Casinos are places where risky behavior is not uncommon. After all, when faced with huge winnings waiting for players, even the best can sometimes fail to keep their composure. Many, for example, are easily drawn into an endless series of bets which usually only leads to huge financial losses.
There are also those who decide to face the casino games in a slightly different way. Instead of trying their luck at slot machines or card games according to the standard rules, as it should be, they prefer to take more risks and fight a little less fairly.
Do you think that casino scammers are just a movie fantasy? Well, the reality is that very often in casinos there are dishonest players who want to make sure that in the game it's no longer the casino that has the advantage, but... them. Casinos are well aware of this, which is why they try to catch such people right away.
For casinos, fraud prevention involves surveillance in the first place. At the front line are of course the casino employees themselves, especially the croupiers. They are the ones who have to be vigilant and well-trained in the techniques that potential fraudsters may use.
But sometimes it's hard to spot anything unusual among the multitude of players that frequent online casinos. Besides, sometimes the scammers themselves are so good that at first glance no one is able to realize that something is wrong. This is where technology comes to the rescue.
Casinos are filled with cameras. This allows you to observe the game from a slightly different perspective and, if necessary, play the video many times, also zooming in on certain parts of it. However, not only video recorders are useful in observation, but also, for example, biometric authentication systems. While casinos often cooperate with each other by creating special databases of cheaters, they very often mask themselves or avoid giving their real data. This is where systems can come in handy, as players' faces are usually scanned and recognised at the casino entrance.
Data has the power to make things happen
Everything seems to be fine - the croupiers do not raise any objections, the camera recordings do not indicate anything strange, but... something is wrong. After analyzing the financial results, it turns out that on one game the casino suddenly loses a lot. Something like this may suggest that one of the players has acted (or regularly acts) fraudulently. Of course, such an analysis will not immediately indicate what exactly is going on. It will, however, give you a hint that something illegal may be going on in the casino.
This type of analysis is particularly important in the case of online casinos, because here there is not such a detailed observation of players and their behavior. That's why it's worth using any algorithms that monitor the relationships between players. It rarely happens that fraudsters act alone. So if it turns out that the casino lost a lot of money on a particular game on a given day and it was visited by several people living at the same address on the same day - such a thing may constitute the first clue for further investigations.
Many scams boil down to counterfeit chips or cards. As far as the former is concerned, casinos have decided to curb such practices with the help of RFID. This is an identification system using radio waves. The technology is based on the principle of reading and transmitting data from chips. How does it look like in a casino?
RFID chips are placed in the chips. They emit special identification sequences in the form of radio waves. And so, it is enough for the dealer to have a reader, which will immediately detect possible counterfeit chips.
The situation is similar with cards. Finally, they can be marked with special bar codes invisible to the naked eye. Such a code is read in turn by a reader placed in automatic card shufflers (dealing shoe). So if a player tries to swap cards, theoretically this protection should be able to catch the fraud.
Don't forget about the dealers
The dealers, in theory, are the ones who decide the course of the game, and by being at the heart of the action, they should also be able to easily catch potential cheaters. This also makes them... the best candidates for collaborators for dishonest players.
A lot of attempted cheats involve cheaters working with dealers. It doesn't matter if they are simply bribed or if the whole plan is a bit more complicated and involves employing a particular person in the casino of their choice - the dealer simply takes part in the fraud.
To guard against this, casinos take great care in selecting their employees and carefully checking their backgrounds. But that may not be enough, so they also keep a close eye on how the dealers are doing. Because if a casino only suffers losses when one person is playing, this could be an indication of fraudulent activity.
Accidental revealing of cards can also be problematic. After all, croupiers are only human, and sometimes they may unintentionally reveal what is hidden under a card when handling it. That is why casinos attach great importance to training their employees. What's more, they often threaten dealers with penalties if they discover irregularities and are particularly enthusiastic about encouraging players to report situations in which the dealer's cards are inadvertently revealed.
Cooperation saves all
Casinos, although they compete with each other, try to cooperate when it comes to fraud. Very often combined systems are created, in which the data of cheaters are recorded. And yes, since most casinos punish players who try to cheat by banning them for life, information about such a thing should be passed on.
You're probably wondering what would reporting a cheater do to a casino that just caught one in the act? Well, of course, sharing this information may protect other casinos from his activities, but at the same time, if necessary, it will work the other way around - after all, if it's to this casino that someone comes who has previously committed fraud in other places, this information should also be in the system. It is therefore worthwhile for the casinos to cooperate with each other on certain levels.
Although casinos have already found many ways to catch cheaters, there is no end to the creativity of dishonest players. This means that the pursuit of eliminating malpractice will not end so easily. Over time, especially with the advancement of technology, the list of safeguards will probably grow even longer, but there will still be those who want to live an Ocean's Eleven-like adventure.
