German Casino Cheat Snagged

[Cal here, wrapping up a short week---]

There's a reason why modern casinos have multiple layers of anti-cheating security in place: it works.

A recent story on a German poker site, pokerolymp.de, details the story of a long-time German poker cheat who was recently uncovered. The cheat, referred to as "Mr. X" in the story, but subsequently identified as someone name "Hussan" in one of several 2+2 threads on the matter, was discovered at a casino in Bath doing one of the oldest of all card cheats --- withholding a couple of cards and keeping them tucked up his sleeve, and substituting them in as needed. Card shooters have been around since the 19th century.

According to the tale, the casino not only made infrequent counts of the deck in play, but did so at regular scheduled times, 10pm and midnight, making it that much easier to pull off a cheat like this. The mysterious "Mr. X" insisted on playing only from Seat 1, and was noted as being a radically aggressive pre-flop player... easy enough to do when you've got extra cards from which to make a hand.

Again, per the original tale, the cheat was discovered when the house finally became suspicious and made an unscheduled card count at 11pm, and security cameras caught the guy mucking four cards instead of the normal two. However, this "Mr. X" may have been doing this for up to two years in German and Austrian casinos, and estimates of his take range as high as two million dollars.

Perhaps more facts on this one will emerge in the coming days.

We'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce two pieces of German content translated over on KickAssPoker.com. For a program of the highest regard, consider Poker Stars.de Review and the PokerStars Download-Führer.