blog post. What's important is that every vial is labeled and there are written records kept of all the experiments.

The next photo shows a selection of test cards I've marked, labeled and stored away. Again, that's just a small sample that shows test cards I've actually placed into binders.

The important thing about these archived samples is the labeling. I need to know when the sample was made, what substance was used and I also need to reference any additional written records I might have kept about any particular sample.

I wish to emphasize that the date is very important. What most people don't realize is that the work you put on the back of a playing card today might not look the same tomorrow, or in a week's time, or a month later. Some chemicals used in dyes and solvents will have a delayed reaction against the finish of the playing cards, when exposed to air or changes in temperature and humidity. So, some of the work that might look invisible today might look like a yellow trace after some time has passed. To avoid such undesirable results I always test my work over time, by keeping labeled samples and meticulous records.

Naturally, I've learned a lot from my own mistakes. I wasn't always quite as organized and I had my share of surprises, when I looked back at some of the test cards I had kept. At some point it became obvious that the only way to do it is to adopt the science lab approach and keep records of all the experiments.

Lastly, in addition to all the test cards I've kept I also have a binder with all the best work that I've produced and collected. The binder has samples of various types of marked cards, along with written descriptions. The descriptions do not have recipes, since this is more of a sample catalog that I often use to show around.

For further information on marked cards, please visit the marked cards chapter on my main site, as well as the marked cards tag on this blog.

Ponzi Poker dot com

2011-09-24T12:17:00.004-04:00

By now it shouldn't come as a total surprise that the FullTilt.com poker site was recently busted for stealing money from their customers. FullTilt, as it turns out, was not even a poker site, per se, it was just a global Ponzi scheme. But unlike other historic Ponzi schemes that used the investment model, such as the fairly recent Madoff affair, FullTilt was using the online poker façade. Of course the poker was just smoke and mirrors. In reality FullTilt was just in the business of collecting money from thousands of unfortunate players around the world and simply transferring the funds to their own pockets. But like any "successful" Ponzi scheme, FullTilt also had to create the illusion that any customer could withdraw any amount of money at any time. And also, like any other Ponzi scheme victims, FullTilt customers saw no need to withdraw their money, once they've established that it could be done, since they needed money on their accounts to continue doing what they all did best: play poker for a living. But there was a catch, as it tuned out: FullTilt didn't actually have enough money to pay everyone. That's because most of the money was already gone. Right now everything is at a standstill. The domain name FullTilt.com has been seized by the Feds, pending further investigation.

By now it should also not come as a surprise that some "big names" in poker were implicated in the scam, namely, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Howard "The Professor" Lederer. Those were just two of the big names that somehow managed to convince the world (but not including me, actually) that they were somehow superior poker players and that they were able to somehow win in the long run by playing a good game. Give me a fucking break! Poker is not chess. Yes, you can win by playing a better game than the average schmo, but only as long as you play against peasants. And those pros don't seem to do that. They play in televised tournaments against players that are just as "skilled" as they are. And at those levels they really don't have much of a mathematical edge to guarantee they'll stay afloat for a long time.

There's a Darwinian law in poker: survival of the fittest. In nature, you don't see lions attacking tigers; in fact those two spiciest of cats live on two different continents, altogether. Lions go after four legged herbavors, often attacking the sick and old ones, because they are the easiest to catch and at the end all gazelle meet is the same. In poker, if you want to win on the square, you always have to be on the lookout for the clueless, because at the end, money is the same, no matter which sucker put in into the pot. So, in poker, there's absolutely no practical reason for some guy called "Jesus" to go after some guy called "The Professor," or the other way around; at least not if both of them want to fulfill the only objective of the game, which is to win. The only reason why the two of them would ever consider sitting at the same table is to put up a show for all the folks at home, watching TV. But let's face it, that's not really poker, that's just a TV show.

Please don't get me wrong; I am actually very fond of Howard Lederer. "Jesus" is not quite my type, but I still have no harsh feelings for him. So, I definitely don't want to give the impression that I am trashing them. I actually love what they do. All I'm saying is that I never believed that any of the so-called "poker stars" were players on the square that earn their livings solely by playing a good game.

What I'm trying to say is, if you want to win at poker you have to find a way to play with an edge. You have a couple of options to accomplish that. Option 1, you can learn a few basic rules of good play and find inferior players that don't know the same rules. Option 2, you can increase your mathematical advantage by implementing techniques and strategies that you won't find in your Hoyle Rules of Card Games book. If you go with option 2, you can still play against those inferior players or you can expand your pull of opponents by playing against those that only rely on mathematical advantages described in all the poker books that have been published in the past decade.

Speaking of poker books, those are just there to divert everyone's attention to numerous details that might be interesting to read but have very little practical value in the real world of consistent poker winners. Our popular poker stars have to learn all those ludicrous rules just so they can keep up appearances and hold up through numerous interviews. But they can't possibly rely solely on those rules to always end up at the final tables in televised poker tournaments. When you have two random cards and push your entire bankroll into the pot, against a few other players that have also been dealt two random cards, and then wait for five more random cards to hit the board, to complete everyone's hands, and when all the other active players do the same, you can flush all that knowledge about odds and probabilities down the toilet. I don't care how convincing the math is that tells us that you should win in the long run. Most people have absolutely no clue what it really means, when the mathematicians tell us that something should work in our favor, in the long run. Most players will not have what it takes to put themselves through a disciplined long run. Not to mention that the long run in poker is not the same as the long run in blackjack, where the house never makes irrational and/or reckless decisions. In poker you play against unpredictable humans. It has been said that in blackjack it should take at least 10,000 hands of perfect play in order to scratch the surface of the "long run." Any results below the 10,000 rounds threshold are indistinguishable from luck. So, if 10,000 rounds of perfect play is what it takes to reach the long run in blackjack, how many rounds of "perfect play" should it take to achieve the same in poker? The answer is, I have no fucking clue.

I also don't care. To be perfectly honest, I never paid too much attention to all the poker bibles that have been published in the past decade. Since I don't play poker publicly on TV I don't have to convince the public that I'm a skilled poker player, as I'll never be scrutinized through televised interviews. If you only play in private games, you don't really have to justify your play to others. You can simply keep your mouth shot and let others concoct their own theories about why you made certain decisions. All you really have to worry about is to never make a bad call that takes a big pot, and you should not get married to the same group of players. Because if you want to win consistently, and if you don't have all the time in the word, and if you don't like to put your bankroll through a rollercoaster ride, you'll just have to do a little more than just play the odds.

This is not to say that legitimate skilled poker play does not exist. At least in theory it does. And as we all know, in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. And in practice poker players just want to take the money and hit the next game. Who's got the time to wait around for the long run? But for those that are still looking for legit winning strategies, they do exist. In fact, in some cases those strategies might be simpler than most people realize. But one has to understand which strategies work for which poker games. Because poker is not just one game, it is a family of games.

For example, the winning strategy for 5-card stud, the game that has been known as the granddaddy of all poker games, can be summarized in one short paragraph.

When dealt the first two cards, if you don't see a pair of 10's or better, fold. On any given round, when any one of your opponents' up cards beat your hand, fold. In any other situations you should either bet, call or raise. And most importantly, play this simple strategy only against gamblers that don't play this strategy, and don't stick to the same group of gamblers for too long.

That was the expanded version of the winning poker strategy, for 5-card stud. The short version is simply: play tight against bad players. If you do that, you will win in the (not so) long run. Before you jump out of your seat and call me a lunatic, please take into account that 5-card stud does not have the same betting structure as no limit tournament Texas Hold'em. In other words, it doesn't cost you a fortune to see two random cards, as the blinds escalate, before you even decide if you even want to play the round.

The obvious problem is, no one plays 5-cards stud, these days. The majority of poker "players" are just gambling at no limit tournament Texas Hold'em. And for that game, the winning rules are not as simple as for 5-card stud, which is a limit game. If you ask me, true winning hold'em strategies should (and in fact do) include some unorthodox strategies, for those that actually want to win, in the long run.

In the past, I've often been ridiculed for saying that poker sites are crooked gambling establishments. I was often called a conspiracy theorist. My answer was always the same: I'd rather be remembered as a paranoid skeptic than a naïve sucker. My reasons for stating that all poker sites were crooked were simple. For one, historically speaking, all illicit gambling establishments have always been crooked, in one way or another. There's really no reason to believe that poker sites, for whatever reason, should be any different. But many people did think that poker sites were on the square. The most common reasoning was that they have more to lose from any bad reputation than they stand to gain by cheating. Is that really so? I actually never subscribed to that philosophy. And again, my thinking was simple. Historically speaking, most people want more money, even if they already have more than they know what to do with. And now that money seems to be gone.

One may ask, where did all the money go? I really can't say that I have a definitive answer to that question, but I have a fairly good idea.

When a poker "champ" sits down at a poker table and makes a humongous raise on a couple of lousy cards, some people have been known to think, "Wow, this guy has some balls." Some have even been known to say, "Wow, this guy really knows what he's doing." And if the guy did end up winning the pot, that random event would commonly be accepted as sufficient proof that he must have known what he was doing.

Of course there are other possible explanation for poker "champs" pushing all that money into risky pots. For example, "That can't possibly be his money," could be a reasonable explanation.

In the case of Jesus and The Professor, we now know that was exactly the case. Money "donated" by thousands of online poker players from around the globe ended up in all those live games that the pros like to show off on TV. And it would be reasonable to say that all that money was just blown away, by those pros, in the exact same way as money has always been blown away by reckless gamblers. Again, I'm talking about what historically happens to money, when it ends up in the hands of gamblers. It would take a lot of convincing to make me believe that poker stars are any different.

When the Madoff affair broke I remember catching a New York Times article titled along the lines of, All Ponzi Schemes are Doomed, So What's Your Exit Strategy?

All Ponzi schemes are in fact doomed, but again, historically speaking, most of the schemers fooled themselves into thinking that there would be an end to it and that they could somehow turn the thing around, balance out the books and still end up with a nice chunk of change.

Since I don't have a crystal ball I have no idea what FullTilt schemers were thinking, but there's nothing to stop me from speculating.

I believe they fooled themselves into thinking that the poker "pros" would just "borrow" the money and turn it around at the live tables, then return the borrowed funds and no one would ever know the money took a walk around the block. Of course that thinking is quite naïve, to put it mildly. Things just never work out quite that way and to think that a bunch of gamblers might somehow be able to double, or triple, or quadruple some "borrowed" funds is just nonsense.

So, what's the conclusion of this rant?

Poker has always been a cheating game. Unlike true games of skill, consistent winners cannot solely rely on strategy to beat their opponents. If you want to be a consistent poker winner, you have to do more than play the odds, which is what everyone else seems to be doing. And if you want to be a consistent poker winner on TV, it is mathematically impossible to be seen at the final tables too often, without doing something other than what's described in poker strategy books, especially in reckless tournament play. Stories about poker champs always ending up on top, under televised tournament circumstances, are stories for little kids.

Smooth Finish Bee Cards

2011-08-23T14:06:00.001-04:00

Last year I made a blog post, titled The Original Rough & Smooth Playing Cards, in which I described a smooth finish Bee deck that I happen to have laying around the house. At the time of that post I really wasn't sure when the US Playing Card Company made smooth finish Bee decks, or even if the smooth finish was intentional or if it was a mistake. The smooth finish Bee deck that I described in that blog post was factory packed in a box labeled, CAMBRIC FINISH.

I am not the only one that doesn't know the history of smooth finish Bee decks. If you call the USPCC directly, you will find out that they don't even know much about them. When I called them they informed me that they no longer have a historian on staff and that no one there knows much about the history of their own products. They offered to dig around a bit and after a few days someone from the USPCC sent me an email saying that smooth finish Bee decks were made about five years ago, which would mean 2006. Well, if such decks were made five years ago I missed them. All I know is that I've had my smooth finish Bee deck at least ten years.

Since the USPCC wasn't able to offer any useful information I decided to do some digging around, myself.

Bee decks were originally made by the NY Consolidated Card Company, in 1892. That's why the ace of spades has the number 92. At some point the NYCCC merged with the Dougherty Card Co, but I was unable to find out for sure what year that merger took place. From that point on the ace of spades bears the wording CONSOLIDATED-DOUGHERTY; the earlier decks, made by the NYCCC had the wording THE NY CONSOLIDATED CARD CO. I actually found two cartons of Bee decks, from that era, and to my surprise, I actually found them stashed in a forgotten box in my own basement. However, those were cambric finish decks. But, actually, that's not a bad thing. Because smooth finish decks are no good if one doesn't have matching cambric finish decks.

I was definitely fortunate to find those vintage cambric finish Bee decks, but I was even luckier to find some smooth finish Bee decks, from that same era, on eBay. The decks were a perfect match. But I only found two smooth decks, one blue one red, so I don't have enough to fill up a six-deck shoe.

I was able to date the tax stamps that were used to seal those boxes and if my information is correct those decks must have been made between 1940 and 1965. That's a 25 year span, which is to say, a quarter of a century, but the decks can be dated more precisely from the code on the aces of spades. The ace of spades from the red deck has the code A 3333 and the ace from the blue deck has A 3332.

So far we can determine that the NY Consolidate Card Company definitely used to make smooth finish Bee decks between 1940 and 1965. We might be able to pinpoint the year when my smooth finish decks were made, but that doesn't mean those cards weren't made before 1940 or after 1965. In fact, I think the real question is, when did cambric finish playing cards become the standard? Cambric finish, which is also called linen finish or air cushion finish, is a more recent invention. Before there was such thing as cambric finish all playing cards used to have smooth finish. As far as I know the first cambric finish cards were made by De La Rue, and were called pneumatic playing cards. Other playing card manufacturers followed suit and came up with their own terminology. Since cambric finish playing cards were much easier to handle, most makers stopped making smooth finish playing cards. So, I guess the next question is, when did the makers of Bee cards stop making them in smooth finish?

As previously mentioned, Bee playing cards were first made by the NY Consolidated Card Company, in 1892. At some point the NYCCC merged with Dougherty and at some later point the US Playing Card Company acquired that brand. The smooth finish playing cards that I first blogged about were factory packed in a bar-coded box that was labeled CAMBRIC FINISH. However, at some point the USPCC did make smooth finish playing cards in boxes labeled SMOOTH FINISH. Those boxes were also bar-coded, although the bar code is not the same as the bar code on cambric finish Bee cards. I have no idea when bar-coded boxes were introduced by the USPCC (and, by the way, neither does the USPCC) but judging from this picture smooth finish Bee cards were obviously still around after the USPCC put bar codes on their boxes.

What I am about to say is totally unrelated to this blog post, but because it happened during the writing of this post, I feel I should still mention it. As I was writing the above sentence, on Tuesday August 23, at 1:55pm, my desk started trembling, and them my computer screen started shaking. It was the East Coast 5.8 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter near Richmond, VA. Anyway, back to my article...

The image of the smooth finish Bee deck, above, was sent to me by a gentleman that was asking me if I were interested in purchasing some smooth finish Bee decks. I was kind of interested, but he never told me the asking price. He did list one deck on eBay and the listing produced one bidder that apparently met the reserve price of $100. That was a good price for a deck of cards, but I never really believed it was a legitimate bid, as the guy never listed more deck at any time in the future. In any event, I personally don't believe this deck is worth $100.

At some time in the past, smooth finish Bee decks were used for cheating at blackjack. By sorting and mixing smooth finish cards with matching cambric finish cards, a bustout joint would mark all the 10-value cards in a 6-deck blackjack shoe. The dealer could identify if the top card of the shoe was a 10-value card and then deal a second, if a rough & smooth shoe was in use, or signal to the anchor (an accomplice on third base) whether or not to take a hit. If smooth finish Bee cards were still around one could continue to make rough & smooth marked decks, but at one point the USPCC stopped making smooth finish Bee cards. If one were to buy six smooth finish decks for $100 each, to make up a 6-deck shoe, one could not match those vintage cards to any Bee cards that are currently sold. So, one would also have to find matching cambric finish cards, from about the same era.

There are simpler solution for those who want to make up their own rough & smooth decks. The simplest solution is to order monogrammed playing cards from manufacturers that take small orders. There are several makers that will take minimum orders of 200 decks per back color. So, one can just order 200 decks in each available finish. That will cost a lot less than buying vintage decks on eBay and the cards will be monogrammed, which makes a lot more sense, even for a bustout joint.

Antique Baccarat Dealing Shoe from Casino Monte Carlo

2011-06-29T14:11:00.001-04:00

In recent years I've acquired several dealing shoes for the purpose of studying their design features and measurements. I am most interested in contemporary casino shoes, since those are the type of shoes I make. However, while collecting these objects I often found it impossible to resist buying some antique dealing shoes I've come across. There is an unwritten rule that if you own at least three of one type of object you are officially a collector. I try to resist developing a passion for collecting, for a number of reasons, but at this point it would be really difficult for me to deny that I own a collection of antique dealing shoes. Perhaps one day a real collector will have an interest in acquiring my entire collection, but until then I can take pictures of my shoes and post them on my blog.

To the best of my knowledge this is the oldest dealing shoe that I own. It is over a hundred years old and was brought to the US around 1932 by the grandfather of the person that sold this shoe to the antique dealer that sold it to me. But before this shoe crossed the Atlantic it was used at the famous casino in Monte Carlo. At least that's the story that came with the shoe. I have no way of knowing how accurate the story is, but since the shoe was sold to me for a mere $40 I would have a hard time seeing a point why anyone would bother making up an elaborate story just to jack up the price a few bucks. If there are any inaccuracies in the provenance of this shoe they are probably just honest mistakes.

The first thing I did when I purchased this shoe was to remove the metal ramp, to see if any clues were hiding on the inside. I didn't find the maker's name, or anything that would indicate a date, anywhere, but I did find a spot where a label had once been affixed. The glue is still there and parts of the torn-off label are still stuck to the dry glue. Why someone tore the label off is anyone's guess.

Some of the letters are still partially visible, but unfortunately not enough of them remain to allow me to reconstruct what had once been printed on the label. The only detail that I think I figured out was the first word in the last row. There is a capital letter R visible that is followed by that appears to be the remains of a capital "U" (missing the bottom and most of its right side, and possibly confused by a capital I). After the U there is a horizontal line that looks like it might be what remains of a capital E. So, the word might be RUE, which is French for street. Whatever might have been written in front of the R has been torn off, but if that word is in fact RUE there would have been a number in front of it, followed by a space.

It would make a lot of sense for that word in the particular spot to have read RUE, because that's where RUE would have been written if the last line on the label was an address in France. And that's one of the main things I was interested to know. If the shoe was made in France it would support the story that it came from Monte Carlo.

Although I will probably never be able to trace this shoe back to its original source, there are still a few things that I can tell for certain about this shoe.

The wood is definitely about 100 years old. I have been collecting vintage guitars for many years and by now I've developed a very good sense of what old lacquered wood looks like. The patina is real and the crackles in the lacquer are genuine, and only a century passing by could have left that particular time stamp on this object.

Another detail that I can tell for sure is the interior width of the shoe. This says a lot, because playing cards did not have standardized measurements one hundred years ago. If you load a standard poker size deck inside this shoe there is too much space on the sides. That's because this shoe was made for slightly longer cards. The pack of cards that I used in this photo was a 19th century pack made by De La Rue & Co, of London. To be honest, this was a bit surprising because in France, during the 19th century, mostly French playing cards were used; and there was no shortage of makers of playing cards in France. 19th century French playing cards are smaller than the packs we use nowadays, so this shoe was definitely not made for them. Could this detail support the story, that the shoe was used in Monaco, and not in France?

The last detail that's worth noting is the absence of a plate that used to be attached to the right side of the shoe. All that remains are four small holes where the screws once were holding a plate attached to the shell. The missing plate is of course the plate with inscribed drawing rules. This means that the shoe was made for the game of baccarat. But baccarat is not just one game, it is actually a family of games, much like poker is. There are three baccarat variations (in French), baccara en banque, baccara chemin de fer, and baccara punto banco (which is the baccarat variation mostly played today and is now called simply baccarat).

We know that chemin de fer is played with a six-deck shoe. My shoe is a two deck shoe, which seems to eliminate the possibility that it was made for chemin de fer. I do not know if there might once have been an early variation of chemin de fer that used a two deck shoe. If there was I've never heard of it.

The game punto banco, or what we now call baccarat, is also played with six decks. Plus, that was not the most popular baccarat variation in Europe, a hundred years ago. What remains is to consider the possibility that the shoe was made for the game baccara en banque.

Baccara en banque is probably completely extinct today. However, detective Eugène Villiod describes the game in his famous book The Stealing Machine. In his book he says that the game was played with two decks and dealt from the marble block, instead of a shoe.

We must remember that dealing shoes were in their infancy at that time and that games were also still being developed. Plus, Eugène Villiod talks strictly about gambling establishments in Paris, so things were probably not the same in Monte Carlo. Is it possible that baccara en banque was dealt from a two deck shoe in the early years of the casino in Monte Carlo? I guess it's possible. I actually tried to find out, by contacting the casino, but my research produced no results. That casino is now managed by much younger people that don't necessarily care about what went on a hundred years ago.

Although I was unable to check the provenance of this shoe, nothing I found can completely discard the possibility that the shoe was once used in Monte Carlo. I will keep checking, whenever opportunities present themselves. But in the meantime the shoe sits on my shelf and continues to age.

Vintage French Poker Dice

2011-06-27T01:30:00.000-04:00

Here's a somewhat unusual set of vintage poker dice. What makes this set of dice unusual is the presence of the joker along with the four suits on the aces. Normally, poker dice come in a set of five, without a joker and all five aces bearing the same suit, usually spades or clubs. Naturally, the joker is used as a wild card and changes the odds, which in turn changes the rank structure. This probably makes the game more exciting for gamblers. I would imagine this set of dice was probably originally sold with an instruction leaflet, but unfortunately I was unable to confirm that.

These dice were made in France, but I am not sure what the name of the manufacturer was or when the dice were made. The cardboard box opens like a matchbox and bottom of the drawer has a hand written inscription that reads, "M. BelPière 12 Rue Tournefort Paris V", meaning, "Mr. BelPière, 12 Tournefort Street, Paris, 5th arrondissement (administrative district)." But, was Mr. BelPière the maker, or did this set of dice just belong to him? I do not know. I also do not know why the letter "p" in BelPière is capitalized.

Chinese Gamblers and Jehovah's Witnesses

2011-06-21T01:15:00.000-04:00

The story about Chinese gamblers and Jehovah's Witnesses sounds like a match made in heaven, if you'll excuse the pun. There's a story here that goes beyond the pun, but it would take a real investigative reporter to uncover the whole truth. I'm not talking about "The Truth," which is something you can learn about by requesting a meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses. I am talking about the simple truth behind the story of one Chinese gambler, slash, Jehovah's Witness I had the pleasure meeting.

Gamblers and Jehovah's Witnesses mix just as good as oil and water. So, when I met a Chinese guy that happens to be a Jehovah's Witness and also likes to put down a wager, I wanted to know more, simply because I felt there had to be more to the story.

Unfortunately, I will have to hold out some pieces of information, simply because the story involves a friend of mine. So, I'll just have to leave out any personal details that might reveal the people's identities and I'll just have to keep the focus of this article on the bigger story, the story behind the oddity that caught my attention.

In short, an old friend of mine recently married a Chinese guy that happens to be a Jehovah's Witness. Actually, he wasn't yet a Jehovah's Witness when they married, he officially became one shortly after their wedding. But he was in the process of becoming one while they were going out. That was in fact one of the bumps in their relationship. Her Chinese boyfriend, whom I will call Mr. Wong, basically gave her an ultimatum. They were either to get married before he officially became a Jehovah's Witness, or they could not longer see each other. That's because Jehovah's Witness cannot marry people that aren't Witnesses, so once he officially became one it would be against his religion to marry her. But he could stay married to her, even if she wasn't a Witness, if the wedding happened before he became one. The only other option was that she became one too, which would give them a green light to marry at that time. Since my friend had no intention to be a Witness, she decided to marry Mr. Wong on short notice. I always thought that was a bad decision, but it wasn't my decision to make. To me that was simple a red flag. But there was another red flag, which was what this story is all about.

