The private suite is probably one of the saloons, they have around 5 or so I think and are where the biggest action goes.

Again, it doesnt really make sense. It reads as if there is some 25k/50k game or something being run in the saloon which could be believable I guess if some of the worlds richest men decided to play poker together, although word of it would quickly hit the poker room floor, and no game of this size has ever been mentioned.

Then the saloon table has to have hole card cameras, which again, is incredibly unlikely. Then, they have to be turned on, and someone watching them, and the players need to be showing their hands to the hole card cameras.

Theres just no way that happened.

So then lets assume the papers are being loose with the term 'poker hands' and think its some type of Bonus Texas Holdem table game or Carribean Stud, and they were somehow able to get a hold of the deals cards before decieding whether to play or fold. This is a little more believable, but the basic format of the game doesnt allow the dealers cards to be revealed anywhere.

Because theyre playing so high, maybe all cards are watched from security etc, and they were somehow able to work out what those cards were and play accordingly.

It all still seems incredibly unlikely considering Crowns table game limits, so its all BS for me still and the papers are using some imaginative investigating to come up with the story

its amazing how quiet people go when they are proven wrong.

When I saw the thread title I just thought someone hadn't paid the rake for 8 hands #lolstralia

I lol'd

If these guys weren't go greedy, they would have been harder to spot.

But in the end they're all greedy.

If they were playing poker, and someone stole from other players - why would they care if they got their rake?

Wasn't there a Vegas casino that did something similar using some BIG name players in the 70s, helping their pros fleece out of town high rolling visitors?

The news was saying there have been a tonne of arrests out of this with lots of stuff seized including 600k in casino chips and a whole lot of drugs

Don't remember much else but someone might find the article

Detonator, I didn't think that was related... link?

Lynn talks about at 1:55 in the ANZPT update

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhTX-IVLLZU

Taxes can be a crazy thing. Cant see how a casino can be some careless with their own security

As far as the 8M, we are not certain on the game. If it reached that sort of level I would think it would be in a "letting it ride" sort of bet. Also, I remember hearing about "REF" or something cards that had chips in them. They allowed you to know which card was on what table. With a dealer and floorman I would think it would be possible to set this up. More will come out about this as long as we are persistent. I want to see the movie!

Maybe hachem has to pay taxes, but i would suggest 99%+ of australian players don't have to pay any taxes because the tax office doesn't give a flying **** about poker players. Only way i see them getting involved is if some bitter ex wife/defacto causes all kinds of trouble with the family court/tax office in a separation, and even then, i know a "professional punter" who has spent 20+ years betting on thoroughbreds professionally [he gets a lot of 'inside info' from trainers] and only once has the tax office tried to hit him up, when is ex-wife tried to deliberately cause trouble for him, he told them he has a 'lucky gambler' and they didn't bother him any further.

In a nutshell professional gambers can do whatever the **** they want in Australia, and as far as cheating games at Crown Casino is concerned, i have sat in 5/10 NL games that their was semi-regular collusion/soft-play in for months without repurcusions, as long as you are not drunk/try to start a fight, you won't get kicked out of Crown's poker room. And frankly on a friday/saturday night you could be as drunk as ****, if you on a table you won't get kicked out unless you start making threats/throwing punches, which almost never happens because Crown employs lots of big-bodied goon's who get away with manslaughter.