Beating the Casino? Richard Marcus Did

Casinos can be fun places to go to, the alcohol is almost always free, or so cheap as to be almost so, the atmosphere itself is intoxicating with characters of all exotic shapes and sizes cheerfully throwing their cash onto the green baize of the roulette table or on the blackjack or any of the many other games that casinos run in order to attract big money.

For some people the the thrill of chance is not good enough, some people go to the casino to make money not to win money. Over the years there have been very few successful scams pulled off against casinos but there have been some…

One man, Richard Marcus, is widely respected as a successful casino cheater. He started his career as a straight up gambler, though he gave this up when he found himself broke living under a bridge. He then gained himself a job as a legitimate baccarat and blackjack dealer. It was at this point that Marcus began to plan his casino cheats.

One of which is entitled Savannah and is simple sleight of hand, Marcus was would bet fifteen dollars on a hand of blackjack using three five dollar chips. He would also place a five hundred dollar chip hidden underneath the top three chips, placing the five dollar chips angled slightly towards the dealer so as to obscure the value chip underneath. If he won he would collect, if he lost he would slip the five hundred dollar chip out from the pile when the dealer turned his back and play it again in the next hand.

This sleight of hand is the essence of the Richard Marcus school of casino cheating. He didn’t work alone but formed a team of casino cheats who would enter into some of the biggest most luxurious casinos in the world with the object of bleeding the house dry. With his team he would play all manner of confidence tricks using pretty women as distractions to casino dealers and practicing for hours on end the intricacies of the sleight of hand, the hand movements and gestures that appeared innocuous but were in fact the sign language which he used to communicate with his team of professionals.

He waited to retire before telling all to the world but when he did he really gave the casinos something to think about. You can see him explaining his antics in his own words here: