Casino Surveillance Pro

Back in the 80s, when I first moved to Reno and started going to casinos, and then working in casinos, and then dealing in casinos, there was a rule that you were not able to set the dice at the craps table. They would warn you once and then throw you out if you did it again. It's totally different today. As you may have read in one of my earlier post I had not played craps in about 20 years. And two years ago when I was working here in Reno (as a surveillance Observer) I noticed that almost all of the craps players we're setting the dice before they threw them. I was told that now the shooter was  allowed to do so as long as they made a reasonable attempt to hit the back wall with the dice. So I started doing some research, which involves reading a few books and watching a bunch of videos on YouTube. Suffice to say there are almost as many different theories and strategies on dice setting and dice throwing as there are people commenting about it. I wondered how much of it wa...

Check out this article in Forbes magazine. Very interesting reading. Click here .

This post is sponsored by Amazon Prime .  You can get a free 30 day trial of  by clicking  here .  And don't forget about my article, called " Sports Betting: Advanced middle techniques for college and pro football wagering ." It's all about a way to bet on sports with very little risk but high potential rewards. Click  here  to go to the eBay listing. It's only $4.99 plus fifty cents shipping.  Now on to this weeks topic.  I'm sure some of you invest in the stock market. Almost every one has a 401k if their employer offers it. Some off you  might even invest in individual stocks or a mutual fund in a private brokerage account.  So let me ask you what you would do if you got a hot tip from a friend about a tech stock, a "highly volatile" tech stock, that was poised to go through the roof. Maybe they're about to release a new app, and there are rumors that Google is going to buy them out. Maybe you've squirreled away some "mad money...

This post is sponsored by Amazon Prime .  You can get a free 30 day trial of  by clicking  here . Speaking of Amazon, they have some great books about how to win at blackjack, craps, and other casino games. Click on this link:  Good books about Casino gambling And don't forget about my article, called " Sports Betting: Advanced middle techniques for college and pro football wagering ." It's all about a way to bet on sports with very little risk but high potential rewards. Click  here  to go to the eBay listing. It's only $4.99 plus fifty cents shipping.  Ok, here's a story I came across recently, about a cheating conspiracy at a South Dakota tribal casino, involving a dealer, the pit boss and a player. Read it carefully, there will be a test afterwards! Three Men Sentenced In $10,000 Blackjack Table Scam At Northeast SD Indian Casino Pit boss Lito Bolocon, 44, of Sisseton, S.D., and frequent casino blackjack player Jordon Rondell, 29, of Le...

This post is sponsored by Amazon Prime .  You can get a free 30 day trial of Prime V ideo by clicking  here . Speaking of Amazon, they have some great books about how to win at blackjack, craps, and other casino games. Click on this link:  Good books about Casino gambling And don't forget about my article, called " Sports Betting: Advanced middle techniques for college and pro football wagering ." It's all about a way to bet on sports with very little risk but high potential rewards. Click  here  to go to the eBay listing. It's only $4.99 plus fifty cents shipping.  Okay, on with post. The actual title of this post is " More on dice setting". Did you like how I use the word moron in the actual post title? (I'm trying real hard not to hurt my arm patting myself on the back for being so clever.) So, as you may remember from my posts before football season started (sorry, I get easily distracted by football), I was doing some empirical research...

Stay tuned for an important announcement about a new direction for this Blog. I've been a little under the weather, so it's being rolled out a little slowly, sorry. More info soon!

I want to start out by saying that the table games management of the casino industry, including those tasked with surveillance and game protection, is made up mostly of experienced, level headed professionals who conduct themselves in a professional manner, as ladies and gentlemen. Some of them have a college education and a degree, although for most, the education has come from the "School of Hard Knocks".  No one, and I truly mean no one , comes into this industry knowing everything there is to know, so we are all recipients of on-the-job training, in one form or another. That having been said, you do not have to go very far to find persons who are overly opinionated, prejudiced and envious of others who have more talent, opportunity and/or are more successful than themselves. Still others have just been at this for too long, and have a bad case of cynicism and a poor attitude toward everyone and everything. Although this kind of thing happens in every industry, for whate...