One day I was invited to their place for dinner and I just happened to notice some discarded scratch-off lottery tickets in their trash. As a general rule, that's something that cannot pass by me unnoticed, but seeing them in my friend's trash can was even more of an eye catcher, because I don't know her to be a gambler. But it wasn't only her trash, it was also Mr. Wong's trash (even if they were no longer allowed to live together, in sin, at that particular time). Of course, I knew right away that a forensics lab would find only Mr. Wong's fingerprints and DNA all over those lottery tickets, but I still had to ask my friend what it was about. Since Mr. Wong was present I also got to talk to him, as much as my lack of Cantonese and his lack of English would permit.

In short, Mr. Wong likes to play lotto. That's just something he's always done. Not just lotto. He also likes to put down a wager at the casinos, every now and then. Of course, as you might have guessed, his game is baccarat. None of that is surprising, but since Mr. Wong was about to be sworn in as a Jehovah's Witness, I thought there was more to the story. So, I decided to put myself in the role of an investigative reporter and sniff around, and ask questions.

As it turns out, Jehovah's Witness are persecuted in China. Their publications are banned and Witnesses can be, and often are, arrested and imprisoned. I guess one of the big no-nos in China is the habit of knocking on people's doors and spreading The Truth about the world.

Finding out relevant information from Jehovah's Witness wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, I guess due to the fact that I'm not exactly hooked up with them. I called their PR office but the told me they couldn't tell me anything about Chinese relations because that was all (quote) "confidential information." But I did go to one of their Kingdom Halls to pick up copies of their Watchtower magazines, in English and Chinese, to make a photo for this article. I was curious to know if those magazines were also distributed in China, despite the ban. I was told that there are two versions of the Chinese editions, one for the Chinese distribution and one for distribution outside of China. I was told that the version of the Chinese edition for distribution in Mainland China is exactly like the original version, except that their cover page doesn't have anything written on it. That's because of the ban. Unfortunately, they didn't have one of those versions to give me, because those are only distributed in China. I also found out that I could pick one up at the Hong Kong Jehovah's Witness Branch. I don't have any immediate plans to do so, but I guess it's good to know.

This is a picture of the entrance to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, in Brooklyn's Chinatown. You won't see any gamblers there. Or you actually might, but I don't think they'd be scratching lottery tickets right in front of the Kingdom Hall.

So what's the story?

I think we can all agree that the US has always been a destination for immigrants from around the world. And of course, Chinese immigrants are also amongst those that come to this country (although it's hard to believe they still do that now that China is becoming the next place where people should be looking to live The "American" Dream). I think we can also all agree that it is becoming tougher and tougher for immigrants to get Permanent Residency papers, the so-called Green Cards. In fact, some immigrants think that the situation is so hopeless that many of them feel they're forced to resort to cheating. This is why there's no shortage of fake marriages amongst immigrants. But fake marriages are not the only schemes that immigrants use to get Green Cards. Certain communities have come up with specific schemes that work specifically for them. And this is where Chinese Jehovah's Witnesses come in; the gamblers are just an inevitable part of it, when some of those Witnesses happen to be, shall we say, not as genuine as Jehovah's Witnesses should be.

It's really not all that difficult to put two and two together. Jehovah's Witnesses are persecuted in China. I'm not sure exactly what kind of charges they face, but China is not exactly known for the best human rights record. So, Chinese Jehovah's Witnesses have the option to apply for asylum in the US because they fear their lives are in danger in China.

Although I have no doubt that there are plenty of genuine Jehovah's witnesses in China (as anywhere else in the world) I'd be willing to bet that there's an overabundance of fake ones. The Chinese are very practical people. If they see something that seems to accomplish desired results they just take that option. Fake marriages are complicated, anyway, but becoming a Jehovah's Witness is not exactly the most challenging thing in the world, especially if you're surrounded by other fake Witnesses. All you have to do is walk up to the Kingdom Hall and knock on their door and someone will be more than happy to recruit you and give you plenty of "literature" to study from. And that's pretty much it. If you officially belong to that organization and if you're Chinese you are officially persecuted by the Chinese government and your life is potentially in danger, if the Chinese government finds out. And this country will not tolerate that.

My friend has been married to Mr. Wong only for a short while and she recently told me she had been thinking of separating. She feels that her marriage is not as genuine as it should be. She didn't exactly say it, but I feel that she thinks Mr. Wong had a big incentive to marry her in order to strengthen his case against some deportation proceedings he had been dealing with. I actually didn't even know about any deportation proceedings before, but apparently that was the case. Although I have no proof to make any accusations, I can still say that Mr. Wong never felt genuine to me. Jehovah's Witnesses don't gamble and Mr. Wong just never came across as genuine.

My amateur investigative journalism took me to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn's Chinatown, where Mr. Wong belongs. I didn't really find any gaming tables there, but ironically I still noticed an "eye in the sky" camera above the main entrance. The "joint" was actually closed when I first visited so I could only take pictures from the outside. I don't know where the Witnesses were, but apparently some of them might be found playing baccarat in Foxwoods or Atlantic City. I went back a few months later, when my friend told me her marriage wasn't working, to ask some questions and pick up some of their literature. I'm sure I still don't have the whole story, but I also think I know enough to draw fairly accurate conclusions and put this matter to rest.

I really don't know what Mr. Wong's whole story is and why he wants to stay in this country when his own country seems to have a better economic outlook. But whatever his reasons are, perhaps he is also just a victim of a system that now makes it almost impossible to stay in a country that was built by immigrants. Perhaps he feels that the system is unjust and that it forces him to resort to cheating.

On a side note, there's a really good use for Jehovah's Witnesses publications, even if you don't happen to be one and have no intention to join. If you ever travel on trains or buses this tip might come in handy.

Whenever a bus is over 50% full it's always a challenge to keep the seat next to you empty. Some people attempt to keep the extra seat by simply pretending to sleep, hoping no one would have the audacity to wake them up and ask to sit next to them. But that's kind of an obvious trick. No one really believes you're really sleeping. So, instead of using an obvious trick, next time just bring along a few Jehovah's Witnesses magazines and scatter them around as you pretend to be reading one. Use a highlighting pen to highlight a few passages of text, to make it appear as if you're really studying this stuff. The odds are, anyone in the right state of mind will simply pretend not to have noticed you and will take any other seat on the bus; even the one next to that smelly guy will do just fine.

So, that's the trick. Of course there's always a chance that a real Jehovah's Witness walks by and notices you, and then sits next to you. In that case you just set yourself up for a nice and long conversation about The Kingdom Coming, which basically leaves you with two options. Either you let the conversation run its natural course or you might want to resort to that obvious trick and pretend to doze off as soon as the bus hits the road. But you should not be afraid of that unlikely scenario; after all, Jehovah's Witnesses are still a minority, which means that the odds are in your favor. So, the gambler in you should still take the odds. In other words, always double down on eleven.

A Closer Look at a Casino-Grade Dealing Shoe

2011-06-11T13:55:00.024-04:00

At this point in my life I can confidently say that I have more shoes than most women. I actually even have my own personal shoe closet. But my shoes aren't the kind you wear on your feet. I am talking about casino dealing shoes, mainly used for games such as blackjack and baccarat.

It would be hard to me to argue that I am not a collector of casino dealing shoes. But the truth is, I really am not a collector. I ended up with all these shoes simply because I've been researching various shoe designs, measurements and security features. And I keep all these shoes around just so I can always have them on hand, in case I need to look at something.

If I were a woman with an overflowing shoe closet I could show off some of my shoes simply by wearing them. But I can't do that with casino shoes. So, that's a good reason to get a new blog thread started and show some of the more interesting dealing shoes I've managed to acquire over time.

I don't really know how many dealing shoes I own, but let me put it this way: I hope I don't have to move any time soon. This said, let me at least take pictures of some of them and publish some blog posts, in case I ever need to reduce my collection in a rush.

Here is a photo of a blackjack dealing shoe with a sliding gate. This shoe came from a casino that is now out of biz.

The first thing that you should notice is that the front of this shoe is completely closed off. That's the sliding gate, which is a security feature that protects the games against the use of marked cards and against possible (and unlikely) attempts at second dealing.

The fourth main objective of any casino is to protect their games (the first, second and third objectives are, of course, to make money). This said, I am always surprised when to see that most casinos still use dealing shoes that are lacking many of the security features that have already been invented decades ago. The main security feature that is lacking in most industry-standard casino shoes is a way to protect the top card of the shoe (the most important card of the shoe) against the use of marked cards (the most commonly used casino scam). In other words, most industry-standard casino shoes (and even the more expensive automatic card shufflers) are designed so that the back of the top card is always partially exposed. This shoe has a sliding gate that prevents top card exposure.

To deal the top card, the dealer must first lift the sliding gate, then strike the top card and dealt it to one of the suckers. The action of lifting the sliding gate really doesn't require any extra time or effort, since it is done as the hand reaches for the card. The following two photos show the dealing action.

At first glance one might think that the lifting of the sliding gate exposes a large portion of the top card. It most certainly does so, however, that's the card that's about to be dealt, anyway. The important thing is that none of the second card gets exposed as the top card is being dealt, as seen on the second photo.

In most cases the card is dealt face up, so the fact that it's back was exposed one split second before it was dealt, is irrelevant. In other words, what good would it do to identify the card through some kind of a marking system if the card will be dealt face up for anyone to see, anyway? The only exception is the hole card in American blackjack games. However, even in that case it is irrelevant that the card's back is exposed before the deal, since the card slides across the table, in plain view of the players, as it's being dealt, and before it's tucked under the dealer's up card.

One might argue that the a marked card is more difficult to read in motion, and that the brief exposure of the card's back, prior to the deal, might enable an expert cheat to quickly read its back and identify the value of the card. After all, professional casino cheats don't mark all the cards for all their values, instead they just mark all the ten-value cards (in blackjack) which is all they need to beat the game. So, all that a casino cheat needs to do is to know if the dealer's hole card is a ten or not.

Although that's all true, and although I would be wrong in saying that it would be impossible to quickly identify the top card during the split second while the sliding gate is open, some other facts also remain true. First, the hole card is still slid in plain view across the table (as just discussed), and second, when conventional dealing shoes are used the top card is partially exposed for a much longer period of time than is the case with this shoe. So, basically, it is still much easier to read any top card with conventional dealing shoes than it is with this one.

One reason why acquired this shoe was to study the mechanics of the sliding gate and figure out if it would be possible to design a two shoe with a sliding gate. I've come to the conclusion that it would be impossible.

First of all, the sliding gate makes it impossible to identify the top card in advance. In the case of a two shoe the identification of the top card is either done by peeking (in the case of a prism shoe) or by marked cards (in the case of a rough-and-smooth shoe). Neither one of those options are possible if the shoe is fitted with a sliding gate. The other problem is that second dealing is not really possible, due to the fact that the top card is almost fully exposed as the dealer lifts the sliding gate. So, if you see that the casino is using this kind of shoe, you can rest assured that the dealer is not dealing seconds on you.

This is not to say that this kind of dealing shoe can't be gaffed. I can actually think of several ways to gaff this shoe, but in all honesty this shoe design would not be my first choice to make a gaffed shoe. The only exception would be to make a camera-ready gaffed shoe with a sliding gate, which is a shoe that enables the operator to see through the front and read the top card that's been marked with camera-ready ink. So, if you're a casino operator and if you ever come across these kinds of shoes, make sure the front is truly opaque, before you put these shoes on the floor.

Cézanne's Card Players at the Met

2011-04-23T13:57:00.016-04:00

Last time I was in Paris I was really in the mood to see Cézanne's Card Players at the Musée d'Orsay. But the famous painting was out, on loan to some other museum, and I didn't get to see it. I did, however, get to see the other painting I was in the mood to see, which was The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, at the Louvre, virtually across the street.

I haven't been to Paris since then, but seeing the Card Players stayed on my list of things to do on my next visit. But since I live in New York things turned out the other way around; the Card Players came to me. In fact, I got more than I could ever have hoped. The Metropolitan Museum of Art put together an entire show of Cézanne's Card Players, all in one room.

Cézanne painted many renditions of the Card Players, but it's not often that one has the chance to see several of them in one room at the same time. In fact, there are only two Card Player paintings that weren't included in this show; the Card Players from the Barnes Foundation (a painting that never travels) and another rendition that is in a private collection. However, full size black & white reproductions were included in this show, so that was as close as it gets to having all of them in the same room. One thing that's nice about the Met show is that you get to see Cézanne's original sketches and studies right next to the canvases. I don't see how any Cézanne fan could pass up such a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The Met already owns one of the Card Players and since it's close to home it's a painting I've seen numerous times, but it was nice seeing it in context, this time. The Barnes Foundation owns the rendition that is very similar to this one, and quite larger in size.

The painting I missed when I visited the Musée d'Orsay is hanging at the opposite side of the room. This is a relatively small canvas that features only two card players, but is by many considered to be the best of the Card Players series. Cézanne painted two other similar canvases, one of which is owned by the Courtauld Gallery in London and is exhibited right next to the canvas from the Musée d'Orsay. The other rendition is in a private collection and was shown only as a print.

The Courtauld and the Musée d'Orsay can normally be seen in London and in Paris. So normally one could never hope to compare the two paintings side by side. The Met show offers this unique opportunity, which is why I intend to go back there before May 8th, when the show closes. The best I can do on my blog is to display two low resolution images of the two canvases, side by side.

The painting on the left is the one from the Musée d'Orsay and the one on the right is from the Courtauld Gallery. Of course this side by side display can only offer a very superficial comparison; at the Met show you get to see the subtle differences in brush strokes and other details that simply don't reproduce in these images.

I believe no one interested in card games should miss the opportunity to see this show. Of course, not everyone has the opportunity to travel to New York, just for a museum show, but if you do happen to be in New York and don't take the time to see this show you'll miss something really great. And there's more to the show than Cézanne's famous Card Players canvases. As you enter the main exhibit you walk through a mini exhibit of various other works of art featuring gamblers and card players, that sets the tone for the man show. That alone is worth the price of the admission, which is actually pay as much or as little as you wish. So, if you're in New York and if you have a penny to spare, you can see this amazing show for as little as one penny. So, there's really no excuse to miss this one in a lifetime opportunity.

US Cracks Down on Online Gambling

2011-04-16T18:45:00.008-04:00

If I hadn't caught the New York Times article, US Cracks Down on Online Gambling, this morning, I would have had no idea that the world's three main poker sites have been shut down by the US government. In fact, I don't think I've ever even visited the home page of any poker site. But millions of online poker players must have been shocked when they logged onto their favorite poker site, starting yesterday, and saw this.

This is the page that one currently sees when trying to log onto Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars or Absolute Poker. Online poker sites have been a big pain in the neck for federal prosecutors, for the past several years. It's been a big cat and mouse game, but by seizing the domain name prosecutors have been able to put these sites out of commission, at least temporarily.

The crackdown on online poker sites is controversial. Proponents of online gambling argue that the federal law prohibiting sports betting does not clearly prohibit online gambling, such as online poker. There are many other issues that we can expect to be argued in federal courts for the next few years.

What is the future of online poker?

History shows that just because an activity is prohibited by law it doesn't mean people won't do it. My guess is online poker will continue, as long as there are enough people willing to put down a wager. Operators will just adjust to the new climate, and if it won't be the old operators new one will show up soon. That's just human nature.

I've often been ridiculed for saying that online poker is a big scam. The usual argument against my point of view is that online sites have nothing to gain by cheating their customers. I say that the only thing they stand to gain is money. But I guess money has never really been a good incentive to cheat, historically speaking. Anyway, I could argue that issue until I'm blue in the face, and since this is not really what this blog post is about I'll leave it at that. But if you are an online poker player you might want to seize this as an opportunity to focus on other things in life.

One thing I can't quite understand is why poker sites became such an issue, legally speaking. All that the lawmakers really need to do is to find a way to tax and regulate the sites. After all, licensed gambling is not illegal in the US. So, why can't they just figure out how to legally extend the existing gaming licenses to the internet, in the era of the internet? After all, if it's legal to gamble, what difference does it make if you wager your money at an actual casino table or through a licensed gambling site? Lawmakers could just impose a few simple requirements, such as, the online poker room must be based in the US, must have a gaming license, must keep records in order, must pay taxes, etc. I understand that some people would still try to set up off shore poker rooms, to evade US taxes, or whatnot, but I don't think that would be too much of a problem. First of all, lawmakers could pass a law that prohibits US residents from playing poker on any online poker sites other than the licensed ones, or they face criminal charges. But if you wanted to play online poker and you had a choice between a fully licensed and regulated US based poker site, or an unregulated off shore site, which one would you pick? To make it easier to make up your mind, there is a chance you might end up in jail of you play in the off shore joint.

Perhaps one day online poker rooms will be regulated and all this will be over. That's all it really takes to end this cat and mouse game.

2 in 1 Automatic Card Shuffler & Shoe

2011-04-10T01:00:00.000-04:00

If you're a card player looking to complicate your life by equipping your home games with some useless gadgets, I have some good news. First of all, you definitely live in the right century. Recreational card players can already "simplify" their home games by dealing the cards out of a Wheel-R-Dealer machine, instead of going through the trouble of removing the cards from the top of the deck by hand. There are also various kinds of card shufflers available and now we have the 2 in 1 Automatic Card Shuffler & Shoe that's basically a dealing shoe that can also shuffle up to two decks, or so they say. I'm sure the inventors of this gadget were inspired by the one2six casino shuffler.

At the time of this writing online vendors seem to be flooded with these gadgets, so you should not have any trouble finding one. But if you're really interested in buying one you might as well get it from the cheapest source, which is Amazon.com.

Since I don't really have anything good to say about this piece of equipment I'll just tell you what's wrong with it.

The main flaw is that this is not really a shuffler. A true shuffler is supposed to randomize the deck so that the new sequence of cards bears no resemblance to the initial sequence, But this shuffler basically performs the equivalent of a single riffle shuffle, and a very poor one, with large clumps of cards being carried from the previous arrangement. No self respecting card player should ever agree to play a single round, if a shuffle is so poorly executed.

I went through the trouble of doing a few test shuffles and the results were always more or less the same. Below is a photograph of a spread that came out of the shuffler. The cards were initially in numerical order, then the deck was split in two and one of the halves was reversed, so that I can illustrate the point, clearly. It is quite obvious that the two visible suits are still in numerical order, except that there are clumps of cards from the other pile in between. If casinos did their shuffle that what they'd long be out of biz. And of one doesn't want to get screwed playing cards, one thing to do is to copy what casinos do.

Below is a video recording of the test shuffle, using a single deck. The shuffler is supposed to be able to handle up to two decks, but to be perfectly honest I didn't feel like going through the trouble of mixing two deck of cards together, just to see what results I'd get. The shuffler performs a clumpy single riffle shuffle and I know what the results of that are, without even doing any testing. But I still recorded the video just to show the handling of the machine.

http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=64bb4edb8c610565&type=video%2Fmp4
There are some other flaws, but I really don't see any point going into details. My review of this equipment is that it's totally useless. It's a toy, and not even a very good one.

Stephen Hawking once said that we [i.e. us humans] should be a two planet species; "mankind should colonize other planets to survive," says he. If one looks at how humans are raping this planet and depleting all available natural resources, to make stupid stuff no one really needs, one can see his point. We live in the era of hyper-consumerism and at the rate we're going this planet will become one large junkyard for 2 in 1 Automatic Card Shufflers and similar useless gadgets.

So, is this thing good for anything? In my case, yes. I purchased this gadget for one specific purpose, to take a picture and make a blog post. And since that's exactly what I did, it served its purpose. Now it's back in its box and I'm trying to figure out where it will take up the least amount of space.

Behind the Scenes View of a Casino Blackjack Cheating Move

2011-04-06T21:11:00.017-04:00

Here is a short video clip showing a behind-the-scenes view of an old cheating move, done in an actual casino during a live blackjack game. I recorded this video with a hidden miniature camera during a test that I was doing for one of my casino clients. This video was recorded with full approval of the surveillance director and casino manager. A few other key people were aware of my presence but the surveillance staff and the pit personnel had no idea who I was or that I there to test their abilities to catch players that might be cheating. I had permission to wear a hidden camera to record some of my cheating attempts. And amazingly, I was given permission to cheat to my heart's content. But that was all for a test, so, unfortunately, I was not allowed to keep any winnings...

I had also been given permission to post any parts of my recordings online as long as I agreed not to reveal the name and location of the casino, and took some measures to hide people's faces and other details that might reveal the identity of the casino. It took me a couple of days to edit this video, so that the upper part of the image is blurred out, while retaining all the important elements that show the action. In fact, I edited this video about three years ago and wanted to post it on my site, but then I changed my mind. All of the sudden I realized that this video would be seen by anyone with internet access, meaning the entire world. From such a vast pull of people there are bound to be a few idiots that will just watch the video without bothering to read through the text, then jump to a conclusion that this is an instruction video on casino cheating, and next thing you know they're doing it in their local casino. Of course, should anyone attempt to do this move in an actual casino it's just a matter of time when they'll get caught and arrested. So, let me be clear, I did this move in a casino, as a test, with full approval from the bosses, i.e. my clients. Furthermore, this particular cheating maneuver is an outdated move that might have worked in the 1960s, but nowadays CCTV surveillance got so sophisticated that many of the old moves became obsolete.

http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=c197f89d79a7522c&type=video%2Fmp4
The move is very simple. A palmed chip is added on top of the existing bet once part of the outcome is already known. This cheating strategy is known as pastposting, and the move specifically is called pressing a bet.

In this particular example the press was done while the dealer was occupied with one of the players in late position, while I was seated on first base. I pressed my bet on a total of 20, which is why I say that the outcome is partially known; meaning that the dealer still has the chance to beat me, if she catches 21, or I might win nothing, if she catches a 20. Also, The move was done when the dealer had a bad up card, such as a 5 or a 6, which means that she was more likely to bust, thus increasing my chances of winning.

As you can see in the video, the dealer did notice that I touched my cards and told me to keep my hands away. However, as you can also see from the video, she did pay my bet, which means that she had no idea I sweetened my bet after she dealt me a 20.

To be perfectly honest, the circumstances for cheating were not ideal for me at that time. I only had a limited amount of time to do my testing and I didn't get to pick my own dealer. This particular dealer was actually quite experienced and alert and would have never been my choice of a dealer I'd want to exploit, it I wanted to cheat for real. But I had to work with what they gave me and be happy that they had even agreed to my very unusual request to test their pit personnel by actually cheating in their own casino.

Several years ago I posted some demo videos, of casino cheating moves, on YouTube. Some of those videos received some criticism, mainly that those moves could not be done in casinos. Most of those comments came from viewers that didn't take the time to read my description, which clearly said that those were demo videos of some old cheating moves. So, before anyone says the same thing about this video let me be perfectly clear by saying that I am fully aware of the fact that this is an old an pretty much obsolete cheating move. Definitely not a move that can break the bank at Monte Carlo. But it's still a demonstration of a cheating technique that has been attempted many times in casinos, and some unsophisticated cheats have even gotten away with it. What makes this video special, compared to my earlier YouTube demo videos (or any other demo videos on the internet), is that this demo video was recorded covertly in an actual casino, during a live game. And this time it actually worked.

As I've already explained, I am not at liberty to reveal any details about the casino where this recording was made. Sorry, but that was part of the deal. I will say, however, that the casino was not in the US. I also recorded some other cheating moves that evening, but this clip is the only one I will ever show on the internet. The other clips were quickly edited on my laptop and screened during my training seminar the following day, in front of the very surveillance staff that should have caught me cheating when I was on the floor. I was happy to know that no one got into any trouble, for not catching me cheating. The casino actually paid for furthering the education of their staff.

French Postcard with Card Cheats

2011-03-31T13:06:00.000-04:00

The moment I laid eyed on the eBay listing for this postcard I knew I had to have it. It was listed on eBay by an international seller, from France, and it cost me €9.99, plus shipping. A bargain for such a great looking image that I might never see again, if I hadn't bought it.

The caption says, "Le gain sera commun - Et l'enjeu partagé," translated, "The gain will be common - And the stakes shared." I'm not sure if I can read the handwritten message correctly, but it says something about "His fortune..." then possibly "...departed," followed by what appears to be an illegible signature.

