Casinos are of course well versed at spotting card cheats. However, it can often take them quite some time to spot the most experienced of cheaters.
Over at the Crazy Moose Casino in Washington, the security team eventually became aware of a player that appeared to be beating one of their card games much more regularly than he should have been doing, and that is a red flag for any security team.
Having paid a visit to that casino daily for many weeks, it was decided that enhanced security would be centred on the table game he was playing, and they would track his movements from game to game too, just in case a Dealer was in on his alleged scam too.
It wasn’t long before one eagle eyed security team member spotted an age-old sleight of hand in which the player swapped cards from one hand to another, therefore guaranteeing him a winning pay-out.
It was the game of High Card Flush that player had managed to perfect his sleight of hand on, and CCTV operatives noticed him swapping, quite professionally, one card from one hand to another, allowing him to form a Straight Flush.
That player was Frederick Steven Nolan who has since been charged with cheating. The security team noticed he did swap and change the tables he was playing at to such an extent there was no suspicion that any Dealers were in on the scam. It was noted, however, that just before swapping cards he would distract the Dealer by asking for change or to get them to cash-up his chips.
Further investigations found that over the six-week period he was known to have been visiting the casino he managed to cheat a total of $38,335 from the casino.
