Hey guys, we have a cash game at university and a friend and I pretty much attend every game running and run the game in terms of handling the money, organising chips etc.

Game is generally really good fun and everyone has a good time, stakes aren't particularly high but runs pretty deep so people do care about the results.

My friend took me outside during a break last night and said that he had seen a player cheating, before he mentioned who or how I said I had a feeling and told him what I thought was going on, the other guy said that's what he had seen. A player was basically being shifty with the deck on his deal, looking at bottom/burn cards, occasionally double burning to get the card he wants.

If you know what you're looking for it is now easy to spot and easily solvable as we now ask players to keep the deck on the table at all times barring the initial deal. What is the etiquette regarding how we deal with this individual though? It is good for us to have him in the game, he is a donator overall and good for the games liquidity, he has a fair bit of cash behind him. Now we can effectively negate his actions by new rules should we let him stay in the game? My friend and I would keep him in as we can keep an eye on him, however, are we obliged to tell all the other regulars of his actions? It is worth noting that many of the regs in the game are of the same social and ethnic group as the player in question at university so that may be something to consider, maybe they won't like us accusing him as technically we can't prove it.

One further point to consider is the possibility of further cheating we haven't seen, however I don't think this is the case, I don't believe he can manipulate cards to the extent of rigged shuffles or dealing from the bottom nor have I seen him being tricky with chips in the pot.

Thanks for your opinions.

EDIT: This is an unraked game, we don't take anything for hosting/running the games. (Barring their money...)

Simple: Don't invite him anymore.

I think OP wrote they want to keep him in the game for various reasons.

You might want to both have a conversation with him away from the game. Tell him what you both saw independently. Tell him that is not cool, and ask what kind of person he wants to be, to cheat friends. Tell him the next time you see anything like it happen again, you will announce it on the spot.

There is no reason to want him back. You will never be comfortable with this guy. Confronting him is only going to make the guy work harder and get better at cheating.

Rounders should give you some advice on how to deal with this efficiently.

"Once a cheater always a cheater" is often true, unfortunately.

There is a high risk that he will attempt to cheat again, especially since he doesn't know he was caught. He may try to learn something new since your rules changes have foiled his old cheating techniques. If other players in the game find out that you knew he was cheating and let him continue to play anyway, that could also be an issue.

Personally, I give him the boot. But if you decide to keep him, be aware of the risks.

Cheats and is till a major donor... maybe others have noticed and just don't care

There are some non-confrontational ways to bring up hypothetical situations, but chances are people will see what you are really saying and incorporate that into their reactions as well.

I think you are best off explaining privately what you have seen. Double burning is an obvious cheat, but I bet there are some people who think its not that big a deal when they do it.

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Include a cut card so he can't look or flash the bottom card. After that, as long as the deck is left on the table when cards aren't actively dealt, he's pretty much shut down.

This guy is no threat to the integrity of the game, and he's a losing player, so I would keep him in.

I wouldn't confront him. Since you can't prove anything, he is going to be under pressure to strenuously object, raise a stink with other players, etc. Just add a cut card, lock down the dealing procedures a bit, and take his money.

Def will be introducing a cut card, I don't know why we haven't been using one before!

I understand all the responses to boot him or confront but it's hard to find enough students that can donate enough to make the game liquid enough. Not inviting him isn't really an option in that as I mentioned, there are a large social/ethnic group that provide a lot of the players/action to the game and we don't want to kill it, also if he doesn't find out form us, someone else will tell him. Another option would be for either myself or my friend to table deal.

Having an "all time dealer" is a decent option. I recently moved to doing that in my game... not for security reasons... but to speed up the game. Myself and another take turns every other deal. One shuffles his deck while the other deals theirs. You can sell it to the group as "no need to deal from the corners of the table... don't have to worry about shuffling... just sit back and play poker."

Since he is donating... I am +1 to not bringing it up. You and your friend can keep an eye on him and your procedures will foil his current practices. Any alternative seems like it will kill your game.

uh... tell him to stop lookng at the cards?

Not really as simple as that otherwise I wouldn't be asking.