For whatever reason, this postcard has been postmarked on the front. The date is not visible, but I did a quick search for French stamps and I was able to determine that this 5¢ stamp was used in the years 1900 and 1901.

This is not a photographic postcard, like most postcards from that era. This one is a print. I'm not sure how they printed in color in those days, but when I look under a magnifying glass the image looks like a colorized black & white print.

I have no idea in what quantities these post cards were printed or haw many have survived, but this one will definitely end up on my wall.

19th Century Pack of Playing Cards, by De La Rue

2011-03-20T17:47:00.002-04:00

Here is a historic 32-card deck of cards, made by De La Rue & Co, of London. For those that are not familiar with the history of playing cards, I should at least mention that De La Rue was an important maker from the 19th century, not so much because they were one of the biggest makers of playing cards, but because they were the first to introduce Pneumatic Playing Cards, an invention that has been adopted by all other makers of playing cards and is not better known under the terms air cushion finish, or cambric finish, or linen finish, depending on how each brand decides to call it. In a nutshell, smooth finish playing cards tend to stick together, which makes it difficult to shuffle the deck. But this post is not about De La Rue's Pneumatic Playing Cards, it's about this deck, that's around 140 years old and appears to be in mint condition. A rare find. How these cards have remained in such stunning condition, with no box or wrapper of any kind, is a mystery.

This pack was made between 1870 and 1877; we can tell this because the pips on the numerical cards are all pointing one way and the suit symbols on six of the court cards are still on the right side. The ace of spades says, "Duty Three Pence - when used in Great Britain and Ireland." The backs are an intricate basket weave pattern.

One detail that's interesting about this deck is that, for whatever reason, all the court cards are slightly longer than the rest of the deck. In the image below all the cards are in numerical order and squared up against the table.

The next photo is even more interesting. If you shuffle the pack overhand style and if you hold the cards softly, you will notice that the longer cards can easily be stripped out of the deck. In the photo the cards are still in numerical order, so the stripped cards appear in four groups of three.

I can't really say that the discrepancy in the length of the cards is deliberate. It's probably just the way the cards were cut, because the court cards were probably produced separately. It's also possible that the numerical cards were trimmed by some cheat, or would be cheat, a century ago. This might help explain why the cards are in mint condition. If the trimming was done as an attempt to make a stripper deck (which obviously worked) and if the person that trimmed the cards never actually used this particular deck it could have ended up in the back of a drawer, only to be discovered a few decades later, when those kinds of cards were no longer commonly used. But that's all speculation.

I am not really sure what game this deck was made for. Bezique was a popular game at that time, played with two 32-card packs shuffle together, thus making a pack of 64 cards. So, this is quite possibly a bezique pack.

Gaffed Camera-Ready Dominoes

2011-03-12T17:48:00.020-05:00

Dominoes are closely related to playing cards. In fact, some historians think that the first playing cards might have been paper dominoes. So, anyone interested in playing cards should also have an interest in tile games.

About a year ago I published a blog post about a Chinese crooked mahjong set. Those mahjong tiles were marked and came with a set of contact lenses. Here is similar set of domino tiles, but the dominoes are not marked, not exactly. This gaffed domino set is now available through the CARDSHARK Online Sporting Emporium.

The tiles are made from a special material that becomes see-through with certain cameras. So, the tiles are made from two layers. The top layer is the face of the tile and is made from regular white acrylic. The spots are drilled through and filled with black plugs. So, the spots go completely through the top layer. The gaffed part of the tiles is actually the back layer, which is a solid black piece of acrylic. But that black acrylic is a special camera filter material that becomes 100% see through with certain video cameras. The next image is a still capture from a video recording that was made with two cameras. The image on the left was produced by a regular camera, and shows how we see the back of the tiles, and the image on the right was produced by the gaffed camera.

The beauty of this gaff is that, unlike the gaffed mahjong set, the tiles are not actually marked. If the back layer was made from a regular piece of black acrylic, the tiles would not be gaffed at all. So, for argument's sake, if the gaff were ever discovered it might be hard to prove that the dominoes were deliberately gaffed, as no one can exclude the possibility that the maker had no idea the black acrylic would show up clear under certain cameras.

Following is a short video demo from which the still image was captured.

http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=39df63ec7ca38838&type=video%2Fmp4
This gaffed domino set should be of interest to collectors, because there are only six sets in the world. Two of them are in private collections and the remaining four sets are for sale. This is truly a limited edition and as far as I know, a one of a kind gaff.

Dealing with Junk Mail

2011-03-10T10:50:00.015-05:00

Every once in a while it's nice to do an off topic post. But even if this post is technically off topic, meaning that it has nothing to do with crooked gambling, it's still remotely related to cheating, scams and/or swindles, you see, because this post has to do with the greatest swindlers of all times: financial institutions.

I think I don't have to explain why I feel that financial institutions are basically crooked. But in a nutshell, I believe they use unethical tactics and practices, setting up traps that lure consumers into situations that eventually prove to be impossible to get out of.

I personally don't fall for their tricks, but they still get on my nerves because they keep sending me tons of junk mail that I have to deal with. Actually, in the past years the amount of junk mail wend down, probably due to the fact that it's costing them to send physical mail and it costs nothing to send junk emails, but for some reason, in the past couple of months I started receiving a rather annoying amount of fresh junk mail from those bastards.

Since I have an interest in the art of deception I have a few tricks up my sleeve, that I've been using for years to treat my wood be deceivers with the same courtesy they treat me with. On trick I've been using for years is how I deal with junk mail.

Most junk mail comes with self-addressed "Business Reply Mail" return envelopes. I'm sure everyone knows by now that consumers are not required to affix a stamp to return one of those envelopes back to the sender. In place of a stamp there is a printed message that clearly states, "No postage necessary if mailed in the United States." But this is not exactly a prepaid return envelope. That's clearly stated in the other message that's also printed on the envelope, right above the addressee name, that states, "Postage will be paid by addressee." The key words here are, "...will be paid..." I hope that's clear enough, but just in case, that means that the bastards that send you all that annoying junk mail will have to pay a postage fee for every business reply envelope you send back to them. So, that's exactly what I do with all my junk mail. I send it all back, using their own business reply envelopes, and making them pay for it.

I usually send a few in bulk. I actually have a system. Any junk mail goes unopened into a pile right next to my paper recycling bin. When the pile gets bigger I "empty the recycling" by opening up all those envelopes and ripping the contents in half, then sealing it all back into the supplied business reply mail envelopes. Then I take the bulk to the mail box and send them back home.

I know exactly what some of you might think. First of all, it's a lot of work to do all that. And second, it accomplishes nothing. Some of you might also be saying that it's a juvenile way to deal with things, or whatever. But I will argue all of the above.

It doesn't take me any longer to repackage the junk mail than it takes me to open up the envelopes and shred the contents. After all, we are supposed to shred any paperwork that has our personal information on it, especially pre-approved credit card applications. We live in the era of identity theft and we don't just put that kind of stuff in the trash. We need to shred it all up, and to do that, we need to first purchase a paper shredder. Good paper shredders aren't cheap, and neither are the "cheap" ones, because they break and you eventually need to buy one that costs a bit more than you want to spend. And shredders aren't powered by air, either. You have to plug the damn thing into an electric outlet and use up some electricity for every page you shred. I know it can't cost a fortune to run a page through a shredder, but if you shred your junk mail you are in fact paying for the self-service. Someone always has to pay for everything. And when it comes to junk mail, why should that someone be me? The math is very simple. For millions of junk mail pages that are shredded by millions of Americans on daily basis, utility companies are making millions in costs that consumers actually don't want to pay. So, it doesn't take longer to repackage junk mail than it takes to shred it. And it costs absolutely nothing to do it.

The second argument is that my system accomplishes nothing. Well, as I've already argued, it takes no extra time to repackage and it cost nothing, so even if it accomplishes nothing that's already better than paying for shedding, which also accomplishes nothing. In fact, when you shed, you still have to deal with the shreds and you have to purchase a recycling bag to put it all out for collection. And if you're a home owner and you make a mistake how you put that recycling out, you might even pay a summons for a violation. So, if there's a system that truly accomplishes nothing I have to say it's definitely shredding, and not repackaging. But I actually disagree that repackaging accomplishes nothing.

First of all, consumers aren't aware of their power, as a group. The two things that rotten corporations fear most is not making enough money, and losing money. Those happen to be the two things that are 100% under control of us, the consumers. If we buy nothing, they don't make money. And if we do something that costs them money, they lose money. I agree that me, as a single consumer, using the business reply main envelopes to send back all the junk mail is a spit in the ocean. But if all the consumers join forces and we all spit in the ocean together, the fish will notice the stench. Not only will the bastards pay for all the unnecessary return mail, they will also be stuck with all the junk that they now have to deal with, and buy recycling bags and perhaps even occasionally pay a summons for incorrect disposal.

I guess I should also argue the point that some of you might be making, that's it's a juvenile way to deal with a problem. I don't want to say more than to state that I disagree. I'm not doing anything juvenile, I'm simply using the only method I can think of that costs me nothing and consumes the least amount of my time and energy. If anyone else has a better method I'd certainly love to hear about it, as long as it doesn't involve calling the tool free numbers and spending 20 minutes on hold, to request removal from their mailing lists. Like that really does much.

What's the point of this post, apart from sharing my thoughts on the subject? Well, I actually believe that if all American consumers adopt my method, there will be an end to this type of junk mail. As I'm writing this post I have a total of 17 business reply mail envelopes ready to go: 10 going out to CHASE New Cardmember Services, 5 to American Express, and 2 to Discover Card. All of them my old friends. I send them out in bulk on purpose. Because 10 envelopes landing at CHASE at the same time make more noise than 10 of them sent out individually over the course of a couple of months. I am sending a clear message, although an unwritten one. My name and address is in all those envelopes and my pre-approved applications are all ripped in half. And of my 10 envelopes make any noise at all, imagine how much noise millions of envelopes would make, being sent by millions of consumers. They would definitely annoy the hell out of the bastard that has to open them. Some of you might say that I am just targeting some pore sod that has to open all those envelopes. Again, I disagree. The companies have to pay for the return mail and that poor sod is someone that is part of the system that annoys the hell out of me. So, no, I don't feel sorry for anyone that works in those spam departments. It was their choice to do that kind of work and without their willing participation I would not be receiving that junk. So, screw them.

Postcard with Gambling Still Life Motif

2011-03-04T00:56:00.008-05:00

This postcard was listed on eBay fro $12, plus $4 for S&H from Latvia. The postcard is postmarked November 3rd, 1912, from Riga, Latvia.

I don't know what the message on the back of the card says, but I really doubt the card was used as a "Hallmark moment" for an announcement of death. I think it's pretty clear the morbid motif is a memento mori, a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality," "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die" - literally "[at some time in the future] remember to die."

What attracted me to this postcard was the presence of cards and dice. It's hard to know for sure what the artist meant, exactly, when making this picture, but I don't think I'm far off if I say that the artist didn't think gambling leads to a bright future. In any event, I think the postcard is rather unique and as soon as I have some free time I'll pick a frame for it and place it on my bedside table.

N-Daub

2011-02-28T21:43:00.009-05:00

In recent years luminous readers have become so popular, it almost feels the world no longer pays any attention to other kinds of marked cards. I guess it's because we've become so accustomed to accomplishing everything through technology, most people aren't even interested in simple solutions. Never mind if luminous contacts are hard to use (not to even mention the cost). As long as it promises to accomplish something short of a miracle, that's all that seems to count.

I already wrote about N-daub in an old post, titled Marked Cards: Classic Daub, but I didn't include any images of daubed cards. Also, I am making this post because I recently made it available through my online store. At this time I only have a small limited supply available, for $75.00 per can, and the best part is that it comes packed in original vintage tin cans that were acquired from the old KC Card Company.

The vial next to the can of daub contains a liquid that I'll call daub rejuvenator. Basically, it is used to rejuvenate the daub, so that it doesn't completely dry out. The rejuvenator should be used very, very sparingly. Basically, every once in a while a small drop of rejuvenator should be added to the daub, then the daub should not be used for a couple of days, to make sure that the liquid spread throughout. The best way to ensure that the drop of liquid is small enough is to use a plastic toothpick, or some similar object.

Storage is also important. If the daub is kept at a constant temperature and relative humidity at around 55%, the rejuvenator might not even have to be used for years. So, the best place to keep it stored is in the fridge, zipped up in an airtight plastic bag.

The daub should never feel wet to the touch and it should not crackle. One of the most common mistakes people make is to put the work on the cards too strong and if the daub is too moist it will definitely produce work that's too strong.

I don't really want to provide detailed instructions about how to use this daub (or any other), but here are a few details that I am willing to share.

The can may easily be kept open in the coat pocket (a small magnet on the inside of the coat will keep the daub secure inside the coat pocket). When reaching inside the pocket to retrieve an object the painter can simply press the tip of a finger on the surface of the daub. Please note, it would be a mistake to rub the finger into the daub; pressing is the correct technique when using an open container. The amount of daub transferred to the fingertip should be minute. The image below should make that clear.

The amount of daub transferred to the fingertip in one dipping should be enough to put the work on several cards. How many cards exactly is anyone's guess, because it will greatly depend on the size of the smudges. But the fingertip should never be darker than seen on this image.

Every paper player will have his/her own techniques and code, so I'm not going to get into this here, but let's look at a sample card.

The image below shows a card that's been daubed light to medium strength. I'm not sure how well daub reproduces in photographs but I can see the work just fine, from the picture. Of course, there's a technique to reading the work.

This work was put onto a Diamond Back Bee card and the work can be read like juice (by the way, the letter "N" in the word N-daub, is the first letter of the main ingredient for one of the two juice recipes I use; the main ingredient is the main active ingredient of this daub). So, by blurring your vision you should be able to see the work better. Also, the work is easier to read at a distance. And finally, to help you read the work I made this into a rollover image. I actually took two pictures from the same distance, one picture is in focus and the other one is out of focus. So, by passing the mouse over the image, you will see the blurred version.

Some people might still have trouble seeing the work, even when looking at the blurred image. That's understandable, especially when one doesn't know what to look for. So, to make this easier I will explain what the work looks like. If you prefer to look for the work without knowing, just don't read the next paragraph, yet.

The card is marked in the upper left and lower right corners, next to the long edges. The smudges are fat and short, running horizontally.

There's one more detail that I need to explain, or better say, emphasize, about daub in general. Let's look up some dictionary definitions of daub:

1 - n. A crude patch, splash or smear of a semiliquid substance or something.

2 - v. To put or spread a semiliquid substance, for example, mud, paint, or cream, on a surface, in a crude, irregular, or hurried way; to paint or apply paint crudely and inexpertly.

That should say it all. Daub work should not look neat and deliberate. The whole point is to make it appear as of the cards have just been smudged through regular use, should anyone discover the work. In other words, technically speaking, one could mark the cards as neatly as I did in the example, above, but that's not really how it's done.

In closing, I will just mention that professionals almost always work teamed up. One or two painters will sit early in the game and put the work on the cards. They will leave the game early and walk away with the only piece of incriminating evidence; i.e. the actual can of daub. One or two players will join the game at a later time and exploit the work. Two players is always, especially on kidney shaped poker tables, better because each can read one half of the table and signal to the other.

Early 20th Century French Playing Cards

2011-02-25T20:00:00.001-05:00

France played a very important role in the development of playing cards. Although I'm not a historian, I've researched some of the historical facts from various sources and I find the information to be very interesting. In this post I want to go back a hundred years and look at some early 20th century playing cards from France.

Before I begin, there are a couple of books I should mention. One is The Stealing Machine (original French title La Machine à Voler), from 1906, and the sequel How They Cheat You at Cards: Mr. Rakeoff in The Provinces (original title Comment on nous Vole au Jeu), from 1909. Both books were written by Eugène Villiod and are an absolute must read for anyone seriously interested in the history of crooked gambling. The reason why I mention those books in this post is because the history of playing cards is closely tied to the history of gambling, and the history of gambling is simply incomplete without the history of crooked gambling. Anyone that thinks otherwise is simply a sucker, simply put, and history shows there has never been a shortage of those. Just take a walk around any casino and you'll see plenty of them. So, those two books are the most important source of historic information for anyone researching the subject of manipulating early 20th century playing cards, for the purpose of cheating at gambling.

The first deck of cards is a 32-card pack from c.1910, by Dieudonné & Cie. I'm fortunate to own the complete pack, in excellent condition, along with the original wrapper. When I handle this deck I really feel like I'm holding a piece of history in my hands. They just don't make them like this any more.

The cards are printed with four corner indices. Corner indices are actually an American invention, dating back to the 1870s. In America the first cards printed with corner indices were called Squeezers. Corner indices became popular and most European countries started copying the idea during the 1890s. Note how the aces are indexed with the numeral 1, and not the capital A, which is a later invention.

One of the most interesting details about this deck of cards is the wrapper. In those days people didn't think much of the wrappers, after all a wrapper is just a flimsy piece of paper, which is why original wrappers are now hard to find.

The wrapper bears the name of the maker along with some other information. Those wrappers were commonly used before telescopic boxes became the norm. In his book The Stealing Machine, Eugène Villiod tells us how cheats would break open and reseal those wrappers for the purpose of stacking the cards for baccarat. The wrapper is basically sealed with an excise band that wraps around the back and is glued only at the two ends that wrap over the front of the pack. In Villiod's words: "...the Government puts a wrapper, which, doubtless for economy, it takes great care to glue together not along its entire length but only at its ends, and when the Government affixes its stamp, it believes it has taken the maximum necessary precautions to prevent fraud..." He goes on to explain how no card sharp can resist the temptation to wet the government's excise band with steam or saliva, to loosen the glue and gain access to the cards.

The face of the wrapper has a round notch cut at the right side. Due to the fact that the image of the wrapper was captured flat on a scanner, this notch is not very visible in the image above, but basically the purpose of the notch was to enable anyone to check the tax stamp on the ace of clubs, while the deck was still sealed in the wrapper. As Eugène Villiod explains, this presented no problem for sharps resealing stacked decks, because they would simply cut their stacked deck to the ace of clubs and reseal the stacked decks that way.

Note that the long sides of the wrapper state that the deck consists of 32 cards and that it is made for poker. Historians tell us that the earliest form of poker was played with as little as 20 cards and that cards were added later until eventually a full deck of 52 cards was used. Also, if you read Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker, published in 1980, you'll see that the author, John Scarne, tells us that in those days it was not uncommon to play poker with stripped deck. The 32-card pack, stripped of all the cards from 2 to 6, was possibly the most commonly used stripped pack for poker. Furthermore, in many European countries folks would always associate poker with a 32-card pack, throughout the 20th century, and for some European folks it was almost inconceivable to play poker with a full 52-card deck. This, of course, changed once Texas Hold'em tournaments flooded TV channels around the world, but the practice of using a 32-card pack for poker actually still remains in some European localities, because sometimes it's hard to break old habits.

The next deck is a 52-card pack from c.1925. I love this pack of cards.

What I love most about this deck of cards is the Scottish-plaid pattern back design. This back design appears in both of Villiod's books and as he explains, this patterns was perfect for cheaters to produce marked decks: "As lines of the cross-hatches don't end at the same point along the edges of the cards, swindlers profit from the discrepancies to distinguish one suit and rank of cards from another..." and then he proceeds by explaining how hustlers divide the cards into five groups. Basically, he is talking about a marking system called sorts.

One detail that's hard to miss about this deck of cards is its thickness. This deck is about 40% thicker than any 52-card deck made today. I believe this is due to the fact that French playing cards had to be printed on watermarked paper.

In the next photograph you see a closeup shot of two cards. One is the ace of clubs that bears the tax stamp and the other one is a deuce, which is the perfect card to use to examine the watermark.

As far as I can tell, the cards are not exactly printed directly on watermarked paper. Instead, it would appear that the watermarked paper is glued on a thicker stock of paper, thus making the cards thicker.

If you ever have the opportunity to come across some antique French deck, you might come across one that has no tax stamp. That would indicate that it's most likely an earlier deck, because in the 19th century French decks had no tax stamps. That was a distinct feature of French playing cards and that's why the cards were printed on watermarked paper. Basically, the makers were obligated to buy the paper from the government and the watermark was proof that tax had been paid. Another reason why a French deck might be missing the tax stamp might be that the deck was made for export. And the last reason why a French deck might be missing the tax stamp might be if the deck is a facsimile edition, which brings me to the next deck.

I purchased this deck of cards from a dealer in Paris, about six years ago. The dealer explained to me that this was a commemorative facsimile edition, but I am unclear if it is an exact reproduction of a deck as it used to be made in the early 20th century, or if it's a fantasy brand. This is a 32-card pack with an extra card, the 4 of clubs. The wrapper bears the name Arripe Papay & Cie Srs and the label says that the company was founded in 1834, in Toulouse, but the 4 of clubs bears the brand name Hija de A. Comas, Barcelona. So, it is unclear if this reproduction was made by a Spanish company or if this is a reproduction of a deck that was originally made by a Spanish company and distributed by a French company from Toulouse. In any case, the presence of the four corner indices would indicate that this is a reproduction of a deck that might have originally been manufactured around 1910.

Whatever the story might be regarding the brand, the back design is a true reproduction from cards that were manufactured during that era. Photographs of playing cards with this exact pattern appear in The Stealing Machine and I'm sure many original decks have also survived.

French playing cards from the last turn of the century look almost identical. The cards do not bear the name of the master that made them and the faces are almost identical.

Those cards are commonly known as Portrait Officiel. Basically, the court cards were first printed as black line drawing, then the colors were added through stencils. Each maker used a different palette to color the court cards and with the absence of the original wrapper that's often the only indicator as to which card master made them.

Lastly, one detail that is not apparent from the photographs is the size of the cards. French cards from that era are a bit smaller than the standard size made today. I believe the average measurements are 53mm wide and 83mm high.

Lazy Tongs Sleeve Holdout

2011-02-20T19:52:00.011-05:00

When it comes to being caught with incriminating evidence of cheating, at the card table, I can't think of a more obvious gaff than a mechanical holdout machine. Even if you know nothing about card cheating, you know what this is for, if you ever catch anyone wearing one. Here are a couple of photos of a holdout machine from my gambling collection. I actually don't even consider myself to be a real collector, but I did end up with a few interesting items over the years.

The person that owned this holdout before me said this machine dates back to the 1930s to 50s. I believe the condition of the leather straps should be a good indicator of the age of this object. I happen to have an antique trunk with leather handles, from about the same era, and the leather does appear to be in more or less the same condition as the leather straps on this holdout. In other words, the leather is almost disintegrated, and it feels that it wouldn't take much to break it.

I don't think anyone ever owned a holdout machine without at strapping it on at least once, before putting it on a shelf. I did try to use this machine, but to be perfectly honest I don't really know how it's supposed to be triggered. There's only one string attached to the lazy tongs mechanism and there is a locking device at the other end. It's easy to figure out how the locking device works, but I don't really know to what part of the body it's supposed to be attached to.

The main reason why I haven't taken the time to figure out how this works is because I didn't want to risk breaking the leather straps. One day I might make a replica of this machine and use that one for the purpose of studying the moves. But for now the machine is just sitting on my shelf, along with a few other items I don't know what to do with.

Shell Game Postcard from 1908

2011-02-07T09:21:00.014-05:00

This is a great addition to my growing collection of gambling/cheating postcards. It only cost me $5.99, plus $1.56 S&H. I've never seen this postcard before, so I guess it must be a rare one.

The postcard is titled Playing the Races and it features a swindler playing the shell game against four representatives of "minorities" (to use politically correct terminology). The suckers are an Irish man, a black man, a Chinese man and a Native American man (that has become a minority on his own continent). The swindler is of course a representative of the white race (unlike the Irish man, I guess).

Racial humor is frowned upon nowadays, but a hundred years ago it was acceptable (as in The Mott Street Poker Club).

This postcard is easy to date because there is a postal stamp that says 1908. The postcard was addressed to a Mr. Charles Bauer, from Pacific Grove, California. The sender is unknown, because the card is unsigned, but whoever sent it from Sacramento, California, on August 21, 1908, at 4:30PM, left a few fingerprints in black ink, on the back. There is a nice print over the word California and a partial print next to the stamp.

