Whether it’s a white lie, cheating on your wife, or trying to play the casino for more money, if you get caught red-handed, you earn the title of a cheater.
Now, some cases are easier to get out of than others, and for the people scamming the world’s biggest casinos there certainly was no easy escape route. Regardless of the technology used, the card-counting technique, having people on the inside or any other system scamming trick, these eggheads were uncovered and in lucky cases red flagged. Others, not so lucky ones, will be forever identified in casino history as the biggest and slickest of them all.
1. Tommy Glenn Carmichael – The Coin Scam
Number one on our list is in fact possibly the longest running scammer, spanning his career in cheating casinos over more than four decades. Television repair shop worker Tommy G. Carmichael made acquaintance with the slot machines of Las Vegas in the 1960’s, event which forever changed his life’s course.
After hoodwinking money from slot machines for well over 25 years, Carmichael was finally arrested in 1985 and imprisoned for 5 years. As it turns out, these years of imprisonment were not for naught. The monkey paw came into being and Carmichael continued to hack into slot machines.
Another invention, the light wand, invented by Carmichael in 1991, assured that our perpetrator would continue his transgressions even to the point of selling his gadget to fellow felons. His “buyers” were said to grab over $10.000 per day with the help of his invention.
In 1996 he was once again apprehended, this time charged with possessing and constructing a cheating apparatus. The charges were dropped allowing him to continue his operation, but this time well under the radar. He moved on to scamming casino boat cruises but this cheat was not so lucky in later arrests made in 1998 and 1999. He is now probably trying to beat the casino games on GoWild.
2. Richard Marcus- The Legal Illegal Gambler
Homeless in Las Vegas is not the name of a movie about casino gambling, it is the point at which Richard Marcus has gotten after a failed career as a legal gambler. Luck smiled on him after taking a job as a blackjack and baccarat dealer. Seeing the tables turned he discovered a way to scam casinos out of millions of dollars.
Whether the dealer was color blind or not, Marcus managed to trick him into thinking he had in fact placed a smaller bet. He would place three chips on the table. Two red $5 chips on top of a brown $500 chip coupled with a basic slight-of-hand technique were enough to assure a big win or a small loss for our number two cheater. The winning bet would fill Marcus’ pockets with $1000, while the losing bet, during which Marcus would substitute the $500 chip with a $15 chip, would only bring him minor losses.
Sure enough the same trick can only last for so long. Marcus was caught and prosecuted. Although the casinos banned him for life from entering let alone playing another game of chance, Marcus continues his career to this day by offering mentorship to other system scammers.
Giving himself the title of “World’s #1 Casino and Poker Cheating Expert”, he continues to show others the ropes through the help of a website, blog and authoring two books on the subject.
3. Dominic “The Dominator” LoRiggio
There is most likely not another of his kind in the world. LoRiggio became an ace at manipulating the dice at the craps and blackjack tables, thus earning the nickname of The Dominator.
After years of practicing for hours upon hours, he claims that he acquired the skill of throwing the dice how he wants them, where he wants them, and with whatever value he wants them to have. Invoking simple physics, LoRiggio sustains that his method, involving setting, gripping, tossing, and landing the dice gently against the back of the craps table, is foolproof.
Although impressive in his delivery, a cheat is still a cheat.
4. Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo- Roulette Man
The reason why casinos today constantly test and monitor their roulette tables comes with a name: Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo. Most likely most famous roulette scammer in the world has a story to be told.
Garcia-Pelayo began his roulette playing career after discovering that the wheels were not perfectly random and there were indeed certain numbers that would fall more often than others. He analyzed roulette recordings and was able to predict the probabilities of the game.
His first big win took place in Madrid where he scammed the casino for 600.000Euro. Motivated by this fairly huge amount and having deciphered the game, he moves on to win big in Las Vegas in the early 1990’s.
This cheat also turned out to be braver than needed, not only the hefty sum of $2 million in the bank. After being banned from the casino scene he appealed to the Supreme Court which concluded his winnings were not illegal. Despite the grand court’s decision, no casino would ever allow him back, thus ending his career in 1992.
5. MIT Blackjack Team-21 anyone?
No doubt the people on this list are some of the most famous cheats in the history of casino gambling. Working as a team they developed and tried out in mock situations a whole new ball game for counting cards. No wonder they are forever immortalized not only in casino cheaters history but also in the film 21.
However they cheated, stole, or changed the odds in their favor we all have to admit that these people are amongst the smartest and of course slickest of us. Luckily, as there is always a silver lining, many of these former crooks now work with casinos worldwide to flush out the cheats, improve their security and generally keep both house and gambler satisfied.
