Hello, I've seen suspicious patterns at my local casinos and wanted some advices how to act, i'm not gonna give any names or places other than it happened in Spain. I don't want any problems with mafia or with slandering. I just want advices on how to protect myself and/or making them get caught.

I got this suspicions because the same patterns happened before in France and the guy got caught, after the corsican mafia scandal when one croupier testified against mafia, he also explained how they cheated players, the culprit was not pursied and the info stayed classified, he is on some secret blacklists and nothing more, unfortunally for him (we know cheaters are not geniuses) he got caught again years later doing another cheat but that time it went viral because it was at a recorded final table and it was very obvious and stupid. I think he got away with it but now he's renowned even if he liberally does WSOP every years, Marakech and some south of france casinos where he is not blacklisted for unknowns reasons.

I explain the drill :

Player is a loose weak fish, having no clues about anything, let say the poker IQ of a regular homegame player. He's losing chips almost every pots he plays unless he gets lucky and make very little chips because of his passivity.
New dealer arrives, he starts opening almost every hands, and shows AA AA AA AK KK AA AA etc (cheaters are often stupid, why would he shows it....) , anyway he grows a lots of chips, croupier changes, he go back to lose chips and doing limp/calls trying to get lucky.

Late mtt, nice woman croupier (definitely not the profile to deal tricks), villain doesn't play A SINGLE HAND, or limp/fold. Croupier changes, in his 30s, very serious and focus, look around before dealing, looks very interested when somebody shows an Ace (happens often in live mtt, 'look i don't steal your blind') mister villain starts again to open every hands, and show AA AA AK AK KK (again cheaters are stupid).


Long time ago the same thing happened in the french parisians clubs scandal, and the croupier testified that the culprit was in team with 2 others croupiers that simply dealt him high cards from the bottom of the pack. The easiest cheating trick, nothing fancy and advanced like creating setups. Just putting Aces and Kings in the bottom when they regroup the card back, shuffling by leaving it on bottom and bottom-dealing the associate.

So here my suspicion :

-Villain is Homegame level player, deeprunning almost every mtt he plays in 2 casinos in the same town + one casino in his hometown. He won a tournament where the final table was not recorded and busted quickly in televised final table.
-Villain have improbable runs of preflop cards, more in a single tournament than anyone in his whole life, and never shows JJ QQ TT AQ, only AA KK and AK, and can change strategy from all to nothing just when croupier changes.
-Villain is passive calling station that does not bluff, making his chips by having a lots of KK+ and losing them the rest of the time.


Am i paranoic ? How can I protect myself? I want to keep playing my hometown tournaments and i dont want problems with mafia or justice for slandering.

Yes, you're probably just being paranoid if this is all based on cards from one session. People go on heaters.

To protect yourself, here are some of your main options:
* Stop playing in games at that casino if you suspect the owners are in on it
* Stop playing in games at that casino if you suspect the employees are in on it. Or report the activity if you think the management is open to it, but don't expect much.
* Stop playing in games with that player if you suspect they are cheating. Table change or change games when he sits down. If a tournament, stop playing in hands where that player is in

You can't really protect yourself from a guy with unexplainable magical cheating powers if you're also afraid to talk to management about it or publically describe it to others.

This does seem odd. Why would a cheater show his cards if everyone else folded? Its just really bad.

If I was a in a situation like this in a cash game I would just not play any hands while that particular dealer was dealing the cheater monsters. I would likely tell the Floor but maybe not if I felt there was a potential physical risk.

In a tournament I would walk over to the Floor immediately and tell him what was going on and to see if he could tell if the dealer was a card mechanic. Or better yet to have him immediately replace the dealer (or both). Problem is of course that the Floor may be in on it. I have no idea what the life risk is for you to have said it to the Floor. But the life risk might go down if you passed the message left and right to other players quietly so nobody else could hear and ask them to pass it on as well. I would probably play no hands while the dealer was at the table.

The crazy thing is my wife might get a job in Spain late this year and I might end up playing Tournaments at that casino...

I would probably stop playing hands while the dealer is there and just watch. Probably record with my phone as well.

I'm sure there are mechanics who are so good you could never catch them, but how many of those are there in the world? Most are probably just good enough to get away with it.

Are they using a shuffle machine, cut card, and a proper cut? Not sure how they could bottom deal in this situation. If they were hand shuffling, look at how they handle shown aces and how they cut the next hand.

More likely might be dealing seconds by putting those cards on top or using cards that are somehow marked. Next time you get an ace feel around the corners for ridges and look for visible marks.

Chances are they just went on a heater in that moment, though.

If I was you and I thought there was some mob-backed cheating going on at a particular casino, I would just stop going to that casino. And if it’s every casino, I would probably just stop playing live poker altogether in that country.

Can’t really say anything else. Although I am usually skeptical of such claims, it’s obviously hard for your personal safety if you have some information that it’s the case. I don’t doubt there is the possibility of organized crime being involved in cheating. If there was ever going to be cheating in a casino, it would be due to it being compromised by organized crime. I don’t think it’s on the individual to try to insert themselves into such situations to try to expose the cheaters. That’s an incredible amount of risk just to play poker when there are legal gambling sites that seem safer and more regulated.

Once again, skipping the OP and just reading the first reply successfully saves a lot of time on this subforum.

You are seriously asking how to protect yourself from a range of exactly [AA, KK, AK] that is heavily weighted toward AA?

I agree that you should stop playing these tournaments. You should also PM me the venue and a description of the cheater. I've never been to Spain

A long, long time ago (two decades now) at the Majestic Star in NW Indiana there was an incident where a dealer was fired and a player banned. Basically whenever the dealer and player were at the same table the dealer would set up a cold deck. If the dealer saw two aces and two kings or queens shown in the hand (including board), he would set the next deck. He would find an excuse to hand shuffle for the next hand and put the cards on the bottom of the deck, deal his friend aces and then deal another deep stack kings (or queens) from the bottom and then let probability take over.

A crude move, but not that hard and easily mastered with a little bit of practice.

The only reason it was discovered was because the player was a daytime reg and the dealer worked days and there were only a few games regularly going during the day and most of the other players were regulars.

The player got a reputation of always cold decking other players, then everyone put 2 and 2 together and reported it to management. Enough evidence was gathered and they were caught.

Point is, it doesn't take a master card mechanic dealer to cheat. There are plenty of easy moves that will not be definite, but will greatly increase the odds on a particular hand.

If I am even slightly suspicious of underhanded behavior I would refuse to play. Furthermore, I am always suspicious of hand shuffled decks. I make sure that there is a valid reason for the dealer to hand shuffle. Most dealers hate hand shuffling and will go out if their way to avoid it.

Everything is hand shuffled in theses casinos. Yes best strategy seems to fold everything when he starts to open every hands and showing AK KK AA, I agree dealer don’t have to be a mechanic you can learn to bottom deal in a few days. And I agree this way of cheating is pretty hard to prove short term, if the guy wasn’t stupid showing every time I wouldn’t even have a suspicion. Just would be thinking another whale sun running, opens every hands and show AA when punished…