Due to the theme of the postcard I can't help but wonder if either the sender or the recipient of this postcard might have been a customer of the old San Francisco based "sporting emporium," Will & Finck.

Hand Painted Dasâvatâra Ganjifa Playing Cards

2011-02-03T12:51:00.005-05:00

Historians are still not sure where playing cards have originated. One theory says that they came from Persia, another theory says that they came from China. Both theories can't be right, so it's also possible that playing cards have been invented independently in more than one regions of the world. In fact, that's also one of the official theories and it's the one I like most, especially because that theory states that Chinese playing cards are very different from Western cards, so it's possible that they are in fact two independent inventions.

Whatever the truth about the origin of playing cards might be, historians do seem to agree on a few facts. One is that playing cards have definitely been brought to Europe from the East. And another fact is that the earliest playing cards were individually hand painted and thus only the rich could afford them.

With the invention of woodcuts, Europeans began mass production of playing cards, in the 14th century. That marked the beginning of the end of hand painted playing cards; at least in Europe it did. But in some countries the tradition of hand painting playing cards continued throughout the centuries, even to this day.

Below is a deck of hand painted Dasâvatâra Ganjifa playing cards from my own collection. The deck consists of 120 cards. This is a 10-suited deck, and in fact dasâvatâra means "ten colors."

Most Ganjifa cards are circular and patterns vary depending on what region (or even city) they come from. However, in general, Ganjifa decks have 12 cards per suit: low cards from 1 to 10, plus 2 court cards, the king and the minister (sometimes called adviser or general).

This deck of cards came from Orissa, India, and was painted by Banamali Mahapatra, whose family has been painting Ganjifa cards for five generations. It takes a skilled artisan 2 to 3 weeks to make a complete deck. I've been told that some ignorant Westerners have been known to use circular Ganjifa cards as coasters. That's probably because labor in India is still cheap and some ignorant Westerners don't seem to care about the work that goes into hand painting a deck of cards, as long as they can buy them cheap.

The card stock is also hand made, usually from layers of pressed paper or from layers of cloth glued together (this deck is cloth). And I would imagine the paints used for the job must also be hand made.

All in all, this Ganjifa deck is definitely one of the most unusual decks of cards in my personal collection. An expanded view of all the cards is available on my Playing Cards we site, on the Collection of Playing Cards page.

Restoration of Two Peek Shoes Completed

2011-01-12T18:38:00.000-05:00

Roughly three month ago I received a special order from a customer. I would have to do a complete restoration of two unfinished gaffed baccarat shoes. But those were not the commonly-known type of gaffed shoes, such as the prism shoe or the rough-and-smooth shoe, used by crooked casinos to cheat the players. This gaff is actually intended to cheat the house, if one manages to find a way to plant one of those babies on the gaming floor. The gaff is called the peek shoe and it uses the same mechanical principle of the camera shoe, including the "talking" shoe. I already wrote an introduction to this gaff in my initial blog post Repair of Two Gaffed Peek Shoes, but now that I've completed the work, here's the final product.

Due to the fact that this gaff is not well known, I will not be able to share too many details, at this time. But, as the name suggests, the peek shoe enables the operator to peek at a card; the top cards, of course.

As I already mentioned, in most cases this gaff is intended to be used to cheat the house. However, in some cases it can also be used by the house, to cheat the players. The second scenario would work in a blackjack game (with as spotter and a anchor player), but these two shoes were made for baccarat (because they have lids and they are 8-deck models; also, the original maker made handles that were never mounted, not even by me).

I already described some of the principles of this gaff in my original blog post, Repair of Two Gaffed Peek Shoes, so I see no reason to repeat the same details here. Perhaps what I should say is to describe the work that I did on these shoes.

First of all, the faceplates were not mounted. Although mounting a faceplate at the front of a dealing shoe is not a job that requires any special skills, to speak of, the situation is a bit different for the peek shoe. The faceplate must be mounted very precisely, otherwise the peeking gaff might not work properly. So, the alignment is critical. And when mounting the faceplate, one must test it repeatedly with various brands of playing cards, in various conditions, before even thinking about gluing the parts together. Because once the glue sets, that's it. This is quite nerve racking, especially when mounting a faceplate on an antique shoe. If I mess up my own shoe I can always start from scratch and make another one, but I really don't want to mess up a shoe that already belongs to a customer. Now I know what art restorers must be feeling when doing a risky job. In my case it took repeated testing before I decided to let some glue flow between the cracks.

The second main part of the restoration work was to manufacture several missing parts. That's easier said than done, because I had to find some red acrylic that was a close match to the existing pieces. I never really found a perfect match, so I used whatever I thought was the best match. It works OK, because the pieces fall under different angles, so the light reflects differently anyway.

The main missing parts were the side trims, at the front of the shoes. Those are essential, because without them the gaffed mechanism is naked. I would normally mount the side trims before assembling the main body of the shoe, as explained in The Making of a Gaffed Blackjack Shoe: Part 4, but here I had no choice. So, I mounded the side trims and it came out fine. I used a scroll saw to cut each side trim by hand, which is not how I normally do it for my shoes, because of some reasons I don't need to get into.

One of the shoes had a missing lid. The shoes are actually not identical, so I couldn't quite use the existing lid as a model. In fact, I had to do some improvements on the existing lid, anyway, so that it would sit better in place.

I also had to do some minor repairs and cosmetic improvements. There was only one roller and it wasn't very well made. The original roller had sharp edges, which I had to round off to make it look more professionally made. Also, the original roller didn't have a slot at the back, so it was really difficult to pick it up, once inside the shoe. The slot would normally have to be cut before bending the acrylic, but I managed to clamp it under my milling machine and cut a slot.

Since the shoes only had one roller I also had to make a second one. I decided not to copy the existing roller, because in my opinion I could make a better one. So, I decided to make a the new roller exactly the way I usually make my own rollers, except that I changed the angle at the front, to make it work better for the peek shoe. My rollers use ball bearings and a breaker on the inside. I can't show these details with the roller I made fro this job, so here's a picture of a clear roller.

If you're interested, you can see part of the manufacturing process for a roller, in my post The Making of a Gaffed Blackjack Shoe: Part 5. However, that is the old process. I've come up with some improvements since then.

I fixed some other cosmetic issues on both shoes and did some more work that I can't describe here, because I would have to reveal some secrets. But overall I am happy with the way it all came out. It took longer than I had hoped, but that's mostly because I was busy doing other things and my customer told me not to rush the job. The most important thing is that both shoes are now fully functional, which was really not the case when they were sent to me.

I don't know who is the original maker of those shoes, or when they were made, but I would say that the shoes must be at least twenty years old. I actually have my own model of a peek shoe that works on the same principle, but it's not something I've ever publicly discussed. I believe that a fully functional peek shoe should be valued at least at $5,000, if it's well made. Those two shoes are fully functional, but they have some cosmetic issues, so it's hard for me to say how much I would value them. I did a lot of work on them, so that definitely increases the value, but the real value is in the secrecy. This is not a widely-known gaff, so the only way to protect the secret is to keep the price high. After all, can you imagine what would be the value of knowing which casino had been duped into buying these shoes for their gaming floor. Although this scenario is not likely in the world of corporate casinos, but there are plenty of casinos outside of the Las Vegas Strip and Atlantic City.

The 2010 CARDSHARK Online Blog Archive is Out

2011-01-08T13:12:00.007-05:00

I'm kind of surprised that I've managed to get this done in the first week of 2011, but here it is, the CARDSHARK Online Blog Archive 2010.

The picture you see above is actually a fake. I don't even have the book in my hands, yet, as I just had it published yesterday. But that's how the book will look like.

The book is now available through the CARDSHARK Online Gambling Bookstore. The book is available for $79.00 in color and for $29.95 with black & white images. It's also available as a PDF download for $4.95. Hopefully I'll be able to add at least one more book before the end of the year.

Card Players in North Korea

2010-12-31T21:53:00.012-05:00

In a recent blog post, titled Casino Gambling Inside North Korea, I shared some information about the casino in Pyongyang, which I had the opportunity to visit on my trip to North Korea, earlier this year. One thing that I really wanted to do, while visiting the DPRK, was to meet some local people and due to my interest in gambling I also wanted to find out what kind of gambling and/or card playing people might practice in North Korea.

I had my first encounter with North Korean people right at the boarding gate in Beijing. I approached them and found out that they were North Koreans living in Japan. They explained to me that there were many North Korean communities in Japan and that their kids all go to Korean schools.

Although those folks didn't seem like they could tell me much about gambling I'm still glad I talked to them because they confirmed one piece of information that had me puzzled in the past. When I was in Japan, a couple of years ago, I checked out some of the pachinko parlors, which are basically gambling halls scattered throughout Japan. As expected some of those gambling halls are owned by the yakuza, but as I was trying to learn more about them I somehow got wind of the information that some of the pachinko parlors are also owned by North Koreans. At the time I was very reluctant to believe that particular piece of information because it wasn't clear how North Koreans could open businesses in Japan, or how they could even live in that country. But now that I've met a few North Korean expatriates living in Japan, I guess I can say that this piece of information has been confirmed.

In North Korea gambling is strictly prohibited and the only exception is casino gambling or foreigners. Anyone caught gambling would be in serious trouble, I was told. I tried to find out if there was any kid of underground gambling anywhere in the country and was told that there wasn't. I asked if people ever gambled in the privacy of their own homes. The answer was, again, no. So, either that's all true or they don't feel like talking about it to foreigners. I personally have a hard time believing that no one ever puts down a wager.

But even if I wasn't able to find any illegal gambling, I've seen a lot of people playing cards in public. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense because there aren't many entertainment options available in the DPRK, at this time. That's because, at this time, the country is under strict sanctions; that's the simplified explanation, but I don't want to talk about politics.

I took a few pictures of people playing cards, outdoors. I also asked some people what card game they were playing and was told that the game was called sa-sa-kki. It was really hard to get them to explain the rules, so I just let that one go. They just said that I wouldn't be able to understand. But I did ask if this was a gambling game and was told that it wasn't. The only piece of information I was able to extract was that the game had something to do with numbers 4-4 (in Korean, the word sa means the number four). I don't think the there's any big secret to this game, or that people were unwilling to share this information with a foreigner, I just think that they felt it would be too difficult to explain the rules, due to the language barrier. But the people were really polite and happy to talk to me and were also nice enough to let me take a few photos. I wanted to explain to them that I would be publishing these photographs on my blog, but as you can see these are older gentlemen and I don't think I'd be able to explain to them what a blog was. Nevertheless, I don't think there's been too many photographs of North Korean card players, published in the West, so here are a few shots.

It is true that any foreigner visiting North Korea must be accompanied by a minimum of two guides, but my guides were pretty relaxed about my visit and at one point I even walked around on my own for about 20 minutes (and almost got lost). Those older gentlemen were surprised at my "excellent" knowledge of the Korean language, by the way.

The next photograph shows a group of people playing cards near one of the city's landmarks; a mural of The Great Leader, Kim Ill Sung. This was really the only picture I was able to take of people playing cards in front of a recognizable landmark.

The last photograph was taken through the window of the van, while the driver was maneuvering out of the parking lot. Too bad you can't really see that the people are playing cards, but that's in fact what they were doing.

Scenes like these are quite common throughout Pyongyang. It would have been more interesting to me if people were playing for cash, like I've seen people do in China, but that's all I was able to capture on this trip.

In closing, I feel I should also say that people in North Korea were very welcoming and pleasant. They don't see a lot of foreigners so they're definitely curious about any foreigner they get to meet. I initially thought people would be very shy and unapproachable, but my experience was quite the opposite. I was particularly surprised that young ladies were really not shy at all. Unlike South Korean girls, which are generally very shy, North Korean girls seem to be very straightforward. Regardless what you might think of the DPRK, I think it's important not to judge the people by what you might think of their government. The fact is that most of what Westerners know (or think they know) about the DPRK is from what's been published in the Western media. But the truth is, if you want to know more about that country you'll have to do a bit more effort than getting the information from Western resources. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "To be truly informed, one must learn how to completely ignore newspapers." I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and I can say with confidence that all the people I met while visiting the DPRK were genuinely nice and not at all uptight about the fact that I happen to be a Westerner. In other words, I really didn't feel any bad vibes.

A Stereoscopic Image of Card Cheats, from 1901

2010-12-12T20:16:00.019-05:00

This is a stereoscopic image of card cheats from my personal collection. To be perfectly hones, I don't even like this picture. As a general rule I prefer images that are more subtle.

I think it's pretty obvious that this image was intended to amuse the viewer. I think it's also pretty obvious that the image was specifically intended to amuse a white audience. I'm not sure if this kind of humor was considered sophisticated at the time the image was produced, but I don't find it particularly funny on any levels. Obviously, racial humor has fallen out of fashion in our time.

I'm kind of curious to know what brand of playing cards were used on this set. The only clues that might help determine that are the backs of the cards, which are visible in the hands of the player on the rear left, the ace of spades, which is passed under the table, and the year the image was taken, which we know from the copyright to be 1901. Unfortunately, I am not good enough of a playing card historian to pull the right answer out of thin air, so I'll have to do some more digging if I want to know what brand of playing cards are those.

Since I've had this picture for about two years I can't remember exactly how much I paid for it, but I know I would never pay more than 10 bucks for this one, so that that must be more or less how much it cost me.

The picture is titled A Skin Game (which was obviously meant to be witty) and the copyright is 1901, by H.C. White Co., from North Bennington, Vermont. I would imagine the H.C. White was just a lucky coincidence and at that time might have been considered quite funny that this kind of humor was produced by a Mr. White. It would probably not be as funny if the publisher was a certain H.C. Brown or H.C. Black. But whatever the case, the funniest part is that Mr. White probably never thought that one of his pictures would end up in the collection of Mr. Pink.

Vintage Dondorf Playing Cards No.150

2010-11-20T23:42:00.001-05:00

Playing card collectors are quite familiar with the name Dondorf. The German company Bernhard Dondorf, from Frankfurt, was world famous for high quality playing cards and not surprisingly Dondorf playing cards are some of the most sought after among playing card collectors. I was fortunate to pick up a full deck, 52 plus joker, of Dondorf No. 150 Whist playing cards for a great price.

This vintage deck of cards is in excellent condition and it only cost me £20.00, plus £4.00 for shipping and handling.

This pack of cards was listed on eBay along with several other listings for Dondorf cards, all by the same seller located in Horley, Surrey, United Kingdom. This deck was described as being originally part of an extremely large collection of wonderful playing cards from many categories. What kept the price low was the fact that there were multiple listings for Dondorf cards at the same time, something not often seen on eBay. I've kept my eye on eBay listings for Dondorf cards in the past but the decks always went for far more than I was ever willing to pay for 52+1 pieces of paper. But this time I lucked out.

Photo Postcard: German WWI Soldiers Cheating at Cards

2010-11-15T23:38:00.009-05:00

Someone once said that the best eBay finds are the miss-categorized ones. This is an original photo postcard of German WWI soldiers cheating at cards. I picked it up for $12.05 plus $1.50 for shipping and handling, and I was one of three bidders. The seller would have definitely had more bidders if the listing title had some mention of card cheating, but his title was Germany -REAL PHOTO- Soldiers Playing Cards - several dogs. I say, who cares about the dogs?

What's particularly interesting about this photo is the setup with one guy handing off a card at the side of the table, for the benefit of the viewers. This is a setup that is reoccurring in numerous old photographs and even some very kitschy figurines that periodically pop up on eBay. But I've always wondered where this theme originated. Since this postcard was never used there's no date stamp on the back (bummer!) but if the picture was taken during WWI it would be between 1914 and 1918. And what I particularly like about this photograph is that, unlike many others with this theme, it is not corny because the people in the photo are not trying to overact their emotions. Unlike most other card cheating photographs where people are acting like clowns this one almost feels believable. If I didn't know better I could even believe it was a candid photo (but I don't really believe that).

Another rather nice photograph of card cheaters can be seen in one of my earlier blog posts Antique Men's Club Photograph with Card Cheater. Like the current photograph, the acting in the Men's Club photograph is also not exaggerated, but I think the German Soldiers postcard is still better.

The Little Card Holdout That Never Was

2010-11-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

If you've ever searched eBay for "card cheating" you must have seen plenty of listings for an odd looking clip, listed as a holdout device for card cheating. Many vendors describe the little gadget as an antique holdout device used by card cheats to hold an ace up the sleeve. Some even go as far to describe how the device supposedly works. One vendor said, "The small clip is used to smoothly slip a card in and out the sleeve."

This device is neither a holdout nor any other kind of card cheating device. It is simply an antique cuff holder, used to attach detachable cuffs onto a shirt. Those types of shirts have gone out of style but if you ever watch old black and white movies you might have come across an occasional scene where some gentleman is seen removing the collar and the cuffs from his shirt. That's the kind of old-fashioned shirt those cuff holders were used for.

The most common brand of cuff holders was Wizard. That's why most eBay auctions list Wizard "holdouts." But Wizard was not a crooked gambling distributor, it was simply a company that made cuff holders and possibly some other things. The Western & Eastern Treasures Magazine site has accurate information about the Wizard cuff holders (scroll to the bottom of page). I also included a description on the holdout devices page, on my main web site. And on my site I also included a picture of an original counter-top display. I believe this original display ad should be enough to prove what the true purpose of the little Wizard was.

I've had this description on my site for quite a while and it shows up high on search engines. But the little Wizards still keep popping up on eBay, listed as card cheating devices, every time I search for "card cheating." Some vendors go through great lengths to make their Wizards more appealing to potential buyers, like the one that said, "I suspect it made someone a lot of money and maybe a bullet hole or two, a nice original relic of riverboat and saloon wild west days and cultured parlor games in men's only clubs. The spring clip part holds to the cuff and the clip holds the card up the sleeve."

I've also recently come across are more modest description, saying, "Cuff holders were used to attach detachable cuffs to men's shirts. There are also card cheating devices called 'holdouts' that look very much like cuff holders and its a possibility that these were designed to keep a card up one's sleeve." Although this description is less sensationalized it still mentions card cheating for no other reason than to boost the interest. So, even if this vendor doesn't call it a holdout, the description is still dishonest because it is intended to deceive.

But the most honest description to date is from a recent eBay auction, where the vendor actually says what these gadgets were for and also discredits all the bogus claims that this is some kind of antique card cheating device. This one was for a pair of Washburne cuff holders:

These intriguing little clips are actually a gentleman's antique Washburne Cuff Holders from 1889. Back in the late 1800s, gents’ shirts came with detachable cuffs and collars so they could be easily replaced to give the appearance of a fresh clean shirt. This wonderful little gadget was designed to hold the cuffs in place.

Can you imagine what a wonder of modern technology this must have been!

Folklore suggests that the more imaginative of the Wild West poker players managed to use this gadget to hide an ace up the sleeve. With one end clipped to the clothing and the other end holding a hidden card.

I was actually tempted to buy this pair of cuff holders, just because the vendor is honest and because they came with the actual cuff from the era. It would make for a good demo piece. But then I changed my mind. I don't really collect this kind of stuff and I'm already running out of storage space, as is, so I don't need another thing to stash somewhere at the bottom of a drawer. So, I let the auction slip.

The reason I've decided to make this post is to set the record straight. I really despise how some people are changing historical facts just to make a quick buck. My job as a gambling researcher is to gather accurate information and publish what I think is true. If I ever make a mistake I make an effort to fix it. I've contacted many eBay vendors in the past and let them know in the nicest possible tone that their listings were inaccurate and also let them know where they could look up the information. Not one of them ever bothered to reply or to fix their listings. So, I can only conclude that their greed overpowers their sense of decency. Let's be honest, these vendors are deceiving their paying customers by deliberately misrepresenting an item. That is a form of theft. I know it's just petty theft and some might think I'm going too far to even think about it. But to me it's really more about distorting historical facts and spreading the misinformation. And while we're on the subject of theft, I really hate nickel and dimers. If you're going to steal, steal millions or something worth stealing.

MacDougall Exchange

2010-10-21T14:35:00.009-04:00

A fellow contacted me no too long ago and wanted to know if I'd be willing to sell the two MacDougall press photographs that appeared in my blog post Two Historic Michael MacDougall Press Photos. He said he was a long time MacDougall collector and that it would mean a great deal to him to add these two photographs to his collection.

I replied immediately and told him that he should feel free to make me an offer. I also let him know that I would pretty much agree to whatever he wanted to pay for them because I felt that it was most important that these historic photos end up in good hands. So, the fellow replied right away with an offer that included a fair price as well as an old MacDougall book in exchange. I accepted the offer and we made it happen. The press photographs are now in his possession and I ended up with an early edition of Don't be a Sucker, by the famous "gambling detective" Michael (aka Mickey) MacDougall.

The book is an 80 page staple-bound booklet with lots of images. Some materials have been lifted from crooked gambling supply catalogs, in exposé fashion. The images of the false deals are very similar to the press photograph of the bottom deal that I sold in exchange for the book. In fact, I had to do a side by side comparison to see the difference.

Overall, I am glad that the press photograph ended up in the hands of a true MacDougall collector and I'm also happy to have added an old gambling book on my shelf.

Casino Gambling Inside North Korea

2010-10-11T13:32:00.012-04:00

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon some information on the internet, that there might be a casino in North Korea. Due to the fact that North Korea is portrayed in Western media as the most secretive and isolated country in the world, described by former CIA Director Robert Gates as "the intelligence black hole," this information came as a bit of a shock. The idea of a North Korean casino spiked my interest, so I searched some more. But all the information I was able to find on the internet was unclear and speculative. One site said that there might be one casino in the capital city of Pyongyang, but that this information had not been confirmed. Another site said that there definitely was a casino there. And another site said that there used to be a casino there, but that it had been closed down. There was also some speculation that there might actually be two casinos in the entire country, one in Pyongyang and the other one in an unnamed town near the Chinese border. The more I searched for answers the more conflicting information I was getting. It simply drove me nuts. For some reason I was never able to get this out of my mind and after a couple of years I decided to do the only sane thing I could think of: to travel to North Korea and see for myself.

Although North Korea is a country whose economy has been hit very hard because of economic sanctions, traveling to North Korea is not cheap. But fortunately, I happen to have a special interest in Korean culture (not politics), so I had another reason to go there. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that it would be a great thing to visit that country, and if in fact there was a casino there, I would definitely get to see it.

Although I am far from being an expert in North Korean affairs, I was pretty sure that gambling had to be illegal in that country. That meant that the casino, if there in fact was one, had to be reserved for foreigners. But what foreigners? North Korean immigration officers are not exactly known to be the busiest people in the world and according to some internet resources the country averages about 2,000 visitors per year. And what percentage of those can be expected to put down a wager, anyway? So, who in the right state of mind would build a casino there? Answers to those questions could not be found on the internet, so I hopped on a plane.

This was not the first time I traveled a distance just to check out a piece of information that had to do with gambling. In the world of gambling there's actually an old tradition of traveling far just to learn something or to meet with someone. Usually it's about learning a secret that has to do with cheating, such as learning a dice switch, a card muck or having the chance to see a cheating gaff. And I've done that, but I'll also go halfway around the world just to check out a casino, if I think it's worth it. And it was pretty clear to me that my mind would not rest until I saw with my own eyes what kind of casino they had in North Korea. So, off I went.

As it turns out, there is in fact a casino in North Korea. Not one, but three. One casino is in the capital city, Pyongyang, another one is in the border town of Sinuiju, next to Dandong, China, and another one in the Rajin-Sunbong Free Trade Zone (a location that I was having some trouble finding through Google Earth, although I did manage to find a web site for the Emperor Hotel & Casino, Rason). Since I only visited Pyongyang I can only report about the casino there.

The Casino Pyongyang, as it is called, is located in the basement of the Yanggakdo Hotel, which is where I stayed. The hotel is a 47 story skyscraper with a triangular footprint, situated on an island, on the Taedong River.

The following photo shows the north façade of the hotel. The south façade is a bit different, which you can see in the night photograph I took during my visit.

