Kahnawake: Russ Hamilton responsible for UB cheating

There are now over 10 subscription sites similar to clububt/wpt all running legally within most states of the U.S and Canada so is very wrong of them to say it's illegal to run/play poker online in U.S, and every major poker news site today are all attacking CBS for the same statement, They have only harmed the industry.

Are there sites cheating I would say 100% yes if you wrote the software/owned or worked within any type of gambling site temptation is always going to be massive. But this makes for greater sense to have regulated audited sites like many we have in the UK rather then them being pushed into dubious parts of the world where the only law is either gangster or wigwam.

 

Comments

I have seen cheating in bricks and mortar casinos in Reno in three instances and I don't doubt it occurs everywhere, but it is harder to do in the real world and easier to detect. A lot can be written into the software, as with the software provider who advertised their software could adjust win percentages for individual players to assure no unexpected big losses, and to get money back from players who won too much. And the only way you can spot/prove online cheating is through a statistical analysis, or an examination of the code.

With the poker games, there was software available which could track hands and results, with bj???? Nothing right now. On UB/AP, you can now save hand histories of all your games to your hard disk automatically. These are raw histories, and not absolutely complete in some respects, but good enough to be susceptible to analysis.

I would strongly recommend that all players on UB/AP record their hands, so a data base can be built up for future analysis.


Until online gambling is legalized and regulated by a responsible federal government body, our only protection is to police it ourselves, as well as possible, as the poker players found out.

 

How is it any harder to take a couple of tens out of a deck than it is to use crooked software?

 

That's a fairly serious accusation. Could you give specifics without mentioning names of course?

 

Cheating

At three different casinos in the Reno area, all single deck hand dealt games, I saw the dealer doing a high/low pickup, flipping the deck about half way through, and then dealing seconds. In two of the instances, dealers were very clumsy at it, in one of those, the dealer was taking chips out of the rack and passing them to the pit boss. In the one instance where the dealer was very slick, there was a player at my table who was betting multiple black chips and winning like crazy; the pit boss brought in a 'substitute' dealer, out of the normal dealer rotation, making the dealer who was there very upset, as the black chip player was tipping well. The substitute dealer was very good, I might not have noticed with her right away, except I was counting.

I think in the two instances where the dealers were very clumsy, they were cheating for themselves, in one case taking chips from the rack and passing them to her partner, who was the pit boss; and in the other, dealer seemed to be feeding one player at the table, who was the only one winning. The slick dealer was obviously working for the house, and was brought in to take down the black chip player.

This was quite a while ago, not recent. But, there is cheating going on in bricks and mortar casinos, you can count on it.

 

Need your head examined....

BJ Friends:

I learned the hard way!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, "You've got to have your head examined" if after all of this, you continue to do ANY kind of gambling or tournament play on-line!! Let's not forget that HUMAN BEINGS program these programs and it's absolutely frightening what they can do to blatantly scam others if that's what they want to do...

My solution is to "JUST SAY NO"!!!!

Eventually, the criminally minded are usually exposed for what they are. If you don't believe it, just ask OJ Simpson as he withers away in jail awaiting his sentence for his criminal behavior for his stupid break-in stunt at Palace Station. In addition, perhaps he's receiving justice for the double-murder he committed earlier, but for what he wasn't brought to justice.

Regarding the cheating at various casinos and the obvious on-line scamming going on, it's not money that's the problem, but the "Love of Money" on the part of the greedy criminally minded that always seems to pay these disasterous dividends for the unsuspecting. The root of ALL evil; the LOVE OF MONEY...

Make it a "Great Day" all and "JUST SAY NO" to on-line tournaments and on-line gambling. There's no future in continuing to waste your hard-earned dollars by putting them in the hands of individuals, whoever they are, who only have THEIR criminal interests at stake.

Skipper

 

I give up

It seems there is no room for rational thought in this discussion.

 

cheated

I believe that I was cheated at a smaller down town Vegas casino. I was playing heads up at a 2 - deck game, dealt by a good looking blond. It was a pitch game with no marking cut card. I noticed that she was redealing in an inconsistant manner. I started paying closer attention to the game and concluded that she would redeal when the count was positive when ever she could. I got up from the table and said, "I don't like playing in this kind of game", and left. I believe that the blond was showing off for her pit boss, who was watching the game.

Another time I believe that I was cheated in a Tunica casio by a dealer in a pitch game. The way he handled the cards I felt like he could deal me any card that he wanted too. Later I was suspicious that this same dealer was helping a team of locals win big in the weekly BJ tournament. He dealt the final table. He was probably tipped large by the local winning team members.

But an observant player can detect this type of cheating. I always pay attention when the dealers shuffle, where I play they look at the front and back of each card when starting with a new decks, the shuffle is in plain sight of the players and the eye in the sky. It would be extemely hard to remove cards from the deck. Too many people would have to be in on it to be practical, they already have an exetreme house edge.

On line the only things that a player can do is keep tract of as much info as possible and hope for the best. You don't see the shuffles. You don't know if they are giving the needed cards to playing partners, that would be hard detect. I conclude that cheating goes on everywhere but is much easier to do on line than in the brick and mortar places.

