American gambler Richard Marcus introduces himself on his website as a former-cheater-turned-consultant, and inventor of many gambling tricks at the roulette wheel and baccarat table.
He started gambling in casinos when he was just a kid, and when he was about 19 years old, after winning some money, he drove from New York to Las Vegas. He started to play baccarat at the Riviera Hotel-Casino, which was “big” at the time, and within 10 hours he had won US$100,000.
He eventually lost it all and had to get a job as dealer in a casino to survive and return home. It was then that he was discovered by a cheating team, looking to recruit.
Over 12 years, they cheated at roulette and baccarat, using all kinds of schemes, the most popular of which was the false shuffle – when the dealer intentionally fails to shuffle one or two of the decks and the players, who are keeping track, already know what card is going to come next.
They did this all over the world in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Europe, but never in Macau.
“Before the handover, Macau had a reputation,” Richard says, explaining that he was afraid of entering a territory he believed was dominated by triads. His team never went to any place they believed was particularly dangerous.
After 12 years, it was time to create his own team and come up with new schemes. He then became “famous” for introducing new moves on the cheating scene.
“We came up with a move called the Savannah [in roulette],” he says.
His website explains: “By hiding US$5,000 chips under US$5 chips on the 2 to 1 column, we won US$10,010 each time these bets won, while losing just US$10 when they lost. We accomplished this by quickly switching out the losing bet containing the $5,000 chip and replacing it with a $5 chip the instant the ball dropped.”
As they successfully won millions of dollars cheating casinos for many years, Marcus says he and his team were taken to interrogation rooms on a number of occasions, but were never actually prosecuted.
“They never could get the evidence,” he says, adding: “Unlike the vast majority of cheats, we never used equipment, everything was done with brains, balls and lack of greed – knowing when to stop.”
In many cases, Marcus says the casinos knew they were cheating, but just couldn’t prove it.
“We did one quick move and we were out, we never had a lot of exposure.”
Macau, an easy land
One day, he decided to stop. His life of crime over, he could then tell the world about his story.
When the gaming industry in Macau began to boom, Marcus was already retired, but decided to come for a visit anyway.
“I did think about coming out of retirement, because cheating in Macau would have been very easy for me.”
According to him, there was a lot of suspicious behaviour around, revealing what he believed to be gambling tricks.
“I saw two or three baccarat shuffle scams, junkets making deals with players and dealers in partnership with players,” he says.
He says a cheater is always the best person to help catch another cheater.
“A lot of people that consult for casinos read about casino cheating, but they have never cheated themselves, so they don’t know how cheaters communicate,” he explains.
And all the casino equipment in the world may not always be enough detect a cheater.
“When for instance, there’s a partnership between the players and employees of the casinos, cameras cannot see,” he explains. “There are also partnerships between the employees of the casinos. In false shuffle scams, usually it’s more than one employee involved – you have the dealer and the supervisor sometimes.”
Since retiring, Marcus has been contacted by many casinos concerned about scams on their gaming floors. Now he works with casinos in Europe, South America and the US as a security consultant, and once in a while he gets a call from his clients about a group of baccarat players winning a lot of money and he goes to the venue, pretending to be a player, to understand their techniques and reveal their scams.
He has published five books and gives seminars, as well as helping casinos set up surveillance systems, train security staff.
Despite his expertise, up to now, he says he has not yet been approached by any casino operators in Macau.