There are two ways to descend to the casino level from the ground floor. You can either take an elevator or you can walk down a staircase. Since Pyongyang is not Las Vegas one should not expect to find any flashing neon signs publicizing the presence of a casino. The biggest sign you will find is a modest billboard mounted on a light box, hanging on the wall above the staircase. The only detail that might have been inspired by flashy Las Vegas signs is a single string of multicolored Christmas lights surrounding the billboard (and the upper left corner came loose).

The staircase takes you down to the lower level where you are greeted by a hostess behind a counter and a security guard that is often found "clipping his nails" (figuratively speaking) while lounging on this chair underneath the staircase. You will also notice a couple of rows of slot machines against the walls leading to the casino. The hostess is actually guarding the entrance to the karaoke bar, which is straight ahead. The basement entertainment complex also has a restaurant, a spa that I am told offers more than massages, and of course the casino.

There is one detail on the lower level that offers some clues as to who might be behind the casino. As you take the last step down the staircase and set your foot onto the "Welcome" mat you can't miss a "magnificent" mural photograph of a casino in Macau. The casino is none other than the Casino Lisboa, owned by Stanley Ho. Also, the restaurant on the lower level is called the Macau restaurant. So, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Casino Pyongyang is most likely part of the Ho casino empire.

There are some additional details that lead me to believe that the entire entertainment complex in the basement is part of the same company. You will notice surveillance cameras on the ceiling above the mural. There's good reason to believe that this surveillance coverage is part of the casino.

Also, although the casino officially starts in a separate room there are several rows of slot machines that extend into the corridors that lead up to the casino. No one seems to be playing those slots, but that's irrelevant. Their presence is enough to say that gambling starts as soon as you step on the "Welcome" mat.

It also doesn't take a genius to figure out that the spa, which I am told is exclusively female staffed and caters to Chinese businessmen, is really just a brothel. Macau is flooded with those kind of "massage parlors" and although they appear to be independent businesses, completely separate from the casinos, it would be a bit naïve to believe that there's no connection.

All these clues lead me to believe that the casino is what had financed the entire hotel. If I were to take a guess I'd say that Stanly Ho is just betting that there will come a day when things will drastically change in the DPRK and he just wants to make sure he's got his foot in the door. The operation of a small casino in the heart of Pyongyang is enough to create a corrupt government that will eventually push for casino gambling, when the time comes. One day casino gambling might prove to be the biggest boost to the economy of a country that might not have much else to offer to all developed neighboring countries.

Perhaps it's also not a coincidence that the casino was built on an island. I don't have a hard time imagining how the entire island might one day become the next gambling mecca of Asia, especially if there's any opposition to gambling, it might just be easier to convince the opposition that the entire island can become some kind of Special Administrative Region where gambling is allowed. This is Asia after all, and Stanley Ho is a very smart man. He started casino gambling in Macau at a time when there was nothing there. Now money is too sweet to kick the casinos out. Plus, casinos have become a "tradition" in Macau and kicking them out would almost feel like messing with the "cultural heritage" of the region.

North Korea is a communist country and it would stand to reason that private businesses are not allowed there. One would think that even if there were a way to open a private business, a casino would be at the bottom of the list of approved businesses. But sometimes there are loopholes that might be exploited, even in the DPRK, especially if one has enough money to convince the officials that something is a good idea.

If my information is correct, some forms of private businesses are allowed in the DPRK. I was told that foreign investors have a way to open up what is described as joint ventures. This makes a lot of sense and I can see how a casino investor might actually think that this model is the best way to run a casino in a country like North Korea.

Casino business requires a lot of corruption. I can't think of a better way to bribe the officials than to make them business partners in a so-called joint venture. A joint venture model basically ensures that money constantly flows into the right hands without breaking the law. And when the time comes the investor will have plenty of powerful allies at the very top of the government, motivated by the one medium that has historically been proven to be the greatest catalyst of all times: money. Of course, they'll all be talking about how casino business is good for the region, how it creates jobs and brings money that can be used to build schools and hospitals. Nothing we haven't heard before. And anyone investing into casinos in the DPRK, today, is way ahead of any American corporations that might one day want to get a piece of this action. After all, Pyongyang is in Asia, the home of the most passionate gamblers on the planet.

North Korea's geographic location is quite interesting for someone that wants to put his foot in the door on the off chance that there will be a drastic change in the country's system. China is to the north-west, Russia is to the north-east and South Korea is to the south. Japan is also just a stone throw away, hardly a distance for someone that is itching to put down a wager and is unable to do it at home. So, who knows what the future holds.

In the meantime let's have a closer look at the casino.

The easiest way to find the entrance to the casino is to follow the slot machines. As you approach the casino you will pass by a few laminated paper signs informing you of the business hours and other rules. There is even a welcoming sign that says the casino reserves the right to reject any customers without giving any reasons, which should make anyone feel welcome. The signs are in two languages, the universal English and Chinese. The absence of Korean language signs is not coincidental; the casino is just for foreigners and Koreans are not allowed to enter the casino under any circumstances.

When I first entered the casino I started talking to one of the staff that looked like a pit boss, manager or supervisor. I have some limited knowledge of Korean, so I started talking to him in Korean. I was having trouble getting myself understood and I assumed the guy must have been having a hard time understanding my accent. As a general rule, if a foreigner tries to speak Korean to Koreans, they will not understand a single word, unless the pronunciation is exactly as it should be. This is especially so in North Korea, because people there have almost no contact with the outside world, and therefore don't have an ear for accents. But as it turns out, the guy was not having trouble understanding me because of my foreign accent. He just didn't speak a word of Korean.

Once we switched to English he explained to me that the entire casino staff were Chines, from Dandong. He explained that the rule that no Koreans were allowed to enter the casino extended also to the staff. Apparently it is not a prerequisite for a foreign investor to guarantee new jobs for local people, to be approved for a "joint venture" in North Korea. I guess, when the time comes, the local casino advocates will not be able to use the argument that casinos create jobs.

I asked the guy a few questions about the casino and he was able to confirm my suspicion that Casino Pyongyang was in fact a Macau investment and that there was another casino in the border town of Sinuiju. He didn't mention Stanley Ho, directly, but it is quite logical that no one else couldn't possibly be behind the Macau investment. In Macau there's Stanley Ho, who is a Chinese businessman, and there are a few American corporations behind the Wynn, the Sands, the Venetian, MGM, etc... If I were to make a bet I'd put my money on Stanley Ho.

The casino entrance is not at all flashy. It has a simple sign that says Casino Pyongyang in three languages. Although I am a bit puzzled why they have it written in Korean, since Koreans aren't allowed inside the casino.

At the time of my visit the double wing door under the sign was locked. So, to enter the casino I had to walk through the long corridor at the right side.

The casino floor is quite small. There were only four tables, two for blackjack and two for baccarat. The players were mostly Chinese and I've been told that no one ever walks away with winnings.

The next few photographs offer a glimpse inside of the Pyongyang casino, with players in action. Normally casinos do not allow photography on the floor, but in North Korea people are really laid back about photographers and it didn't seem that anyone had any objections to the presence of a camera inside the casino. So I took plenty of photos.

Blackjack is dealt without a hole card and there are some rules that aren't standard. For example, when a player catches a natural, the player has the option to collect 1 to 1 immediately or wait for the dealer to play out the hand for the house. If the dealer busts or gets a total less than 21, the player collects 3 to 2 at that time, but if the dealer hits 21 the player gets nothing. I've seen this option in some casinos and it's obviously a sucker bet.

The tables are not laid out around a pit, as in most casinos. Instead the tables are against the walls and every time there is action there is a supervisor watching the game.

During one of the games a floor manager was standing next to one of the players and chatting in English. I was a bit surprised to see that the floor manager was giving direct advice to the player on making certain hit and stand decisions. He also explained to the player that it is possible to bet on some suited outcomes and get paid more, so I guess he just wanted to make sure the player knew what all the betting options were. In other words, the casino tried hard to sell all the sucker bets.

The procedures are a bit different from most casinos. For example, the player's cards are not dealt out in diagonal columns, as in all other casinos, but instead into a fan. Also, it is quite odd how the dealer pays the winning bets. Let's say the player bets one chip and wins. The dealer will first pull the chip slightly towards the chip tray, by placing the hand or the finger over the wager and then pay the bet by placing another chip right on top of the original wager. If the player gets paid 3 to 2 on a natural the dealer will simply count off the chips out of the chip tray and place the payout on top of the original wager, without ever doing a spread for the camera. I've never seen that done in any casino as there are clearly too many opportunities to manipulate the payout.

There is one procedure that defies logic. After the players are done making their hit and stand decisions the dealer burns a card before dealing the first hit card for the house (which is really the second card, since there's no hole card). As a general rule, the purpose of burn cards is to eliminate the top card of the shoe as a precaution, in case the cards are marked. It makes absolutely no sense to burn a card before dealing out the hand for the dealer, since the players no longer make any decisions, at that point. Better yet, the shoe actually has a black fabric blind over the faceplate, covering up the top card, so even if the cards were marked no one could see the top card. And if a player sits down at a vacant table the dealer will start dealing straight from the shoe, without burning a card. If you ask me, that would be a better time to burn a card, but they don't do it that way.

I expected that the blackjack game in Pyongyang would have some local options and procedures. I am not sure it's the best game for the player, even if one ignores all the sucker betting options. The casino still pays 3 to 2 on naturals, but they only allow doubling down on 11. Since this is basically a resort casino I wonder if they will soon introduce 6 to 5 payouts on naturals.

Lastly, the casino is not yet equipped with continuous shufflers that are becoming the industry standard around the world. But here is a picture of their blackjack dealing shoe. Quite slick.

Due to the fact that Koreans are not allowed to set foot inside the casino and foreigners are not allowed to handle Korean currency, the official currency in the casino are Euros, but they accept US Dollars, as well. You are advised to bring plenty of small bills, because if you are left with small denomination chips the cage might not have bills to pay out. So, you'd either have to return to the gaming tables or take the small chips as souvenirs, which they don't mind. Speaking of small denomination chips, here's one.

On my way out of the casino I noticed a sign with a picture of a camera and something written in Chinese. Since I can't read Chinese I had no clue what the sign meant, so I took a picture of it, too. Should anyone reading this article know the meaning of this sign, please do let me know, so I can make a mental note for future reference.

To be perfectly honest, I expected the casino in Pyongyang to have much stricter procedures, due to the fact that it's in North Korea. I don't think I have to explain how North Korea is portrayed in Western media, so I simply expected the casino procedures to match that image. Mainly, I was assuming that it would be somewhat of a procedure to enter the casino floor. Even in Europe, in most casinos, they check ID, take your picture and sometimes issue a free "membership card" that needs to be scanned on all future visits. I knew the Pyongyang casino could not require to check passports because all foreigners must surrender their passports after entering the country. But I still thought there would be some kind of strict procedure before entering. There was absolutely nothing. Anyone could simply walk into the casino and I am not even sure how they make sure that a person is not Korean.

Repair of Two Gaffed Peek Shoes

2010-09-24T21:02:00.001-04:00

In the recent blog post The "Talking" Blackjack Shoe I mentioned that the talking shoe is a more elaborate version of a camera shoe. One thing that I didn't mention is that both of these high-tech electronic shoes have a purely mechanical cousin. In other words, there is also another type of gaffed shoe that also enables the player to peek at the top card without the help of the dealer, but doesn't have any electronics at all. The solution is purely mechanical. The gaff is called a peek shoe and actually comes in a few different variations. I have been working on my own model of this peek shoe for the past three or four years and have already come up with a couple of fully functional prototypes, but due to lack of time I've never actually made a completed product.

A few days ago I received two of these shoes in the mail. Both need some repair work, which is why they were sent to me in the first place.

Both shoes seem to have been made at the same time, by the same person, but both shoes are not identical. There are actually some significant differences in measurements and I believe the maker may have been testing with different measurements. But so far I have not been able to notice any significant differences in the performance of either shoes. Both do the job just fine.

My repair job is not too difficult, but I still have to know what I'm doing otherwise I might cause significant damage to the gaffed parts. Basically, some parts are missing (there is only one roller and only one lid), I have to fabricate and install the decorative trims, possibly install the handles, and I also have to reinstall both faceplates, which have been removed for some reason. Since it is virtually impossible to separate two pieces of acrylic once they've been glued together I am assuming that the faceplates were removed because they had not been glued in properly.

Since this kid of shoe is used to peek at the top card it should be logical that the secret gaff is in the front part of the shoe. That's why I blurred out the parts of the photograph that might reveal too much. To the best of my knowledge these kinds of peek shoes have not been revealed to the public, so at this time I am not sure how much information I am willing to share on my blog.

The purpose of the peek shoe is exactly the same as the purpose of the camera shoe, or the talking shoe. The advantage of the peek shoe is that it doesn't have any electronics, so there are no batteries to be charged. Also, due to the absence of electronics, it is less likely that anyone would discover that the shoe is gaffed.

The dream of a hustler would be to somehow plant one of these shoes in a casino. If a hustler could accomplish that the casino could literally be used as a personal ATM. The hustler would just have to occupy the proper seating position at the blackjack table and from a certain angle he would always be able to see the index of the top card, every time, before it is dealt.

I just gave you some hints about what some of the disadvantages of this shoe might be.

First of all, the hustler can't just take any seat at the blackjack table. The peeking can only be done from one angle. Also, the peeking will only work if the dealer places the shoe on the table "properly." The dealer is totally unaware of the fact that the shoe is gaffed, but if the dealer happens to orient the shoe in the "wrong" way, peeking is not possible.

So how exactly does this shoe work?

If you take a glass of water and hold it in front of your face, what do you see? Most people see a glass of water, naturally, because that's what it is and that's also what the mind expects to see. But in reality you can see the entire room inside of the glass of water. The water inside the glass acts as a lens and if you focus on the image inside the glass you can see every detail in the room, greatly reduced in size.

The peek shoe works on a similar principle. Some of the parts of the shoe are deliberately fabricated in such way that the image of the top card's index is carried through the clear acrylic body and seen from a certain angle, if one knows exactly what to look for. But, because most people are not expecting to see anything, most people will not see that the index of a card is partially visible from one angle. The human mind simply edits out visual information which it is not aware of being relevant. That's like looking at a glass of water and not realizing that you can see its surroundings in it.

The shoes will stay in my shop for at least three or four weeks. The client is not in any particular hurry to get his shoes back, so I'll take my time doing the job. In fact, he only wants to keep one of the shoes and is still trying to decide what to do with the other one. This is a very rare cheating gaff so whoever ends up with the other shoe will be a lucky guy.

First Edition of Mr. Rakeoff in The Provinces

2010-09-06T14:11:00.004-04:00

When I first decided to build a gambling library I already knew it would consist of books about cheating. Cheating and scams were actually my first interests and those were the interests that brought me into gambling, not the other way around. So, it would stand to reason that my gambling library would somehow reflect that.

My first gambling book was Sharps & Flats, which I bought at a gaming supply store on West 27th Street in New York City. Upon examination I discovered that the book was published by GBC Press, aka the Gamblers Book Club, in Las Vegas, Nevada. At that time no one had even heard of the internet, so I did what had to be done the old fashioned way an ordered the GBC Press mail-order catalog.

When the catalog arrived I saw that titles were listed in alphabetical order and organized into logical categories, such as Casino Gambling, Poker, Blackjack, Craps, Horse Racing, Sports Betting, and so on... To my amazement, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was an entire category on cheating. All of the sudden, starting a gambling library to my taste seamed easier than I had anticipated. So, I picked up my phone receiver, dialed the toll-free number (on my rotary phone) and ordered every title listed in that category. The next few days were spent in restless anticipation, waiting for my package. Building a new bookshelf seemed like a reasonable pastime. The package finally arrived, in two separate boxes, and that's how my gambling library was born. I spent the next week or so locked up in my apartment, lounging on the couch, eating nothing but ice cream, while devouring my newly acquired gambling books.

One of the books that was part of my new collection was How They Cheat You at Cards: Mr. Rakeoff in The Provinces, by Eugène Villiod. This book is actually a turn of the century French classic, originally titled Comment on nous Vole au Jeu with a subtitle M. Laratisse en Province. The text was translated into English by Russel T. Barnhart, in 1979, and the English edition was published by GBC Press. The book only cost $6.95, and couldn't be considered a rare book by any stretch of the imagination, but it was always one of my favorites. That's why it was always in the back of my mind that one day I should make some effort to acquire the original French edition. And finally, thanks to the internet, I did manage to find an original edition, which is now part of my ever growing gambling library.

Although the original French edition is a rare book, it is still relatively easy to find. If one is willing to pay the price one can own it with very little effort. I just logged onto Google.fr and did a quick search, which returned several sources for this book listed at 50€, 75€, 100€ and 150€. I didn't see any differences in the condition of the books so I just bought the one listed at 50€. The book arrived and I am happy.

I am not going to go into any details of this book, but in a nutshell, the book is written as a work of fiction dealing with a real subject, which is card cheating. The author tells us entertaining stories about a fictional Mr. Rakeoff cheating suckers at various card games, which traveling through the provinces of France. The stories are written in an amusing and informative style and some descriptions are complemented with photographs. To find out what this book is all about, the best recommendation I can give you is to read the book.

Anglophone readers who can only benefit from reading the English edition may want to know more about the title and the name of the fictional character, the infamous Mr, Rakeoff.

A more literal translation of the original title, Comment on nous Vole au Jeu, would be How They Rob us at Gambling, but I think Mr. Barnhart's translation makes for a much better sounding title. Also, the name of the main character, M. Laratisse, which Mr. Barnhart translated into Mr. Rakeoff is definitely the best possible translation anyone could come up with.

The name Laratisse is basically a play on words. In French râteau (from Latin rastellus; rastrum) means "a rake" and ratisser is the action of "raking." Since this book is not about gardening it doesn't take a genius to conclude that "raking" is used figuratively. So, in colloquial French ratisser is used in the same sense as the expression "cleaning up" is often used in English. The expression se faire ratisser would be translated into "getting raked off," basically meaning "getting ripped off." So, the imaginary character Monseur Laratisse (which can figuratively be understood as "one that rips people off as if using a rake") can definitely be translated into Mr. Rakeoff.

My copy of Comment on nous Vole au Jeu came from an antiquarian bookstore, in Marseille, France. It is a 1909 first edition in fair condition.

The author Eugène Villiod actually wrote several books on cheating and scams. The book Comment on nous Vole au Jeu is actually a sequel to the 1906 book The Stealing Machine (original French title La Machine à Voler). Both books are highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of crooked gambling.

Ās Nās Playing Cards from The Brooklyn Museum

2010-08-31T10:17:00.002-04:00

Poker historians always mention the Persian game ās nās as one of the possible predecessors of modern poker. I guess we'll never really know if this theory is correct but that shouldn't prevent us from taking a closer look at the game if the opportunity happens to present itself. Today one such opportunity did present itself to me on my visit to The Brooklyn Museum. As it turns out The Brooklyn Museum happens to have a set of five 19th century ās nās cards on display in the Asian Arts section.

The cards are hand painted and quite beautiful. The label says: Iran, mid-19th century; ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on wood or papier-mâché under lacquered varnish. Since I am not exactly an ās nās expert, by any stretch of the imagination, I think it's best if I just retype the rest of the description posted on the museum label, instead of attempting to write my own.

The full set of cards for the game of ās nās, a gambling game similar to poker, contains twenty cards, with four each of five suits. The suite, in descending order, include the ās (ace); the shāh (king); the bībī (queen); the sarbāz (soldier), represented by one or more soldiers, noblemen, or hunters; and the lakāt, represented by a female of low rank, often a dancer or a servant. Card designs may include traditional and European costumes, floral and vegetal designs, erotic imagery, or mythological creatures. Here, the ās appears in the form of a lion and tiger entwined with a snake-dragon. Ās nās became popular under the Qajars and continued to be played until the end of World War II, when it lost favor to games such as poker, rummy, and bridge.

Although the description on the museum's label states that the ās nās deck consists of 5 suits, other resources state that a full deck consists of either 20 or 25 un-suited cards that consist of 5 court cards, appearing in multiples of 4 or 5, to make up a full deck. I think that's a better description.

Another ās nās deck appears in the collection of playing cards page on my sister site.

World Series Of Mahjong 2010

2010-08-26T01:05:00.019-04:00

The World Series Of Mahjong 2010 just wrapped up at The Venetian Macau. The WSOM, which started in 2006, is said to be gaining in popularity and this year the event brought together 201 players from 11 countries. Since this blog is not a news outlet I don't particularly want to cover the event, but I still think it's a good idea to go over some of the highlights.

Most of the participants came from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. Mahjong Australia, the official partner for the Australian qualifier, brought 27 professional players from Australia. Among them, was a 76 year-old Asian woman, Ms. Wang, who also celebrated her birthday in Macau.

This year, the game format and rules were slightly different than those for the previous WSOM. This year, all players were able to play 6 full sessions or 96 hands before the Final. In addition, prize money was awarded according to their scores instead of rankings, which serves as a good incentive for players. The top 16 players moved on to the Final on Day Three of the Tournament (August 22nd, 2010) and competed for the World Champion title.

This year's World Champion is Mr. Chan Tak-Kwan, a 34-year-old furniture salesperson from Hong Kong, who outlasted the other 200 participants and became the third World Champion from Hong Kong.

Chan Tak-Kwan has been playing mahjong for over ten years. He was encouraged by his friends to participate in the qualifier organized by Blue Girl Beer in Hong Kong, then was sponsored by Blue Girl Beer to participate in the WSOM championship tournament in Macau, and fought his way to the Final Table. He did not perform very well for the first two days of the World Series, and he was originally in the fourth place at the Final Table. However, just like what happened to the 2008 World Champion, Chan fought over the other three players with confidence in the last few hands and changed his fate near the end.

Chan took home a cash prize of HK$180,530 (US$23,200), a World Champion necklace, a unique Venetian mask sponsored by The Venetian Resort-Hotel, and a free seat in the 2011 World Series Of Mahjong.

Those interested in mahjong might also find my previous post Crooked Mahjong Set of some interest.

Luminous Readers: How Many Cards Can I Mark?

2010-08-19T02:30:00.000-04:00

One of the most frequently asked questions is: How many cards (decks) can I mark with such and such amount of ink? Luminous inks are expensive and this seems like a reasonable question. But unfortunately, there is no short answer to that question.

First of all, let me explain that luminous inks are usually sold as concentrates. If you get it as a concentrate you will have to mix it down. And I might as well tell you a tip. Since the ink is an expensive purchase it's always a good idea to divide it into several small vials. If you happen to spill your vial of ink, by accident, or if you drop it on the floor, you will not lose the whole amount.

In the following image you can see how the concentrated ink is mixed down into a working vial. If you know how to do it right, you will only need a few drops of ink to mark up a few decks, so you should only mix down a few drops at a time. Also, you will have to work out the proportions. Those will depend on how concentrated the ink was and how strong you want the work to read. Needless to say, professionals typically like light work. But for argument's sake, let's say that your working amount consists of 5 drops of ink and 5 drops of thinner. If you can't go through at least a couple of decks with 10 drops, you are doing something wrong.

One thing that will save you ink is how you design your code. In the following image you see three cards, lined up side by side. The first card will use up twice the amount of ink than the card in the middle. And the last card at the right will use up a fraction of the ink that's been used up to mark the first card.

Now let's look at another example.

All three cards in this example are marked with a diagonal line. However, even if they all bear the same mark, the two cards on the right both use up twice as much ink as the card on the left. The middle card basically has a wider mark, so it uses up twice as much ink as the same line drawn at half the width. And the card at the right side is twice as dark as the card on the left; so even if both bear a mark with exact same dimensions the darker mark uses up twice as much ink.

Those are just some quick examples to help you understand that it's impossible to know how may cards one might be able to mark up with a certain amount of ink. In the above examples it all depends on the design of the code. But there are other factors that also contribute to this.

The worst tool one could use to put luminous marks on the backs of playing cards is a Q-tip. Actually, a Q-tip will produce an excellent mark, so that's not why it's a "bad" tool. But if you want to be saving on ink you definitely don't want to be using a Q-tip.