I maintained reams of info on heads up BJ hands on the old, Global Player Casino. I kept tract of data such as, true counts, percent of BJ's, number of 5's, number of 7's, 8's, and 9's, win/loss ratio, etc., etc. . I never uncovered anything out of order.

tgun

 

some comments

I have seen a number of bj games where the dealer would shuffle the deck if the count got too positive, but deal to the bitter end of the deck if the count was running negative. I don't think that either the casinos nor the law considers this to be cheating. Casinos can call a shuffle whenever they want to. It is just a little extra advantage they have over the player, if they want it. This 'variable shuffle timing' was very common in Oregon, before Indian casinos started up. Oregon allowed blackjack, as long as the dealer was an independent agent, and was putting up his own money on the game. House backed games were not allowed. Some places had as many as a dozen bj tables, with all dealers being independent agents; they brought their own cards and chips, and set whatever rules they wanted within the legal limits.

I think the corporate nature of gambling now has reduced, but not totally stopped, house based cheating. Corporations can't deal with 'off the books' variables like cheating and skimming very well; they prefer other ways of skinning the players, like 6-5 bj. But individual dealers will try to cheat, for their own benefit, either skimming chips from the rack or feeding a partner, and making up for the reduced take by cheating.

As I have mentioned, you can automatically save all the tbj hands you play on UB/AP now. Everyone should do this. We can build a great data base for future analysis.

As for gambling on line: I have not found anything that proves the tbj games on UB are dishonest in any way; but that doesn't mean there can not be cheating going on, nor that they are not rigged in some way that I haven't detected. My best arguement is simply that I started online play two years ago with $50 in deposits, and never put in more, am still playing online, with more than $50 in my account, and have taken thousands out in profit. As long as they pay me, I'll keep playing, I guess.

 

Random Number Generator

If a computer random card generator was of a very long sequence and not affected say by the time of day or how long a player thinks about making a decision then after 2 or 3 deals in a poker game it would be easy to predict all the cards that are going to be delt on the next deal.
A gaming control agent in Vegas got away with this idea to win money from slot machines. Later he tried to win a massive electronic keno game in New Jersey and was caught when his partner's ID did not check out. There can never really be a true computer number generator.


..................................BlueLight

 

Bluelight

While it is correct to say that no software random number generator is truely random; there are mechanical random number generators which do not sequence, as they use natural processes, such as zener diode noise. The quality of the random numbers generated by these RNGs depends on the quality of the software which processes the output, but, as the input from the RNG is random, a good processing program will put out truely random numbers.

 

A copy of what I posted on the LVA board regarding misrepresenting of facts.

I am out of the country, across a big ocean in the Southern Hemisphere, so I did not see the show but I was able to see part of it from a link that I found online.

Why is it that the media almost never does their research properly when it involves the gambling industry or Las Vegas? This happens time and time again in news reports, articles and even in movies. From the clip that I saw, two inaccuracies stood out immediately. Nice work CBS. Can I believe anything that any media person presents on any subject matter at all given that when they report on things that I know about, there are invariably errors?

1) Gambling online in the USA is not illegal. Please see a recent blog on David Matthews Gambling in Space for US Government verification of this.

2) Absolute Poker does not operate out of a strip mall in San Jose, Costa Rica. In fact, they never have been in San Jose itself and they have not been in that strip mall showed in the report for over two years now. I have a friend who used to work for them who now lives and works in Las Vegas and I am certain that the information presented regarding this on the show was incorrect, as verified by my friend.

 

Cheating in our mits

Why are the folks talking about things that do not really matter and getting to the real problem??? Wether or not you know how a random generator works, a strip mall was used or wasn't used or CBS has the facts correct are all are much lesseor points. These are just smoke screen diversions.

Everyone need to focus on all the crooks that perpertrated this deplorable situation. Spend your time writing or calling people that can put the crooks in jail for a long time!!! The sites that this happened on should be boycotted until the real facts come out. As a community we should not let these sites off the hook. With out strong retribution, it will happen again...

That is just one mans opinion...

 

Why would CBS 60 Minutes pointedly air incorrect or inaccurate information as a smoke screen diversion?

 

I think askdick was not referring to CBS when he talked about a "smoke screen". Seems to me he meant we are getting off of the main topic and purpose of this thread.

 

Agree...

I wholeheartedly agree with you toolman1. In addition askdick, I agree with you also, but don't let this go to your freshly barbered head...

In the future, all of us should act as if there is no such thing as "Internet Gambling" or "On-line Poker and Blackjack Tournaments" until they get some of the criminally minded, whoever they are, put behind bars! Even then, I for one am definitely finished with ANY kind of GAMBLING or TOURNAMENT PLAY ON-LINE!!! Too many unsavory characters out there in cyber space waiting to gooble up your hard-earned dollars.

Call it a "boycott" or whatever you wish, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a dead-end street with nothing but possible misery for those who stupidly continue to travel down that road like sheep to the slaughter...

Make it a "Great Evening" all.

Skipper:flame::flame::flame::whip::whip::whip:

 

It was a better evening before I found you had called me stupid.