Sorry OP, nothing personal, but why the hell have you, or your club actually, not been using a cut card all along? This is the whole point of a cut cards value. As to the player, well, I would watch very closely because if he IS cheating , he will again. Cheaters are like pedophiles, they can not be cured! They can only be disciplined by expulsion, and by other things that I don't recommend, but stuff that I would agree with! Good luck!

If he's really good value I would keep him on with a final warning and maybe some sort of cautionary measure (IE, he doesn't get to deal or shuffle or cut). If he's not, boot him.

TBH, in hindsight I 100% agree but I couldn't imagine people cheating people for this amount of money, especially those one might consider friends. Money corrupts I guess, I just didn't think this was enough to risk getting caught. No offense taken sir!

So here is the thing ..... you keep this guy in the game. You make your new rules which probably don;t really help. You watch him like a hawk , until you are doing something else and you can;t watch him like a hawk. Something happens .... there is an argument .... someone says he took a chip out of the pot, he says he didn;t....... you know he is a cheater ..... now what? you call him out on it because you saw him cheating last month? aren;t the other players going to be pissed that you let this cheater play after you caught him?

You either shut it down now .... or you will get burned later on

Totally see where you're coming from, am going to talk to my friend this evening and say that we probably have to do something, despite what he brings to the game. Honesty > Money, we can always find more action players.

First, I'll ask: Are you sure? Is this guy cheating, or is he sloppy, lazy, or just not taking things seriously? If he's playing well below his limits, he might just not care - thinking that peeking at the bottom of the deck is harmless fun.

If you're sure, and he's a cheater, cut him loose.


If he's just playing around, or you're not sure - put good practices in place, council him, and move on with your game.

He has been told multiple times to keep the deck above the table, I can imagine once or twice is sloppy but after the hand last night it makes me think he has been doing this a while. In the hand in question when he was burning cards he was looking at them to know what was dead; later and this could have been a mistake on his part, he burnt two cards and coincidentally hits one of his outs. On observing hands following that before we had a pizza break I observed him glancing at the bottom of the deck but didn't see him burning multiple cards again. On the break my friend and I stepped outside to discuss it and when we continued he announced that he was leaving soon.

I personally have seen him taking the deck off the table, twisting the deck as to make it possible to see the bottom and peeling burn cards so that he would be able to see them. What I didn't see that my friend picked up was the double burn that coincidentally made his hand.

You can not just blow this off because he is a bad player. If any other players get word of (or have seen) what happened it could cause your game to end. It could also give you a bad reputation as a host. You need to confront the situation without it blowing up.

Here is what I would do. At the next game I would tell everyone that after the last game there was a complaint of how the deck is being handled. Tell your guests that you want to implement stricter casino style rules for handling the cards that will help decrease the chance of people making mistakes with the deck. Implement the cut card, cards on table at all times, and clearly showing the burn cards next to the deck.

If others have noticed the cheat, they will understand what you are doing and appreciate your efforts. The cheat will know he has been caught without you confronting him. If for some reason you are wrong and he was not cheating, you have not opened a can of worms.

Great advice, pretty much what will most likely happen if I'm to have anything to do with the game going forward. I wouldn't mind if everyone in the game knew he was doing it but as right now it seems only two of us are in on it it seems like an unfair advantage.

He needs a boot from the game. Th ewproblem is very simple. What are you going to do if he starts winning. Others players that know he cheated in the past will complain that he must of found a new way to cheat.

He needs the boot. You need to add a cut card and clean up the other dealing procudures

Yeah, I think I gotta +1 this after considering all of the replies. If you are absolutely sure he was cheating, then he needs to be given the boot. If players have a problem with him being removed from the game, just straight up tell them what happened. But you have to be sure he was cheating, and you have to be ready to argue why you know he was cheating. If a player argues with you and isn't convinced he was cheating, then you've got a trust problem.

If I was a regular player in your game and learned that you quietly allowed a cheater to remain in the game, I would be unhappy. Please remove this player and be honest about the situation with the remaining players.

...he was caught cheating..he is out. I don't see it getting much more complicated than that. Unless, both of you are actually afraid to confront him and are running around the idea of actually throwing him out. Cheaters are never welcomed, I honestly don't care how much money he is donating.


If I was another reg at your game, and found this out and also found out you both did nothing about it, I would be out of the game and word would spread about that ****.

Nonsense.