There are other factors that greatly contribute towards the number of decks one might be able to mark up with a limited amount of ink. However, I don't want to write up an instructional manual. I simply want to say that it's impossible to tell how many decks one might be able to mark up.

The "Talking" Blackjack Shoe

2010-08-03T01:07:00.005-04:00

As technology continues to amaze us, there's very little chance that collectors of crooked gambling equipment will get bored, any time soon. Gambling gaffs have always been fascinating, but nowadays, technology makes it possible to make the kind of gaffs that would have been impossible to make as recently as 25 years ago. Who would have thought that one day someone would come up with a gaffed dealing shoe that "talks to you" and tells you which card will come out of the shoe on the next deal?

The "talking shoe," as it's been dubbed by hustlers, has been around for about a couple of years. I first heard about it roughly a year ago when one of my clients asked me if I knew anything about it. It wasn't long after that I received a call from a friend that wanted to introduce me to the gentleman that developed this shoe. Small world, I thought to myself, but the world got even smaller when I realized that the maker of this shoe was someone I've been meaning to get in touch with for quite a while, for other reasons. As it turns out, the maker of this shoe is a bit of a legend in the world of crooked gambling.

I am not going to expose his name on the internet, but I will say that he is a man that doesn't mess around with small stuff. Another friend of mine has had dealings with this gentleman, for several years, and I heard many good stories and anecdotes. To make a long story short, I was now speaking with the man on the phone and we were making plans to meet during his upcoming visit to New York. But it wasn't meant to be, I already had some conflicting plans that would put me in Europe at the same time he wanted to be in New York.

That meeting didn't take place, but we did exchange numbers and agreed to stay in touch. More importantly, the gentleman just gave me permission to write this blog post and explain a few things about the talking casino shoe. He even agreed to let me take some pictures and include them in my post. It was my idea to blur-out parts of the images, to avoid revealing too much. So, here's a picture of the talking blackjack shoe along with all the accessories that come with it.

The shoe doesn't look like anything spectacular. In fact, that's the idea. It's not supposed to look like there's anything special about it. Since these shoes are all custom made, there may be differences in various design elements, such as color, size of the dealing slot, trim design, and so on. But I still thought it would be better to blur-out the design elements of the shoe.

On the left side of the picture you can see a couple of battery chargers. One is for the shoe and the other one is for the optional monitor. I blurred-out the part that would reveal how the charging cables get attached to the shoe.

At the bottom of the picture you can see the wireless earpiece that's used by the player. This is the earpiece that whispers to the player the value of the card that is about to be dealt. The shoe doesn't transmit directly to the earpiece, however. The plastic box behind the shoe is the wireless receiver. That piece of equipment has a loop that the person must wear around the neck, to transmit the secondary wireless signal to the earpiece.

The wireless monitor and the audio speaker are for demonstration purposes, although the monitor can also be used in a live situation. Basically the shoe has two modes, the “talking” mode and the camera mode. To switch the shoe between modes the operator must use a small magnet and reset an internal magnetic switch (there are more than one switch but I am not at liberty to reveal how many or where they are located). The magnet is seen at the bottom of the picture, next to the earpiece.

The talking shoe is basically a more elaborate version of a camera shoe. Camera shoes have been around for quite some time, but the early models had two problems; the internal batteries substantially added to the weight of the shoe and some shoes were warming up too much. This shoe only warms up when the batteries are being charged and thanks to the latest Lithium Ion batteries the weight has been substantially reduced.

When the shoe is used in camera mode the index of the top card shows up on a remote screen. There would really not be any practical way for a player to use a wireless video monitor at the table, so there would have to be another person involved. That person would somehow have to send signals to the player. The advantage of this would be to keep the player clean in the event that he is put through a body search. The picture below shows a rare view of how the camera inside the shoe sees the index of the top card.

There is another reason to use the talking shoe in camera mode. Blackjack is often dealt with no-peek cards. Those are cards that have the indexes of all Tens and Aces printed lower than the rest of the cards. That's a casino security feature, to enable the dealer to peek at the hole card, when the up card is a Ten or an Ace, but without revealing to the dealer what the exact value of the hole card is. That's something I should write about in a separate blog post, but for the purposes of this post I just want to say that the operator would still be able to visually identify the Tens and Aces, even when they show up as blank cards.

When the shoe is switched to talking mode the video signal will get deciphered inside the shoe, by a piece of visual recognition software. The software basically converts the visual signal into a voice prompt that gets transmitted to the earpiece. The motherboard is completely sealed-in inside the shoe, along with the batteries.

The batteries will last up to 13 hours in talking mode, and less for video mode. There's no way to change the batteries, but proper maintenance should keep them healthy for many years.

The most obvious use for this shoe is to play it against the house. Basically, if the host of a private blackjack game can be duped into using this shoe for the evening, one player can easily clean out the house (we are talking about a private joint; this scam would not work in a licensed casino). One way to do it is to occupy any seat at the blackjack table and make hit and stand decision based on perfect information of the top card of the shoe. Another, less direct, scenario would require the player to sit in first base and bet according to perfect knowledge of the first card, at the beginning of each round. Basically, if the first card is a Ten or an Ace, the player plays bigger bets (sort of like card counting in blackjack; when the player knows the shoe is rich in Tens and Aces, the player bets more). Both of these scenarios are basically the electronic equivalent of planting six decks of marked cards and letting the host use his own shoe.

Another possibility is to use this shoe against the players. In this case the house would own the shoe and work with an anchor man. The anchor man is a player that sits in third base, which makes him the last to act before the dealer. So, in hole card games the anchor man would know which card the dealer has in the hole, because the shoe told him. He would also always know the value of the top card of the shoe. So, when the action comes to the player on third base the player makes hit and stand decision based on what card is good or bad for the dealer.

A slightly different variation of anchor play is to target one specific player. This can be done with an anchor man but it can also be done by planting a player one position before the sucker. This way the operator makes his own hit and stand decision solely based on what hurts or helps the player seated next to him. There's a common misconception amongst gamblers that fancy themselves blackjack players, that bad hit and stand decisions of one player hurt others. Mathematicians have gone through great lengths to prove that is not the case. Ironically, this is one scenario when it definitely is the case.

The talking shoe is definitely one of the most intriguing gaffed shoes ever made. To the best of my knowledge this shoe is the latest in the evolution of gaffed shoes. It should not come as a surprise that the price is quite high, not only because it's an elaborate gaff but also to keep the number of these shoes to a minimum.

At the present time I am writing a book Manual for the Bustout Dealer - The Two Shoe. The book was supposed to be out a couple of months ago, but I decided to include a chapter with detailed descriptions of various kinds of gaffed shoes. One reason why the book was a bit on hold was because I really wanted to include a description of the talking shoe, with a picture. Now I finally got permission to do so and I'm glad I waited. The book is basically done, but there is still one small part that I am waiting to resolve. At the end it's all worth the wait because the book is more complete.

X-Ray Vision Contact Lenses... Real or a Hoax?

2010-07-31T01:57:00.050-04:00

About two weeks ago I received an email from a very good friend of mine, asking me to have a look at some contact lenses advertised on a web site of a Chinese crooked gambling distributor. The English description was badly written, but it was still possible to understand what they were trying to say. The company claimed that they had developed revolutionary contact lenses that enable the user to see through paper playing cards. The purpose of seeing through playing cards was to be able to see the print at the face of the cards. The asking price was $6,800. The payment method was Western Union.

My friend asked me to contact the company and try to get more information. First of all, I have to admit that I was very skeptical. But I was also curious to see what would happen if I called the number listed on the site. So I did. To make a story short, I never was able to have an actual conversation with anyone. All the guy ever said was to send him an email. I never had any intention to do so.

Coincidentally, two weeks later I received an email from a CARDSHARK Online member, asking me to comment on some kind of X-ray vision contact lenses. I told him that I was familiar with the site that advertises them, but that I was unable to get in touch with anyone willing to talk on the phone. A few minutes later he sent me a link to a video demo of these contact lenses. I uploaded the video, and here it is.

http://cardshark.tv/watch_video.php?v=9a56918940bc799
This video demo is not accessible through the main page that advertises these contact lenses. So, I guess the company sends out an email with the link to anyone inquiring by email.

The video was interesting and it also answered some questions. Now I could see exactly how the ink was visible through the cards. But there was only one problem. I didn't believe a thing. But the video did give me a good idea about the "physics" involved in this latest development in luminous contact lenses.

After seeing the video I had a pretty good idea how these contacts possibly work. Of course, I can never be too sure that my theory is correct, but there's nothing preventing me to do a couple of test and see if I can come up with my own solution. So that's precisely what I did.

It took me about 2 minutes to make my own contact lenses, virtually from scratch, and another 2 minutes to record a video. Then it took me 15 to 20 minutes to edit the video and optimize it for the web. Here's my video. Pretty good, isn't it?

http://cardshark.tv/watch_video.php?v=746571eb94168bf
My video also clearly shows how my contact lenses would enable the user to see through playing cards. There's only one problem, though. My video is definitely a complete hoax.

In the next part of this post I will describe exactly how I made my contact lenses and how I shot and edited my video. Please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that the Chinese distributor did the exact same thing. I am simply explaining how I did it.

First of all, my contact lenses aren't even real contact lenses. I simply took an empty soda bottle, cut out part of the curved side below the neck of the bottle and then placed a dime on top and cut-out a circular segment out around it. The small circular cutout looks more or less like a contact lens, on camera. That's good enough for a video.

Next step was to create a couple of images of playing cards, shown in reverse, as would appear if seen through the back of the cards. I simply scanned two cards and flipped the image, then made a color print. Also, I added a special touch. As you can see I slightly blurred the faces of the cards, thinking this would be how the print would appear if seen through paper.

All the remained was to cut-out the printouts and shoot the damn video. Here's a picture that shows all the props that were uses to produce the video demo.

It took me about 2 minutes to record the video. That was pretty straightforward. I simply dealt down three cards (as in the Chinese demo) and passed a contact lens above the cards so the camera could see through it. But once I put the lens back into the case, I didn't stop the camera. I let the camera run while I placed three additional cards right on top of the three initial ones. The additional cards were the two reversed printouts, plus another card face down. Once the additional cards were in place, exactly on top of the initial cards, I let the camera run for a few seconds, then I hit the stop button.

Once I uploaded the recorded video on my hard drive I split it into two separate video files. The first one was the recording of the action shot, showing my hand passing a contact lens over the cards. There was nothing amazing about that shot, as of yet. The second shot was basically a still video recording of three cards laying flat on the table. There was also nothing spectacular about that shot, but once I'd put the two of them together the result would be... interesting, to say the least.

The editing was pretty simple. I basically placed the still recording on a separate layer, under the action shot. Then I used a round mask over the top video layer and tracked the position and size of the round contact lens. I used 45% opacity to blend the two images together through the mask and I also blurred the edge a bit, to make it look more realistic. Once that was all done I used a noise filter to make the video a bit more grainy. That all took 15 to 20 minutes of my time.

Once again, I am not saying that the Chinese vendor recorded their video in the same way. Perhaps they used a different video filter, or perhaps they used a different contact lens. And perhaps their video is not a hoax, at all. But as a general rule I have to see something with my own eyes before I believe it.

There are a few things that don't add up in the whole product description, including the original video demo.

First of all, this is the first crooked gambling gaff that I cannot explain with physics. Any other gaff I've ever seen or heard of makes sense in the universe we live in. But this one seems to have some kind of properties that simply cannot be explained. That's the first thing that stands out and that's the main reason why I simply can't believe the gaff is real.

But let's imagine the gaff is real. There are still some things that don't quite make sense.

The gaff is listed for $6,800. That's not cheap. Does the original demo video look like the kind of video that would be used to advertise a prop of that price range? Why is that video a hand-held camcorder recording of another video that was originally playing on someone's computer screen? Perhaps there's a logical explanation for that.

First of all, a camera recording of a computer screen will produce a lot of artifacts, such as noise, distortion and Moiré patterns. All those artifacts would be helpful if someone wanted to obfuscate some details that one would prefer not to be seen by attentive viewers.

Second, for most part, the second-generation video crops out the face of the demonstrator. His face is only visible for 21 frames (at 30 frames per second). Furthermore, if you freeze-frame the video and look closely, you will notice that the face of the demonstrator is not really visible in those 21 frames. It actually appears as if his mouth and eyes have been blurred-out. Have a look.

In my opinion, if someone had such an amazing product they should also be competent enough to produce a decent video that really shows what their product can do. At least that's the usual way people do business. But what this vendor is doing just happens to be the classic textbook approach how crooks that sell snake oil would traditionally do a presentation of a bogus product. They don't let you see much. instead they let your imagination fill in the blanks. Most people will not like it. But sooner or later a sucker is bound to show up and believe what he wants to believe, just because he's desperate to believe in something that doesn't exist. Smoke and mirrors.

There are some details in the video that don't quite make sense, apart from the fact that there's not physical explanation for X-ray contact lenses. Speaking of, why don't these contact lenses also see through the fabric cover on top of the table?

Nowadays contact lenses are soft. I tried to pick up a couple of regular contact lenses using a pair of tweezers and I was not able to do it quite as seen in the video. Soft contacts simply warp, especially when there's also contact lens solution stuck to the surface. In fact, that's the reason why I made my contact lens out of rigid plastic cut out from a soda bottle.

Also, contact lenses are curved and reflective. Nowhere in the original video am I able to spot a reflection that would give the impression that the surface is curved. The contact lens looks like a round cutout window through which we can see the bottom layer, just like the special effect editing I produced (in fact my editing looks better).

Furthermore, when you remove a contact lens from a liquid a lot of that liquid remains stuck on the lens. When I was recording my video I was having trouble getting the liquid to slide off the lens. As a result I noticed that droplets of water were stuck to the contact lens, creating additional "lenses" that were creating distortions as I looked through it. That's not present in the original video, although I was able to preserve some of that natural effect in my video.

If you watch the original video frame by frame you may be able to see that some red spots show up on the tip of the tweezers, as they pass over the center card (which appears to be the 8 of hearts). If special effects were used the red hearts may have bled through parts of the upper payer. A sloppy editor may be too lazy to fix it.

I could continue this list, but the most important thing is that the whole thing doesn't really make sense. What kind of illumination goes through the card, then bounces back from the printed ink at the face of the card and then passed through the card again on its way up and makes a clear picture of an image printed with ink. If that illumination can go through paper why doesn't it also just go through the print, too? After all, it seems to be passing though the print of the back design without any trouble.

Also, if illumination that can be seen with human eyes passes though cards, how come it doesn't get filtered while passing through paper? If it did get filtered the images would not show up exactly red and black.

If one wanted to give these guys the benefit of a doubt one may say that they could have produced a video simulation of what these contact lenses do in real life. One may say that the company didn't want to reveal too much, so they chose to make a fake video and that the video is just fake to protect the secret. That is a theoretical possibility.

However, Chinese crooked gambling distributors have some history with their web sites. Many years ago I found a Chinese site that advertised luminous contact lenses and some other gaffs. The images they used on their site, supposedly to show their own products, were images they lifted from my site, without my permission. They also used images of my prism shoes to advertise prism shoes that they supposedly sold. One should wonder, if they really sold these products, wouldn't they be able to just take their own pictures of their own products? Why lift images from the web?

That site eventually disappeared and another site appeared, under a different URL. That new site bore a striking resemblance to the former site. But this one didn't use my images. Instead they used generic images of contact lenses that could easily be found through Google. And this time they used eBay images of dealing shoes to advertise prism shoes. The images were of clear shoes; meaning the faceplate was 100% clear. The idea of a prism shoe (i.e. second dealing shoe) with a clear faceplate is simply ludicrous.

There were other instances with other sites that looked more or less the same, but I stopped paying attention. Every now and then someone would send me an email, letting me know that my materials were showing up on Chinese sites. I didn't care.

Back to the X-ray contact lenses.

We have to ask the question, what could anyone possibly stand to gain by making a hoax presentation of a product that doesn't exist? The answer to that one is very simple.

One of the greatest con men of all times, Victor Lustig, made a name for himself after it became known that he had managed to sell the Eiffel Tower, not once but twice. The Eiffel Tower did exist, it just wasn't his to sell. But good old uncle Victor also managed to sell a money duplicating machine, also more than once. That machine never existed, but that didn't stop him from collecting a few payments from a few clients that really wanted to have it.

If the Chinese site is a hoax the logical explanation would be that the site is very likely to disappear without a trace, as soon as too many suckers get mad and put the word out that they've been had. Whom would they complain to, anyway? Would they report the site to the Chinese authorities, explaining that they've been cheated while trying to buy cheating equipment to cheat others?

I really have no proof that the Chinese site is a hoax and I am not saying that it is. But if it is a hoax they probably do sell some of the other products that they advertise. After all, I do own a Chinese crooked mahjong set that came from one of those distributors.

I don't know why I'm such a skeptic, but I never believed in the impossible. So, I don't believe in this product either, especially when there are too many other explanation that are anything but impossible.

I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to add a set of X-ray vision contacts to your collection of crooked gambling gaffs. But for $6,800 you might as well spend a couple of thousand dollars more and visit the Great Wall of China, and arrange for a live demo. I definitely wouldn't recommend sending that kind of cash via Western Union, to some guy that sells cheating equipment, for a product that sounds too good to be true.

PS - I also put together a video that shows my original video recording next to the doctored version, X-Ray Vision Contacts... Exposé of Hoax Video.

Mysterious Will & Finck Device

2010-07-30T16:57:00.012-04:00

This morning I received an email from someone "seeking information on an unusual brass Will & Finck device." I asked the gentleman to send me some pictures. Next time I checked my email there was a reply with the following five images.

The email read:

The item is brass, approx. 8.5" L x 5.5 "W (marked Will & Finck... is genuine/authentic) but for unknown use. Possibly gaming/gaff related, however it does show some ink and reverse ghost lettering (illegible).

The armature raises and slides both in vertical as well as horizontal positions, two clips for holding down paper. Dial can be positioned and set to pivot in a semi-circular radius. Initially, I believed it perhaps a card marking (cheating device). However, it certainly does not look like any gaff that I have ever seen.

My other thought upon having it in hand was it was perhaps for some type of printing use, such as maps, charts or billheads (seems an odd device for that). I am fairly up on Will & Finck but can find no reference, therefor with your experience I thought perhaps you might have at least come across something similar by another maker.

I took a close look at the images and flipped the last picture to see if any of the text could be read. I also applied some filters to enhance the contrast.

I replied to the gentleman that I had no idea what this device was. It looked as if the stains were chemical reactions, perhaps from some photographic process. He gave me permission to pass the pictures around and also make a blog post in hopes that someone might be able to come forward with some information. He also asked me not to reveal his identity, so the gentleman shall remain anonymous. His follow up email contained some additional information:

The arm to left of mechanism raises the dial device on the upper horizontal bar so as to allow an item to be placed underneath the vertical clips (to thin for glass plate), as well as pivots the center round dial when slide up or down vertically.

The lower arm below dial also adjusts radius by up or down movement. There are two holes in the lower arm, of which some device for marking/impressing/cutting appears to have been placed. There is also a dial located under the base which is for some adjustment.

I collect and sell Will & Finck items and this is by far the most unusual...

...I have thought to check with the historical societies as well as Bancroft in hopes they may have any original Will & Finck catalogs or microfilm. Unfortunately, many original documents were destroyed. The only Will & Finck full line retail catalog I know of, 1896, belonged to the California Historical Society in San Francisco. A Will & Finck gambling catalog was held at the Bancroft, which is what lead me to Maskelyne's book Sharps & Flats and your site.

Original Will & Finck items are highly desirable by collectors and highly priced. This item looks very unique so there is a chance it is a one of a kind. Perhaps it was a tool the company used in the fabrication of some other items.

The purpose of this blog post is to show this item around in hopes that someone may come forward with some information. Should anyone know anything about this item, or know of a similar item, please contact me through my site CARDSHARK Online.

Replica of an Early Baccarat Dealing Shoe

2010-07-26T23:35:00.001-04:00

In a recent blog post, titled Replica of an Early Baccarat Dealing Block, I talked a bit about the evolution of casino dealing shoes. All the dealing shoes that we see today seem to have spawned from a simple accessory called a marble block, described in the book The Stealing Machine. Failing to find an original antique marble block I explained how I made a couple of replicas based on a picture in the book.

Another early gaming accessory that's also described in the same book is an early baccarat dealing shoe, which is open at the front and has no slanted ramp. I believe this is the earliest style of dealing shoes ever made. I've never been able to come across one of those, either, so I also decided to make a replica.

The shoe came out good on my first try. I used purpleheart wood and I am particularly happy with the way the box joints came out at the rear side of the shoe. I wasn't quite sure how to resolve the slanted piece at the rear (because the photograph in The Stealing Machine is not clear) so for now I simply placed one of my dealing blocks there (that's why the colors are mismatched). When I have some extra time I'll experiment with some other solutions.

The shoe works very well. According to the book these kinds of shoes used to be used for the game chemin de fer, which is a version of baccarat that's no longer popular.

Looking at this simple gaming accessory it's pretty amazing to think that nowadays people seem to need automatic shufflers and electronic dealing shoes just to be able to gamble. That definitely wasn't the case in the 19th century.

Vintage Postcard of Two Young Ladies Playing Cards

2010-07-22T23:58:00.001-04:00

This is a rare vintage photo postcard of two young ladies playing cards. I found it on eBay for $15.99, plus $1.56 S&H. This postcard is a real find and definitely one of my favorite card player images.

The photograph is definitely a posed studio shot, but unlike most of the other card player photographs from that era, this one doesn't feel posed.

I particularly like this shot because of the mood. There's just an overall nice feel to the image. I would even go as far as saying that the photograph almost feels as if Vermeer was the photographer. Vermeer painted mostly domestic scenes and this picture almost feels like his Lace Maker or The Milkmaid. What sets the mood is, of course, the presence of the two young ladies, especially the gentle, feminine pose of the lady resting her chin on her hands.

Replica of an Early Baccarat Dealing Block

2010-07-18T10:07:00.007-04:00

What would a 19th century time-traveling gambler think of our casinos, today? And what would he discover on his journey into the future?

I have no doubt that our time traveler would experience a culture shock. There would be all these new games to play. Even older games would now come with many new (and "exciting") betting options. He may also get excited about all these "free" trips to all these casino destinations (available for anyone that looks like he may be willing to blow his retirement money on the spin of a wheel). And last but not least, he would be stunned by all the new equipment that is being used on the casinos floor.

The equipment would probably be what would make the jaw of a 19th century gambler drop all the way down to the carpeted casino floor. Slot machines would be nothing compare to fully automated games, such as the robotic baccarat game, or the touch screen craps table, to mention a few. But even dealer dealt games would now be fitted with breathtaking equipment, such as the one2six automatic shuffler, the Angel Eye intelligent shoe, the JohnHuxley optical dealing shoe, and so on. And he thought the 19th century was the era of the great industrial revolution. But to a 19th century mind our casino wouldn't even look real. It would look more like an artificial landscape that came from the creative minds of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.

For us to really comprehend how our casino equipment would look through the eyes of a 19th century gambler, we would have to have a closer look at the equipment that is the 19th century equivalent of today's electronic dealing shoes. But we do not have to hop into a time machine to look into the past. Fortunately, many old objects are in the hands of collectors. And whatever can't be found in private collections can sometimes be found in old books.

One gambling prop that I've always been fond of is the marble block, described on page 28 of The Stealing Machine. What I like about the marble block is its simplicity. To think that this simple prop is the great grand daddy of the one2six automatic shuffler is quite amazing. Perhaps it's precisely the simplicity of this prop that is responsible for its disappearance. This prop is so nondescript it was never likely to be picked up by a collector, unless one knew exactly what it was. So, I've never been able to find an original marble block, anywhere. That's why I've decided to make my own. I actually ended up making two pieces. And mine are not made from marble, but from ebony.

The marble block shown in The Stealing Machine also appears to be made from wood. It's hard to tell, actually, because the photograph is dark, but it does appear to have wood grains. So, I've decided to take the liberty to use wood, to make my replica. And since wood is definitely not marble, I've also taken the liberty to rename the prop and call it a dealing block, instead.

