Learn how to – How technology has been used to beat the casino

Learn how to – How technology has been used to beat the casino.

Most people sitting around a roulette or blackjack table are playing honestly and not trying to cheat the house. But there are some overly ambitious people who will use any means to cheat. In the past, small screwdriver-like devices have been used to try and manipulate casino machines. But the modern casino scammer has turned to savvy technology to take back the edge. Here are some of the ways that people have used technology – which is normally used to make casinos better– to try and beat the casino.

A pack of cigarettes

In 1973, a family trio – one of which working as a dealer at Casino Deauville – managed to scam the house out of around $1 million. The scam was used a clever pack of cigarettes that worked as a transmitter to control where a roulette ball would land on the wheel. The accuracy of the transmitter was around 90%, meaning the trio had a good chance of knowing exactly where the ball would land. Nowadays, casinos could avoid these risks and simply offer safer versions like online roulette.

They did, however, get caught. The owner of the casino had a thing for the dealer’s sister, who was the one who had to press the button on the pack of cigarettes. He employed a team to find out why his casino was always losing at roulette and why she would only play at the same roulette table and always bet low stakes. They uncovered the mystery, and a film was made about them in 1984 called The Cheaters.

Invisible ink and special contact lenses

One of the most sophisticated ways of using technology to beat the casino comes Les Prince Casino in Cannes back in 2011. A team of scammers used invisible ink on the playing cards of a game of poker, which was added by an insider working as a deal. The players on the scam were wearing special contact lenses that could see this invisible ink and identify the cards when face down. They used this to their advantage and took around $88,000 in winnings. However, they got greedy and came back for a more high-stakes game. That is when authorities clocked their clever trick, and they were arrested.  

Smartphone lasers

Yet, arguably the most sophisticated tech to help beat the house was a laser built into a smartphone, which could predict where a roulette ball would land based on the speed of the ball and the angle it was dropped into the wheel. It couldn’t state which number would land, but it could accurately predict what area of the wheel. This proved valuable as the scammers took over $1 million in winnings.

Online casinos are more protected

Online casinos are not as vulnerable to technology hacks as these, simply because there is nothing physical in front of players. Random Number Generators (RNGs) are used to keep games entirely fair when playing an online casino, and these cannot be manipulated when the casino is using high-end cybersecurity.