I've been noticing a lot of stories in the news recemtly about cheating (in casinos) at the game of baccarat. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you what I know about the subject. Which turns out to be quite a lot. If you are reading this blog, you probably already know how Baccarat is played. For those of you who don't, I suggest going to The Wizard of Odds website ( click here) to read their excellent primer. They explain how the game is played, and some of its quirks and intricacies, much better then I could here, and with a lot less typing on my part. So if you're not already familiar with how the game is played, go and read that now, then come back. Now on to the cheating. Unlike cheating at other card games in the casino, every case that I know of that involves baccarat cheating, is a conspiracy of two or more persons, at least one of whom is on the inside (a casino employee). The somewhat recent Phil Ivey case is an exception that we will discuss at a l...

Okay, some of you are not going to agree with everything I say here, and some of you won't think I should be saying it at all. That's fine, everyone's entitled to their opinion. And while it is not my intent to give anyone a step by step tutorial on how to get away with an armed robbery in a Vegas casino, or anywhere else for that matter, there may be some people out there who might use this information to do so, or at least attempt it. so be it. I have my reasons for saying the things I'm about to say, and those things should become clear by the time I finish with this post. First of all, I'm having trouble attaching photos to my posts using the Blogger app. They hang up while uploading, and I end up having to delete the post and start over. So I'm not going to show you the picture that was released of the white male who committed an armed robbery at the Excalibur Casino last Wednesday, the 13th.  What I am going to tell you is that it is a very poor photo (r...

The Excalibur Casino, on the Las Vegas Strip, was robbed on Wednesday (9/13/18) around 10:15 a.m., when an armed man reportedly went to the casino cage and came away with an undisclosed amount of money. A surveillance image of the suspect was released later that day, and I will talk about that in a later post. Look for it!

Last night, after watching the Philadelphia Eagles/Atlanta Falcons penalty fest on Thursday Night Football, I was too amped up to sleep so I decided to go out and play some blackjack. I live in Sparks now, so instead of going to downtown Reno I just went to the nearby Western Village. I got a seat on first base at one of their $5 minimum, single-deck tables, and bought in with a c-note. I know a lot of card counters like to be the only one at the table, going "heads up" against the dealer. I actually find it easier to count cards at a full table. On a single deck game you're only going to get two hands before the dealer has to shuffle up again. As a result, after you've made your hit/stand decision on the second round, you no longer have to pay any attention to the cards coming out. Take that opportunity to look aimlessly around, ("casino gazing"). Also, the game pace is slower at a full table. thus giveing you even more opportunities to casino gaze, or B...

I just read a very good article on LinkedIn by Richard Marcus, a Casino table games protection trainer and author:  "Has Casino Game Protection Gone too Far? Or Should we just Change its Name?" Click here to read it. Links: Amazon's page of  Good books about Casino gambling .   Free 30 day trial of Amazon Prime. Click   here .  Support me on Patreon, if you enjoy my posts and want to see more of them. Click  here . Click   here  to go to my eBay listing to advertise your product or service on this blog.

When you drop 60 bucks in less than 3 minutes playing  Blackjack, it's time for a strategic withdrawal  and a re-evaluation of your personal risk-reward paradigm.  So I cashed  in and decided to write it off with a blog post, thus making it a tax-deductible learning opportunity. Don't you wish you could write off your gambling losses like that? I stopped at the tables at the Bonanza, in North Reno, just after lunch, and got fleeced. I'm not saying I got cheated or anything, the dealer was just hot that's all. No big deal, this kind of thing sometimes happens. Some of you might think that I walked away too early, that only spending three minutes (six hands) at the table is not enough to determine how things are going to go. To that I call bullshit. I have a hard and fast rule that if at any point during your session you lose 5 Hands in a row, you should move to another table or quit. Since there was only one table open I opted for quitting. Losing six hands in a row...