The first dealing block I made was the steep one, pictured on the left. I used some basic geometry to analyze the perspective on the original photograph, and then used my measurements to make my dealing block match the original in size and proportions. I've soon realized that my dealing block would work very well on a hard surface, but it was impossible to deal cards on a padded card table. The reason was the angle at the front, which is rather steep. So, I've experimented with angles and them made another dealing block that works well on a padded surface; that's the dealing block on the right. If these props were made nowadays, one would have to know what kind of surface it is intended to be used on, before settling on the angle. Next photo is the dealing block in action, on a padded surface.

According to the author of The Stealing Machine, the marble block was used to the game of baccara en banque. That game was dealt with two decks of cards shuffled together (some further research revealed that the game was also sometimes dealt with three or four decks, but I don't know if the marble block was used in those cases, or if dealing shoe would be more common.

Overall, I am really happy with the way my dealing blocks turned out. It was actually quite time consuming to make these props, but since original dealing blocks can no longer be found I am glad I took the time to these replicas. Another reasons for making these replicas was to include a photograph of a dealing block in my upcoming book Manual for the Bustout Dealer: The Two Shoe, which has a chapter on the history of dealing shoes.

Now that I've figured out how to make these props I may actually offer them in my online gaming supply store. So, if you're a collector you might want to pick one up.

Deland's Daisy Deck

2010-07-05T10:35:00.007-04:00

Collectors of gambling paraphernalia will probably be familiar with De Land's mechanical decks. Those were always listed in the Blue Book crooked gambling catalog of the KC Card Company.

De Land's mechanical decks were factory made marked cards. They came in various back designs and they all used the clock system. I just picked up a Daisy deck from 1944 (as seen on the tax stamp; but the Daisy decks were designed in 1919).

De Land's mechanical decks were not really cheating gaffs to be used in card games. They were designed for card tricks. However, since the KC Card Co. did sell them, I thought I should add one to my collection.

The cards are really poor quality, in every respect. The paper is terrible and the print is sloppy. The daisies seem to have been whited-out by an intern on a lunch break, as there are plenty of imperfections in the print.

All of De Land's decks were sold with instructions, however, I those were not included with the secondhand decks that I purchased. In any event, the basic code is easy to break. I included a picture showing a spread of all the hearts, from Ace to King. The code for these cards are the daisies in the upper left corner; the orientation of the crescent around those daisies indicate the suit (the hearts are open at the bottom).

I wish the deck did come with instructions because I would be happy to include them here. Perhaps someone can send those to me and I can edit this post.

CARDSHARK Online Blog Archive 2009 Book

2010-06-25T23:06:00.012-04:00

Technically speaking, this blog has been around since October 2005. But I wasn't really making any serious posts until August 2009. So, the year 2009 was definitely an important turning point for this blog. There were 59 posts between August and the end of the year.

The entire 2009 blog archive is now available in a book format and can be purchased through the CARDSHARK Online BookStore. The book is available in two editions, color and black & white (the black & white edition is substantially cheaper).

I ordered two of the books for myself and I am very pleased with the quality. So, there will definitely be more books in the future. As for this one, I am including the Preface from the book, as it explains my reasons for putting this blog in print as well as my thinking behind publishing Print On Demand books, in general.

Electronic media and online publishing have changed the way we live. But every innovation has its drawbacks. When it comes to electronic media the obvious drawback is durability.

History shows that records survive only in certain forms. The paintings on the cave walls in Lascaux, France, have survived some 32,000 years. Egyptian hieroglyphs are still here. Stone carvings and oil paintings have a good chance to survive. And of course books, newspapers and other print media have a good chance to be preserved by generations to come. But whatever our ancestors may have been drawing in the sand is long gone. And electronic media is pretty much like that. Even if the actual media survives, there may not be a way to access the files because of compatibility issues with future software and hardware. So, the most logical thing to do with all of that virtual media is to print it all. There goes our rain forest.

Whatever the environmental issues may be, I've decided to offer a printed version of my blog. After all, it all took a lot of work and I don't want to leave it all in cyberspace. If I make a drawing in the sand and I really like it, I think I'm entitled to make a picture of it. So, as far as my blog goes I thin it's a good idea to do a yearly archive in a book format. The good news for the environment is that those are all POD (Print On Demand) books, so we don't have to worry about cutting any trees for books that no one may never even buy.

At the time of this writing by blog can be accessed through http://cardshark-online.blogspot.com/ and it is really an extension of my main site CARDSHARK Online, which is hosted at http://cardshark.us/. My site was launched in December 1999 and to this day remains the leading internet resource for card cheating and crooked gambling in general. My blog first appeared in October 2005, but I have not really started blogging until August 2009, with the blog post titled SHARPS and FLATS: the Secrets of the Cardsharps, now online, which appears in this book as the first post. I've decided to exclude all the earlier blog posts from this book, since they were not really good posts and they don't even fall into the year 2009.

The text in this book appears exactly as it appears on the blog. I've decided not to edit anything in or out. I basically realized that I'd get paid the same whether or not I spent any time editing the text. So, my practical senses told me that my time would be better spent elsewhere. Plus, I think editing would be totally missing the point of this book, which is to preserve the blog as I originally wrote it.

I was also considering to perhaps do some annotations. But then the same thought entered my mind, once again; i.e. I'd get paid the same, one way or another. There's also a small technicality issue. Annotations are done when one adds text to a book that had originally been written by another author. But when you annotate your own work you are not annotating, you are editing. And I've already concluded that I'd stay away from editing. So, I thought to myself, to hell with all that extra work and let's just do a copy and paste job and get it over with.

So, allow me to present to you: the printed version of the 2009 CARDSHARK Online Blog archive.

So, that's it. I hope some of the readers of this blog will purchase a copy of this book.

Tutorials for the Two Shoe

2010-06-22T22:59:00.003-04:00

Some of you already know that I am currently writing a book on the subject of two shoes. The book keeps expanding as I work on it, which is why I haven't finished it yet, but I'm happy to say that some of the main chapters are already done.

One of the main chapters has two tutorials on second dealing from the two shoe. So, I copied a big chunk out of that chapter and published two tutorials on CARDSHARK Online, in the tutorials chapter.

You will have to have an active membership account to view these two tutorials, though. So, if you don't have one yet it will cost you $5.95 per year to get it. Trust me, you'll hardly notice you ever spent that money. And just imagine what pleasure you'll have from having your own membership account on my site.

How to Pick a Roller for a Gaffed Dealing Shoe

2010-06-17T18:49:00.004-04:00

As some of you may be aware of, I am currently preparing a small Blowout Sale of Gaffed Dealing Shoes. Since these shoes will be offered on eBay at greatly reduced prices none of the shoes will come with their rollers. Fortunately, it's not too difficult to find a commercially available roller that fits just right, for around $25. But the roller does need to fit right for the shoe to work.

I will not provide any instructions along with the shoes on sale and I will not have time to help anyone pick a roller that fits. However, I happen to be writing a book, titled Manual for the Bustout Dealer - The Two Shoe, and in it there is an entire chapter about rollers. So, to make things easy for everyone, I am providing here a cut-and-paste job of that entire chapter on rollers. Easy enough for me to do, and there's really nothing more I can think of that would help people find a roller that fits. So, here it is.

To a dealing shoe, the roller is the same as the engine is to a motorboat. The body of the boat may have been designed well to cut through waves and to glide with minimal resistance, but if you attach the wrong engine to the back of the boat, the vessel will perform poorly. Like an engine on a motorboat, the roller is responsible for pushing the block of cards down the ramp towards the faceplate, as the dealer keeps exhausting the cards, one at a time, throughout the course of the game.

The first thing that should be said about the roller is that a heavy roller will work much better than a light one. It should be quite easy to understand why, because for a two shoe to function properly, the top card must be pressed snugly against the back of the faceplate. So, a heavy roller should do the trick.

All of the rollers that I make are heavy enough to do the job. That’s because I use a heavy piece of brass to make the cylindrical wheel in the roller. But additional weights can be put inside the roller, right under the front end. Some makers simply glue a heavy piece of metal under the front end.

The other important thing about the roller is that the wheel needs to turn smoothly. That’s also quite logical. Since the roller is supposed to be pushing a block of cards down a ramp that is angled only about 10°. If the wheel has too much friction it will stop the roller from sliding down and take away some of the force. That would be the same as letting your car roll down a slope and keeping your foot on the break. So, the best rollers that I make have the rolling pin mounted on two miniature ball bearings. Some may argue that it is not necessary to go through such great lengths, and I will agree, but so much work goes into the fabrication of a good two shoe that I feel this small extra step is worth it.

This is a good place to mention one of the possible big tells of a two shoe.

Some two shoes are built in such way that the front is very steep, almost vertical. There may be several reasons for this, one of them being, to make the cards feed towards the back of the faceplate more smoothly.

The design element that results in a steep faceplate is basically a steep ramp. The reasoning is that if the ramp is steeper, the roller will press harder on the block of cards, from the back. Yes, it most definitely will, but the downside is that the shoe will look very odd. This design decision is basically the equivalent of placing an object under the back of the shoe, to lift it up. So, the entire shoe will also appear quite elevated at the rear. To be perfectly honest, I have never actually seen such a two shoe, but I have seen one on a picture; and it looked weird. Not only do such shoes look weird but the elevation is definitely one known tell of a badly designed two shoe. So, such shoes should be avoided, because anyone with minimal knowledge can tell it’s a two shoe. A well made normal-looking two shoe will perform just as well as an elevated one; or perhaps even better, since the cards will come out at a more natural angle, closer to the table surface.

The angle at the front of the roller plays a crucial role in the performance of a two shoe. That angle can either produce a tight fit, a steep fit or a shallow fit. Out of the three, a shallow fit is bad.

The following image shows a roller with a tight fit, against the back of the faceplate. Actually, this is even a bit of a steep fit, which I will explain later, but for now let’s call this a tight fit.

The shoe in this photograph is actually my mid-production testing shoe. I might as well take this opportunity to explain what is the purpose of this shoe.

I use this shoe to test any faceplate, before I mount it into a shoe. The clear faceplate in this photograph is one of my old testing samples. I made several clear faceplates to study the mechanics and decide on the best proportions and measurements. The faceplates can be fitted inside of the testing shoe, also clear, and held in place by a tight fit. Now that I no longer have to experiment with various proportions for faceplates I still use the clear shoe to test any faceplate, because I can clearly see the action from the sides. Once I am confident that a faceplate performs right inside the testing shoe, I sign off on it, and then mount it inside the real shoe, which becomes the final product.

Since the roller is fully exposed inside of the clear shoe, it is easy to understand what it means that the roller is a tight fit. Basically, it means that the front of the roller fits snugly against the back of the faceplate. Also the roller happens to fit perfectly under the prism, without ever touching it.

As I mentioned earlier, this is called a tight fit, but to be technical the fit shown on the previous photograph is actually slightly steep. And a slightly steep fit is actually what we want. So, to better explain what it means let’s look at a photograph that shows a slightly more pronounced example of a steep fit.

The picture shows that the front of the roller is not perfectly parallel to the rear of the faceplate. Since this is a steep fit, the top of the roller hits the back of the faceplate, right below the prism, while the bottom part is at a slight angle away from the faceplate.

A slightly steep fit is a better choice than a perfectly snug tight fit. The reason is simply because it is important that the upper edge of the top card be pressed against the faceplate, so that it can be driven smoothly into the prism. You will also notice that this roller is noticeably lower than the one shown in the previous photo. That lower height does not have any negative impact on the performance of the shoe.

The benefit of a steep fit may be easier to explain in a diagram. The following diagram shows the position of the cards as a result of a steep fit.

As you can see the upper edge of the top card is nicely secured right under the opening between the prism and the faceplate. With the top card in this position the operator should have no trouble performing a peek or a second deal.

The added benefit of a steep fit is that it may actually help pushing the top card into the prism even if the cards have a slight positive bend. Since most playing cards have a natural positive bend that is a situation that is expected to occur quite frequently. So, if your two shoe is fitted with a steep roller it will definitely help. So, in conclusion, a tight fit is perfectly good, but a slightly steep fit is even better.

The only other possibility is a shallow fit, which is bad and even makes it impossible to peek and deal seconds. A shallow fit is shown in the following image, followed by a diagram.

In these two images you can see how a perfectly well designed two shoe has been disabled by a poorly fitting roller. The shallow fitting roller is pressing the cards at the wrong place and actually ends up moving the upper edge of the top card away from the narrow slit under the prism. If you want to thread a needle, you should be holding the thread close to the end, not far away from the tip.

The only benefit of a shallow roller is the reason why I made one in the first place. A shallow-fitting roller can be placed inside of a two shoe deliberately, to completely disable it. That way no one is likely to discover by chance that the shoe is gaffed.

A good shoe should already come equipped with the right roller. However, sometimes there may be a reason why one may have to look for a commercially available roller. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of fitting a two shoe with an inexpensive roller right off the shelf. If the roller is a good fit, the shoe should work fine. But one should be careful because some rollers may end up damaging a two shoe. The following photograph shows a roller that is far too high for the shoe.

The roller in the photo is actually a good fit for this shoe, as far as the slope is concerned. The fact that it is too high will have not affect the performance of the two shoe. However, I am concerned with the fact that the roller is hitting the prism when the shoe is empty. I can think of a few scenarios when someone moves the empty shoe around, with the roller inside, and then tilting the shoe in the process so the roller actually ends up hitting the prism. It would take a really big force to actually damage the prism, but I’m still not crazy about the idea that a roller is so high up. Plus, the roller should really fit under the prism so that it doesn’t look odd from the front, if an empty shoe is left unattended.

There is one similar scenario that could potentially end up damaging the shoe. The example is shown in the next photo.

The photo shows the most critical example, with a roller that is barely higher than the prism. The possibility of this roller getting jammed under the prism is not far fetched. All it would take is for someone to move the empty shoe around and tilt it in the process. A weighted roller like this one that slams into the prism with full force is the last thing anyone would want to see happen to an expensive two shoe.

Rollers also come in various lengths. Although the length of the roller will not affect the performance of a shoe, in any way, a roller that is too long will still cause some problems when the dealer needs to put the cards inside the shoe. If the roller is too long it will basically appear as if the shoe is too short. So, if you ever have to pick a roller for your shoe, remember to bring along six decks of cards and try to put them into the shoe along with the roller. If it feels that the roller can barely be wiggled-in at the rear of the shoe then it is definitely too long, so you will need to find a shorter one.

You should also be aware of the fact that some shoes come equipped with a braked roller. That’s a roller with an internal brake that stops the roller from being pushed backwards.

The brake is just a simple metal rod fitted inside of a rubber tube. The rod freely hangs between the rear wall of the shell and the back of the wheel. If the roller is pushed back, the rod automatically gets wedged-in, and acts as a brake, because the backward rotation of the wheel pulls it down. Since the wheel is fitted with rubber O-rings, the friction locks the rod.

Braked rollers are usually used only in baccarat shoes. That’s because some baccarat shoes are fitted with a handle at the rear. This handle serves the purpose of passing the shoe around the table. That procedure is actually used in chemin de fer, which is a game similar to baccarat, where each player in turn gets the chance to play the bank. So the shoe is passed on to the next banker and that player is given the privilege to deal the cards. Since the shoe is passed around, the roller is fitted with a brake to prevent it from bouncing around.

Blackjack shoes are usually not fitted with braked rollers, simply because the shoe stays in one place so there is no chance that the roller would ever bounce around. However, some dealers may still prefer to use a braked roller to deal seconds. A braked roller prevents the pack of cards from being pushed backwards as the dealer applies more pressure at the front if the shoe, during peeks and second deals.

The braked roller shown in the previous photograph is the simplest version. There are some other types of braked rollers that use different principles; some even use a ratchet mechanism that permits motion in only one direction. But we don’t have to go into any of those details; I simply want to make you aware that these options exist. But the most important thing to understand is that a braked roller may actually be better for a two shoe.

The Original Rough & Smooth Playing Cards

2010-06-14T07:58:00.011-04:00

Readers of this blog should be aware by now that I am a big fan of the rough-and-smooth dealing shoe. This is a gaffed dealing shoe that is very similar to the prism shoe, except that there is no actual prism that enables peeking. So, instead of peeking the dealer must use marked cards to identify the top card. The most popular marking system in use, for this purpose, is rough-and-smooth.

In a nutshell, rough-and-smooth cards are basically sorts. This means that the deck consists of playing cards combined from two different sources. Some of the cards have a smooth finish and some have the more popular cambric (or "rough") finish.

The cards that were used originally for this purpose were the popular Bee cards. But Bee cards always come in cambric finish, so where does one find "smooth" Bee cards?

At one point the US Playing Card Company actually produced some standard Bee cards with smooth finish. I am not sure if this was intentional or if the cards were basically factory rejects that ended up in the stores, but whatever the case, one can no longer find any smooth Bee cards.

I am fortunate enough to have one smooth Bee deck in my collection. I've actually had it for a while, but I never opened the box, until just recently. For all I knew, the box may have contained regular cambric finish cards (the box is actually labeled "CAMBRIC FINISH" and as far as I know there never were any boxes labeled "SMOOTH FINISH"). So, here's a picture of an original smooth Bee deck.

I opened this box because I am currently writing a book, titled Manual for the Bustout Dealer - The Two Shoe, and I wanted to have some photos showing the original smooth Bee cards. The photo above doesn't really show the smooth finish, so here's a close-up shot of a smooth Bee card next to a regular one.

My upcoming book will have a more detailed description of these cards, and how they may be used, but this is just a sneak preview.

Another Postcard With a Card Cheat

2010-06-09T00:28:00.009-04:00

Readers of this blog may have noticed that there haven't been any posts in almost three weeks. The truth is, I just haven't had any time to do it, because of some other priorities. In fact, I still have no time, but to keep this blog live I still think I should post something. So, this one will be very short, and, let's say, mostly pictorial.

Here are a couple of images showing the front and back of another postcard I recently picked up on eBay. Since a picture says a thousand words, I guess there's nothing more I can add, except perhaps the price, which was $6.99, plus $2.22 for shipping.

19th Century Etching of Gamblers

2010-05-21T16:37:00.004-04:00

There are numerous prints and photographs of gamblers and card players on eBay, but in my opinion not many of them are worth bidding on. Every now and then a good piece of art shows up and sometimes I even get to be the lucky winning bidder.

This one is a 19th century print from a copper etching. It is titled Hard Hit and the artist that produced the etching is one P.A. Massé. The seller added his own title, in the eBay description, as Losing Badly at Cards, which I think is quite a good one.

The scan shown here is a bit cropped, so you can't see a hand written date in the lower right side, stating that the print is from 1899. I don't believe the writing is original from the period, but I do believe it is accurate. That's because the seller specializes in antique prints and he stated that this print was issued in London, in 1899 by Virtue for "The Art Journal." In fact the inscription at the top of the picture says London, J.S. Virtue & Co. Ltd., so I assume the dealer knows what it all means and how to date the work. Also, the inscription at the very bottom says, From the Picture in the possession of Humphrey Roberts, Esq.

The work itself is quite good, so it was definitely done by a skilled artists (which is not always the case with etchings one finds on eBay). The subject matter is obviously gambling at cards. The sucker is seen leaving a game of cards while three men remain in the room. The older man seated in the center of the table is shuffling a deck of cards, overhand style. There are hundreds of playing cards scattered around the floor and there is an overturned chair next to the table. I see no direct evidence that the loser has been cheated, but since this is a gambling theme it is not out of the realm of possibilities that there was more to the story than meets the eye.

I did catch one interesting detail, however. Right next to the older man, to his left, there are four objects that appear to be four decks of playing cards. Then there is also an inkwell with a feather stuck in it. Since there are so many playing cards on and under the table it would seem that the men are more than just recreational card players. The expressions on their faces seem to suggest that they've done this before.

Whatever the story behind this picture may be, this one's definitely going on the wall.

Two Historic Michael MacDougall Press Photos

2010-05-14T10:05:00.003-04:00

Michael MacDougall who billed himself as "The Card Detective" was a prominent figure amongst gambling exposé artists in the first half of the 1900's. He authored books such as Gamblers Don't Gamble, MacDougall on Dice and Cards, Danger in the Cards, conducted lectures on crooked gambling, and was often featured in newspapers and magazine articles. His books have become rare and are now desirable amongst collectors of crooked gambling paraphernalia.

I recently came across two original press photos, featuring Michael MacDougall. The source was eBay (no surprise there) and I think I got a good deal, especially considering the rarity of these photographs, which must be one of a kind.

Since I really don't know anything about those photographs perhaps it's best if I let them speak for themselves.

The first photo is of MacDougall demonstrating the infamous mechanic's grip, to a couple of soldiers. The photograph is dated June 4, 1944. This one cost me $9.99.

The second photograph is a close up of a bottom deal. This photograph has been heavily retouched by a poorly skilled retouch artist, which is the reason why the fingernails appear as if they have nail polish. The date on the back is March 30, 1938, and I paid the sum of $13.50 to acquire it.

I think I got a bargain. The photos were $23.49, plus $3.99 for shipping and handling, which amounts to $27.48.

Upcoming Blowout Sale on Gaffed Dealing Shoes

2010-05-07T09:12:00.002-04:00

This is going to be a great opportunity for anyone that always wanted to have a gaffed dealing shoe, but never had the budget for it. Basically, I am soon going to be selling a variety of gaffed dealing shoes, on eBay, at substantial discounts.

Those of you that followed the Making of a Gaffed Blackjack Shoe thread have had the opportunity to see the progress on several gaffed shoes that I fabricated over the past year. As I was explaining many parts of the fabrication process I also explained that I always end up with surplus parts as I cut the pieces. The following picture shows some of these surplus parts, along with two of the latest shoes I just finished making for a customer.

The picture shows only part of all the surplus that has accumulated in my workshop. For various reasons that I don't need to get into I can't really use any of these parts to fulfill future customer orders. So, faced with this reality there is a very simple solution to that. Most of these parts are perfectly good and I could easily use them to finish making a few fully-functional gaffed shoes. So, I've decided to do just that and offer these shoes on eBay.

However, due to the fact that this is just a blowout sale there are a few limitations everyone should be aware of.

First of all, none of the shoes on sale will be fitted with internal locking mechanisms. This is not necessarily bad, after all, most of the gaffed dealing shoes you may be able to find elsewhere are basic non-locking models. And for a good non-locking shoe you may expect to spend between $1,500 and $1,800.

The other significant limitation is that none of the shoes on sale will come with the rollers. So, anyone that buys a shoe without a roller can do one of two things. Either buy a commercially available roller (or buy an inexpensive shoe and just keep the roller) or buy a roller from me. I will probably offer a variety of slightly different rollers and I am yet to think of the prices. Rollers actually take a long time to make, so my rollers won't be cheap, but at least any roller that comes from my shop is guaranteed to be a perfect fit. In any event, those that want to keep a cap on their expenditures can just buy a regular roller elsewhere. I will provide some kind of guidelines to help pick the right one.

Furthermore, I will not be able to offer any customer service. Gaffed shoes are like musical instruments, in a sense that it takes skill and knowledge to make them work properly. Normally, when a customer pays the full price of a shoe, I am more than happy to offer a few guidelines and answer questions. And there are always questions. But this time I will not be able to spend any time teaching people how to properly use these gaffs. But there's good news, though.

I've decided to put together a detailed user manual for these shoes. I am working on it as we speak and hope to have it ready by the time the first shoe is listed on eBay. This manual will not be free, however. It will be printed as a book and will be made available through the CARDSHARK Online BookStore. In addition to this manual, I will also be more than happy to answer any additional questions, on the CARDSHARK Online Bulletin Board.

Other limitations will not be significant and right now I can't even think what they may be.

So, what can you do to find out when these shoes become available?

One thing to do is to periodically check eBay and search for gaffed dealing shoes, using various search criteria. If you want to make it easier on you, however, just follow my Twitter account for announcements of eBay listings (and also for other items I may be selling in the future). I would like to respectfully ask everyone to keep in mind that I will not be able to answer any email inquiries about when items may be available for sale. Answering individual emails would take up a lot of my time and my time could never be properly compensated; after all, these shoes will go for a fraction of what the real costs should be. This brings me to the next point. What will these shoes cost?

To be honest, I have not yet made up my mind about the prices. All I can say is that you can expect my reserve price on every shoe to be much lower than what these shoes normally go for. But the only way to find out what the reserve price is, will be to place a bid. Also, keep in mind that the reserve price may not be the same for each auction.

In closing, I should also make clear that I have no idea how many shoes will be made available in this blowout sale and I also don't know how frequent the listings will be. I very much doubt that there will be two identical shoes listed at the same time, but there may be some back to back listings. But I expect most of the listings to have gaps in between.

So, if you were ever hoping for a great deal on a good gaffed shoe, now's the time to keep an eye on eBay. One thing is certain: once these shoes are gone there may never again be an opportunity like this.

Good luck!

Robotic Casino Dealer, by Organic

2010-04-30T19:30:00.001-04:00

Robots have been used in some casinos for more than 10 years. The reason why some casinos decide to use a robot is because of necessity, because in some countries casino gambling is not allowed, so they get around the laws by setting up automat-casinos, or game centers. Basically, if there are no croupiers the joints cannot be considered casinos. Also, even in countries where casino gambling is legal it is still easier and cheaper to get open up a game center than it is to obtain a casino license. So, basically game centers have to be fully automated, to meet the legal restrictions.

One way to achieve that objective is to introduce virtual games. But many players don't like those because there is absolutely no transparency. Yes, everyone knows that the virtual terminals are supposed to be inspected by the authorities and that they are supposedly honest, but still, the experience of playing a virtual game does not compare to the real thing. The player puts the money into a machine, presses a button, and the results are displayed on a monitor. And since the house always wins, even the most naïve of suckers eventually question the integrity of those games. So, mainly for these reasons some game canters like to offer games with mechanical terminals that allow the players to see with their own eyes how the results are achieved.

One very popular piece of gaming equipment that meets this objective is the automated roulette wheel. That roulette wheel is completely encased in a glass dome and no one can interfere with the movement of the ball or the wheel. But that's an easy solution for roulette, which is a game that already uses a mechanical piece of equipment, so all that had to be done was to replace the croupier with an electric motor and a device that shoots the ball. But card games are different and there are no relatively easy solutions for mechanical automation.

The only solution seems to be to replace the human dealer with a robot. A robot can easily be taught all the rules as well as the mechanical movements to distribute the cards. Robots have already been in use for decades in the automobile industry, to replace human workers, so all that had to be done for casinos was to take one of those robots and teach it how to deal various card games, mainly blackjack and baccarat.

The usual robots that are seen in various game centers are standard industrial robots, like the one seen in the post Cambodian Gamblers. But the problem with those machines is that they are extremely slow. A robotic arm cannot possibly deal the cards as fast as a human dealer. So, as a result, each round takes forever to play out. And we all know gamblers don't like to wait. After all, time is money.

So, to address this problem, one company came up with the most logical solution: to build a robot that has been designed specifically for the casino industry. In other words, a robot that can do nothing else but deal card games. The company that designed this machine is called Organic and below are some photos of their robot.

The mechanical distribution of the cards happens under a glass dome, so the players can see at all times how the cards are dealt. The results are then displayed on individual touch-screen LCD terminals. All the cards are printed with bar codes, so that the robot can scan each card and interpret the results. The robot is basically a giant mechanical Random Number Generator. But unlike software-based RNGs, the players can actually see how the results are being generated. This offers a piece of mind, I guess, despite the fact that the players will always lose, regardless how the result are generated.

The following image offers an inside view of the robot, when the dome is removed and the lower part of the machine is raised up for servicing.

And finally, below is a short demo video that shows the robot in action. Since this robot does not have any multi-purpose mechanical arms, the distribution of the cards is really fast.

http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=52546f1c93171340&type=video%2Fmp4
Mechanically, the robot is pretty well designed. Aesthetically, it is not really my cup of tea, bust since I'm not going to be buying any of those, any time soon, I don't really care about that. From a practical point of view this robot is a much better solution than the conventional industrial robots that have been taught to deal casino games. But the industrial robots are still more fun to watch and definitely more cute than this big monster. This machine is also more confusing to watch, because all that it really does is to deal a sequence of cards and show what they are; then the cards go into the discard pile without ever being dealt to player positions (which would be redundant from a practical point of view, but certainly easier for the eye to follow).

Casino Cash Counter

2010-04-24T16:45:00.001-04:00

In recent years we've seen many changes in casino gaming equipment, that have all been made possible thanks to all the recent developments in technology. Some of these changes are impressive and well thought out and some are just gimmicks. But so far, whenever I talked about casino equipment, I always talked about actual gaming accessories; i.e. props that assist the croupiers in dealing the games. But casinos are actually not really about the games. The whole objective of any casino is to collect money, and lots of it, and as quickly as possible. The games are actually just there to create an attraction. But it's really all about the cash. This is why it is also important to see how the cash is handled.

Below is a picture showing a new currency counting machine, with some of the accessories that are used for the purpose. But before we get into this, let's see how cash is traditionally being handled in the casinos.

Traditionally, the cash is handed off by a player to the croupier, right at the gaming table. The croupier goes through all the proper procedures to count the money and then exchanges the cash for an equivalent amount of checks. At that time all the banknotes are laid out across the table. As soon as the player receives his/her checks the croupier gathers all the cash, places the pile across the slit of a drop box, then places the lower edge of the paddle over the cash in alignment with the slit, and presses downwards. That's the last time any of the players ever see any of that cash. From that moment onwards the players who brought that cash into the casino will engage in a contest against the casino, to recuperate all the cash and even get some more from the house. That's a fantasy many suckers have been dreaming about for centuries. But let's leave all that aside for now. All that we want to know is what happens to the cash that went through that slot.

Beneath the surface of the felt table, right under the slot that engulfs all that cash, lays a piece of casino equipment that most of the players never pay any attention to. In fact they rarely get to see it and the modest design does not really attract much attention to itself (the looks of it can't really compete with all those cocktail waitresses in miniskirts). Casino folks call it the drop box.

The drop box is, well, a box with a way to put the cash in from above and a lock that allows authorized personnel to open the door and pour all that cash out. The idea is really simple. The croupier puts the cash into the box, then the box is carried off the casino floor into a secret room where authorized personnel are in charge of counting and sorting all the money.

I'm sure that most people can already figure out what some of the problems may be, with this system, without me going into too many details and hypothetical scenarios. But the short version of the story is that there's always reason to worry that all the cash doesn't always make it to its intended destination. If anyone has trouble believing this claim, just think of all the scams that have been discovered in the banking industry; that was all done with recorded transactions. Now imagine what goes on in an industry where lots of cash is being handled by employees, where the cash always goes through a phase when the exact amounts have not yet been recorded.

This is where the new casino cash counting machine comes in.

Currency counters have been around for quite a while, and some casinos have already used various counters on the floor; even at the gaming tables, especially in countries where the currency is inflated. But this cash counter is different than conventional ones. It's been designed specifically for casino gaming tables and has some interesting features.

The machine itself has three compartments. The first compartment is where the croupier inserts the cash. Next, the croupier closes the lid and presses the button, and the cash gets transferred into the second compartment as it is counted (all the counting is fully visible through the clear lid). The machine will detect certain kinds of counterfeits (although I have no idea how good this counterfeit detection really is). When the cash is counted the amount will be displayed on the LED display of the machine. The croupier will ask the customer if this is the right amount. If the customer says no, the croupier opens the lid, removes the cash from the machine and repeats the process. If the customer says yes, the croupier presses another button and the cash gets transferred into the third compartment.

The third compartment has a drop box and a tamper resistant cartridge (this part is not really seen through the clear lid). When the cartridge is full the machine will alert the staff to remove it and replace it with an empty one.

Any activity performed by the machine is logged and the data is sent to a central database. This data can be used in various ways (depending how the casino is set up) including a dataveillance system.

When the cartridge containing the cash is removed, some information is written on the actual cartridge (all in full view of the eye in the sky) and then the cartridge is sent to the counting room. Unlike the most primitive procedures where the cash is recorded for the first time in the counting room, this system records the cash the moment after the croupier puts it into the machine. So, in this case the folks in the counting room are really just in charge of sorting the bills, and not trusted with the job of declaring how much cash came in.

Below are a few closeup views of the tamper proof cartridge. In the first photo you can see a cartridge with the lid on, and in the second photo the same cartridge with the lid off. Note the tiny green plug. This little plug prevents the lid from being pushed all the way into the receiving end of the cartridge. The cartridges are initially stored with the lids on and the small security plug in place. The plug simply falls off when the lid is pulled off.

The last photo shows more of a closeup view of the tamper proof locking mechanism. In this photo the green plug is off. The part that actually locks the lid is in the middle of the mechanism. I've looked at this really carefully and as of now I really can't see how it could ever be opened, once the mechanism is really locked, without showing signs of tampering. Please note how I carefully phrased my last sentence. I did say, "once the mechanism is really locked." But what if it's not really locked? In any event, the cash that is counted in the counting room must match the cash that the system recorded at the gaming tables. So, if anyone is going to steal any cash it might as well be the whole cartridge. Why bother tampering with the lock to snatch a couple of bills?

The system is really well designed. The cartridge cannot be inserted into the machine without removing the lid first. And the cartridge cannot be removed from the machine without sliding the lid inside, first, in locked position. So, a really well designed system that deserves both thumbs up.

Although this is definitely a well thought out piece of casino equipment, some casino owners and executives may not actually want this. The reason is simple. Not because they don't believe this machine can do a good job. On the contrary, because they are afraid this machine does too good of a job.

It should really not come too much as a surprise to anyone that most of the cash is actually stolen by the owners and/or casino managers. It may sound confusing, at first; why the hell would a business owner want to steal from himself? But if we look closer it all makes sense.

First of all, there's taxes. All the cash that a casino makes is taxes by the government; and often at a very high tax rate. Also, in some countries the casinos are actually set up as part of that country's National Lottery. So, the casinos in such countries must share a huge part of their profits with the National Lottery, and organization that is there only to collect part of the money. Those are some of the reasons why most thefts are orchestrated from higher up; and that includes (sometimes but not always) armed robberies (known as inside jobs).

Disclaimer: I don't want to make is sound as if I am saying that casino executives are thieves. I was simply giving some examples and saying that in some cases some of them may have reasons to cross the line over to the dark side. But of course, we all know that casinos provide a lot of value to the society, which can only mean that casino owners can only be outstanding pillars of our society.

The "Bee" Electronic Baccarat Dealing Shoe, Part 2

2010-04-19T23:19:00.004-04:00

In a previous post, titled The "Bee" Electronic Baccarat Dealing Shoe , I talked about how the "Bee" shoe came to be. In this post I will try to explain why the Angel Eye dealing shoe is still a better product.

The short explanation is that Angel is a company that understands the Asian market much better than the US Playing Card Company [USPCC]. So, although the USPCC copied the Angel shoe and therefore had a chance to come up with improvements, they actually failed and ended up producing a product that is inferior to the original.

Just like the Angel Eye shoe, the "Bee" shoe also requires special playing cards to be used. In fact, the sole purpose why the USPCC made this shoe in the first place was so they could sell more of those special playing cards. So, let's have a closer look at those cards, shall we?

Below is a photo of one of these playing cards. I've illuminated one side of the card with a black light, so we can see the UV bar code (since this is a low powered UV light, only one side gets illuminated, but the other side of the card bears the same code). At first glance everything looks more or less OK, but a closer look should reveal some details that should tell the world that the USPCC could use a consultant.

First, let me be clear that the playing card in this photo is actually not exactly a USPCC brand. This is in fact a Fournier card. However, Fournier is now owned by the USPCC and the parent company is now promoting this shoe through Fournier (as discussed in the previous post). But I'm not interested in those details. The USPCC is behind this project and Fournier's role is insignificant, apart from the fact that the USPCC dumped this product on them.

So, what's wrong with that card?

The short answer is that this card design totally misses the point from the point of view of an Asian baccarat player (i.e. the gambler for which this shoe was supposedly designed for).

To understand why this is so, one must first understand how Asian gamblers play baccarat. Baccarat is a game of chance, so baccarat players cannot focus their energy on using skills. But even when there's no skill involved the players still pretend to do something to influence the outcome. This is all because the stakes are high and the players experience a rush of adrenaline. One thing that some players do is to rub the card on the table before turning it over. As if the rubbing is somehow going to bring them luck. The damn card has already been dealt, so this rubbing is even more moronic than blowing on the dice before shooting. But the player is king and if the player feels like rubbing, let him rub. After all, the odds are stacked against all the player, so let them rub all they want.

But the rubbing is not the main method of handling the cards by the players. Asian baccarat players are famous for "slow-playing" their hands (in this case "slow-playing" should not be confused with slow-playing in poker).

Once the cards are dealt out of the shoe the player could simply turn them over to see what they are; in fact, the dealer could just deal them face up (which is how the game is dealt in many places outside of Asia where players are not allowed to touch the cards). But in Asia the player will expose the card very slowly, by bending the corners little by little, until the value of the card is revealed. The players will actually start bending the cards at the non index corners, to maximize the suspense. By bending at the non index corners the player will not know what some of the cards are until much later. For example, a 7 of diamonds may appear like a 6 of diamonds from one end and like an 8 of diamonds from the other end. So, if a player seen a card that looks like it could be an 8, from one end, the player will then first go and look at the other card, to see if there is a chance the cards add up to 8 or 9. Only after seeing the other card (slowly) will the player go back to the first card to see if it was an 8 or a 7, this time by milking it from the other end. In some case the players may go back and forth between the two cards.

So, that's how Asian baccarat players play the game. Now let's go back to the picture of the baccarat card above. What's wrong with that picture? Well, the card is a damn jumbo index. That's exactly what baccarat players don't want.

These jumbo index cards were first designed for casino blackjack games, so that the eye in the sky could more easily see the numerals. The USPCC should know that. And they should also know that jumbo index playing cards have no place in Asian baccarat games.

The other thing that's wrong with this card, that can't be seen on the photo is the fact that this card is plastic. That's kind of mind boggling.

In Asia, the cards are handled by the players, so in any Asian baccarat game the cards are used only once. In fact, this is the very reason why the USPCC wants to sell their shoes to Asian casinos; so they could sell them more of the special cards. So, since they obviously know that, what the hell are they printing plastic cards for? I guess the blame should be on Fournier, but still, it just goes to show that their hearts are not in it.

There are other things wrong with the "Bee" shoe.

For example, the front of the "Bee" shoe has a large opening for the cards. Anyone on the casino business should know that this is bad, because a large area of the back design is exposed. Still, many casino equipment manufacturers continue to make dealing shoes with large opening. This was also true for the first Angel Eye shoes. But as soon as these shoes hit the casinos in Macau, the casinos placed makeshift gates (made from black felt) on the front of every single shoe. The company later modified the Angel Eye shoes and now the new shoes are made with a gate. It took a couple of year for this modification, but at least it was done. And what happened then? Well, then (meaning later on) the USPCC "invented" the "Bee" shoe. And they obviously had no idea that the shoe should have a gate, or bristle brushes, or something to protect the top card at the front. After all, these shoes are quite expensive and it is kind of ironic to pay all that money for the latest technology that is supposedly a security product, if it doesn't even have the most basic protection against marked cards (which is historically one of the most common casino scams).

There are some other reasons why the Angel Eye shoe is still superior from the "Bee" shoe. But I will keep those reasons to myself. After all, if the USPCC wants to know more about all this, they should do some more homework beyond reading my blog.

Antique Men's Club Photograph with Card Cheater

2010-04-15T08:30:00.003-04:00

I recently picked up an interesting antique photo on eBay.

The photo is definitely antique and was described as being from the 1900 to 1920 era. It's basically a photo of a group of young men playing cards and checkers. Amongst them is a card cheat with a face card stuck to the tip of his shoe.

There's no shortage of antique and fake antique photos of card cheats on eBay, but I feel this one's unique. The photo is definitely posed, so it's not as if it offers a rare and genuine behind the scenes look at some of the early American cardsharps. However, I still feel this photo is different from a lot of the more commonly seen card cheat photos on eBay. First of all, unlike the thousands of clones that are listed on eBay ever day, I have never seen this specific photograph. Also, most of the usual card cheat photos on eBay are quite corny; this one's more subtle. In fact, it is very easy to miss the card cheat altogether.

The enlarged view shows a close-up of a playing card stuck in the cheater's shoe, under the table. The cheat is the man in the center of the photograph, smoking a cigar and looking at the camera.

Cheating also takes place above the table. The charismatic man situated in the center of the card table is peeking at the hand of the player seated at his right, i.e. the older man with the mustache who is obviously the sucker.

Since it's really difficult to depict the details from the photo (because of all the black) I decided to make a quick hand tracing of the most important details of the composition. Note the extra playing card that lies on the floor, at the side of the holdout man (right next to the foot of his chair).

The photo is 4"x5" affixed on a 7"x8" mounting board. The actual card faces are readable under magnification (with the exception of the card under the table). At the lower right of the mounting board there is a faded publisher's stamp. The ink is very faint but the top line seems to read JOSEPH P. PICHD. The center line is unreadable but the bottom line definitely says Lawrence Mass.

I paid $10.49 plus $5.00 shipping and handling, which is a bargain considering that this is the same price range as all the usual card cheat photographs on eBay.

Dataveillance: A New Weapon Against Casino Cheats

2010-04-11T20:20:00.002-04:00

Dataveillance is a relatively new concept that's starting to be used around the casino industry. The definition of dataveillance will vary, depending on whom you ask. A very modest definition is that dataveillance describes any of numerous methods of combining data with surveillance. A more cynical definition would be that this is a way of using automation and technology to spy on people.

In the world of casinos, dataveillance is the logical next step in the evolution of casino surveillance. In early stages of it development, casino surveillance was done on foot from the catwalks. Then some casinos started using hand held camcorders, still from the catwalks. Then came CCTV cameras and VCRs. As technology advanced casinos started using PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras and DVRs replaced VCRs. In places like Macau surveillance departments are not even in the actual casinos, but instead, IP cameras send signals to remote servers. But in recent years there have been many advancements in technology and a lot of the casino equipment used today happens to be generating data.

Most of the casino equipment that generates date was initially designed solely to assist in dealing the games. For example, the now standard Angel Eye electronic baccarat dealing shoe was just made to prevent players from switching cards. But the way it does that is by scanning the values of the cards as they are dealt and then comparing the results; and this ends up generating data. Same goes for other electronic shoes, such as the TCS/JH Optical Dealing Shoe. Then there's Rapid Craps, the Touch-Screen Electronic Craps Table, and so on. Roulette wheels have been generating results for a few decades, already, and so have slots.

So, one look around the casino should make it clear that all this fancy equipment is generating massive amounts of data. Sooner or later someone was going to look at that and figure out how the surveillance department could benefit from all this.

It should be noted that in a typical casino the data gets generated by many different departments. Access control will be generated by the casino security department (not to be confused with the surveillance department); the food and beverage department will know which players used what comps; the pit will know how much each player bet and how they played; the hotel will know when they checked in and where they're using their key card to open the door, what calls they are making from the room phone and what programs they are watching on cable (and possibly even when they ordered a "massage"). So, the first step is to figure out how to push all this date to the surveillance department. That's easier said than done, because all these departments are separate entities and by regulation they require to be that way.

One relatively new technology that fits into the dataveillance concept very well is video analytics.

A video analytic software is capable of knowing if there is a customer at the other side of the counter (for example) at the other side of the cage. So, if a transaction is apparently taking place in the cage (as detected by the RFID chip readers, or by the money counting machines...etc) but there is no customer at the other side of the window, the system will flag the transaction and alert surveillance to look at the video(s). A video analytic software will be able to detect if a customer's hand reaches too far behind the counter, and so on.

One very impressive video analytic software is the Tangam TableEye21 System for the game of blackjack. The system is capable of tracking the game in real time and simultaneously analyzing all the players for various scams and advantage play scenarios. So, the system will know if a player increases his bets every time the count is positive, or if the player on first base is likely to be playing top card information, or if a player is likely to be using some hole card information, and so on. I think we can all agree that even the sharpest of surveillance experts cannot do all these computations simultaneously. But what's difficult for a human brain to process is a piece of cake for a computer. And the opposite is true, too. Computers are very bad at doing what humans do effortlessly. Which brings me to my next point.

Dataveillance systems are basically designed to create profiling based on all the data that pours into the system. This should not be confused with artificial intelligence, however. As of now, artificial intelligence is just a theoretical concept that has never even come close to a functional model. It is important to understand this because even the best dataveillance system cannot replace good people. But many "intelligent" systems tend to give their users a false sense of security. As a result, in casino surveillance departments, they may decide to cut their costs by sizing down and/or hiring a less expensive workforce. In fact, that's already happening. After all, the machine is doing all the brain work, right? So, why waste money on expensive people? Everyone knows that the ultimate goal of any surveillance department is to save money, so let's save by replacing the expensive workforce by a state of the art piece of equipment and get some cheap labor in... I'm sure you get my drift. The old saying, I can't afford to pay cheap, comes to mind.

A dataveillance system will provide the end user with the best performance only if the data is pouring from all sides. For example, if the system is able to detect that a particular comp card is being used in the food and beverage department shortly after the hotel registered that this player used his key card to enter his room, then the system should detect the conflict. Is there a comp fraud going on? Did a thief steal the player's key card and is now burglarizing the room? There are of course many hypothetical examples on the casino floor. But basically, the system needs to be integrated and more data is better.

Dataveillance is not just a casino tool. It is actually a broad concept with applications that reach far beyond casinos and beyond surveillance. Targeted ads come to mind. In fact it's really not even a brand new concept, as anyone that's read George Orwell's 1984 knows. So, everywhere we go, we are being watched. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Latest String of Armed Casino Robberies... A new Trend?

2010-04-06T09:13:00.021-04:00

This year it's been impossible to escape the news of armed casino robberies. First there was the robbery of the Big Easy Travel Plaza truck stop casino, in New Orleans, on January 4, where two gunmen managed to grab $100,000 in just two minutes; then there was the well publicized Berlin poker tournament robbery on March 6, where a gang of armed robbers made out with the €800,000 ($1.1M) jackpot; Then there was an attempted robbery on the Pirate Treasure Casino, in Butte, MT, on March 20; then there was a casino robbery in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where six men stole $111,000; then the robbery of the Basel Grand Casino, on March 29; then the Denver area Bonanza Casino robbery on April 3; and the latest one is the Pharaon Casino robbery in Lyon, France... and I actually skipped a few others. What's going on? Is this some new trend?

In this latest robbery five commando-style robbers attacked the Le Pharaon Casino, in Lyon, at around 3am, before escaping in a high-powered sports car. According to the Associated Press, the robbers made off with around €30,000 in cash. With the current exchange rate this comes to about $40,000. Or, to be precise, a total of $40,279.27 which in turn comes down to $8,055.85 per head (don't forget the .85 cents; I kind of wonder if they split it evenly 5 ways, or if the "mastermind" gets to keep the "lion's share" of the cash).

I am no expert in armed robberies, but in my humble opinion $8K is not exactly what I would consider to be a tempting risk/reward ratio. A plumber can make that in a week, without risk of incarceration.

Officials actually think that the same gang is responsible for a few casino robberies that took place in the past few weeks (namely the Basel casino robbery). So, perhaps the boys are earning more than plumbers, after all.

Edmund P. Pillsbury, Curator at Kimbell, Dies at 66

2010-03-31T14:11:00.004-04:00

I never intended this blog to be used for obituaries, but I feel this news deserves to be noted.

I just happened to catch a New York Times article Edmund P. Pillsbury... dies at 66, in the arts section. This is noteworthy news for readers of this blog because Mr. Pillsbury is the man that acquired Caravaggio's masterpiece, The Cardsharps, for the Kimbell Art Museum, in Fort Worth, Texas, where it is currently part of the museum's permanent collection.

Amongst paintings depicting gamblers, and more specifically card cheats, The Cardsharps is the most influential one of them all. This painting was missing for about 100 years after it had been stolen by art thieves. After the masterpiece was recovered Mr. Pillsbury had the good fortune to acquire it for the Kimbell Art Museum. It is, in my opinion, the most important work of art that the museum owns.