I just watched another good dice setting video. You can see it by clicking here . The dice are set with a 6 and 5 on top and the threes facing you prior to throwing. The throw is made with a slow, pendulum motion and slight backspin. The main point of this video is that you need to make adjustments if you keep throwing sevens. The only adjustment he makes in the video is to move the dice, so that the one that was on the left side is now on the right. (Watch the video and you'll see what I mean.) I know it doesn't seem like much but this adjustment makes a big difference. He goes from throwing three sevens in his first 6 rolls, to throw I eat 10 straight rolls without a seven. It's a really small sample size obviously, but it might indicate a real-world difference. Now I am still not convinced that all this will work , but I am going to give it another try.  My next time out I will use the same grip set and throwing motion, along with the "Iron Cross" beting s...

So a few days ago I posted a poll on Twitter asking people to vote on what their favorite movie was about casinos or casino gambling. Because Twitter doesn't offer an unlimited number of voting slots (only 4) I selected 3 movies, plus an other category, where you would have to name the movie in a reply or retweet. The three movies I selected were 21, with Kevin Spacey, Casino with Robert De Niro and The Cooler with William H Macy. These three movies illustrate what I consider to be the best movies out there with casinos and casino gambling at the core of their plots. Here are the results: 1. Casino        .                   73% 2. Other                              13% 3. Tie - 21 and The Cooler 7% each The votes for...

2 arrested in slot burglaries at bars in Reno-Sparks area The Associated Press August 21, 2018 - 4:11 am   RENO — Police have arrested two men suspected of stealing at least $25,000 in burglaries involving slot machines at more than a dozen bars in the Reno-Sparks areas. Reno police say 37-year-old Michael Robinson and 37-year-old Matthew Wiley were arrested early Monday after they left a business they burglarized in Sparks. Police say they targeted slot machines and allegedly committed three burglaries over the past few days. Washoe County sheriff’s deputies and police in Reno and Sparks started conducting surveillance on the suspects in May because it appeared the crimes could be related. Detectives believe they are responsible for at least 14 thefts totaling between $25,000 and $30,000. It’s not clear if they have lawyers or will be appointed one at a pending court appearance.

Las Vegas Casino Security Needs To Watch For More Than Cheaters To Qualify For Federal Liability Protection, Expert Says If Las Vegas casinos and hotels want to receive the type of liability protection that MGM Resorts is seeking nearly one year after the Oct. 1 shooting, they’re going to have to prove that their security systems can do more than just catch clever card counters at the blackjack table, according to one lawyer. Hotels are currently not among the facilities that have been approved for Department of Homeland Security certification that protects and limits liability in the event of a terrorist or violent attack on their premises under the SAFETY Act of 2002. And at least according to one expert, Las Vegas casinos might need to dramatically diversify and amplify  their surveillance procedures in order to meet those standards. Lack of Guilt by Association “What they would have to show is that those cameras are equally useful for terrorist threats, such as...

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Senator Orrin Hatch calls for federal oversight of U.S. sports betting industry Howard Stutz, CDC Gaming Reports ·  August 24, 2018 at 1:20 pm Retiring U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch said Thursday he plans to introduce legislation that would call for federal oversight of the nation’s growing legal sports betting market. In a speech on the Senate floor, the Utah Republican, who has said he is not seeking re-election this year, said that the recent legalization of sports betting by individual states “has been a race to the bottom.” Three states – Delaware, New Jersey and Mississippi – have launched sportsbooks at casinos and racetracks, and a fourth – West Virginia – expects to see its first sportsbook open by Sept. 1. Pennsylvania has also approved sports wagering regulations, and more than a dozen other states are exploring the issue. “I firmly believe that we need a set of fundamental, federal standards that will protect the integrity of the game, consumers, and the spor...