Weaponizing Psychological Domination to Cheat at Roulette

You probably know that the main element organzied professional roulette cheats need to demolish is your game protection procedures. This article will show you, and hopefully teach you, just how that's done, by the most devastating roulette cheats out there today, and by me during a 25-year professional cheating career.

OK, back to the roulette segment of my table games games protection training class. I always begin this segment with this question to the attendees: What is your policy when a person walks up to a roulette wheel and legitimately bets $100 chips straight-up? What is the dealer supposed to do? Believe it or not, I’ve had a few high-level attendees answer, “Just make sure it’s bet before the dealer calls no more bets,” but by and large they answer correctly, “Call out black action,” or something to that effect. ?

Next I ask, “What is your policy when the dealer does not see or call out any large-denomination bets, spins the ball, identifies the winning number, marks it, then sees a $100 chip sitting squarely straight-up on the number?” Believe it or not, I often get the answer, “We pay it.” I’ve gotten that answer from both table games and surveillance directors at major properties. I’ve also gotten lesser foolhardy answers such as, “If the dealer is sure the bet was legitimate, then just pay it.” And then when I ask, “How can the dealer be sure it was legitimate if he didn’t see it until marking the winning number?”...Well, I don’t want to go into some of the remarks I get off that one!

But of course most of the attendees answer correctly. They say the dealer must call the supervisor, and then when I ask what the supervisor is supposed to do, I get about twenty percent who say just pay it, with variations like “as long as the dealer is sure whose bet it was.” The rest of the group correctly answers that surveillance should be notified. Note that these percentages for correct answers is higher with surveillance people.

Next I say, “OK, let’s say that your casino operates very efficiently and has and adheres to all relevant game protection procedures, such as when there is a discovery of an unseen winning $100 chip straight-up at roulette the dealer never saw until it won. So this means your casino would take the following steps upon the dealer seeing the $100 chip for the first time when it had already won: dealer notifies supervisor; supervisor calls surveillance; surveillance reviews and gives his observation info back to the supervisor.

Then I reinforce the upcoming proposition I will soon make with: “OK, let’s say that one hundred professional roulette pastposting teams from all over the world come to your casino, one after the other, each with the same goal of pastposting a $100 chip straight-up for a $3,500 payoff. Let’s further say that they all do their pastposts and that you follow procedure every time up to surveillance being called with suspicion, and surveillance notifies that it was indeed a pastpost, so the supervisor on the floor refuses to pay off the cheat. So all hundred pastposting teams end up with no payoff, banned from the casino or even arrested, whatever the case may be.”

Now the propostion: “I (Richard Marcus) am professional roulette pastposter number one hundred and one and I am coming to your casino to do the exact same thing the first hundred tried, pastpost a $100 chip straight-up, AND you’re gonna pay me. And then I’m gonna come back on another shift and do the same $100 straight-up pastpost and you’re gonna pay me again.”

Now I get looks of confusion, so I say, “I don’t care one bit that the hundred professional teams before me failed. You will pay me because I know how to break down your game protection apparatus.”

Next I say, “Of course I cannot do this move!” Then a pause. “Not by myself, that is. I need a professional roulette cheating team. One that functions like a Navy SEAL team, where each member of the team is responsible for one part of the operation and one failure from any team member brings the whole operation down in heap of tumbling bricks.” That is the truth. Professional casino cheat teams, especially roulette teams, operate like a well-oiled military machine.

“Now, I’m sure most of you have had game protection training before. I’m sure you’ve seen the trainers demonstrate cheat moves. I’m sure you’ve seen their surveillance videos, their PowerPoint presentations, their magic shows, their memory tricks, but what you haven’t seen before is a trainer who is going to make you a cheat for a day. That’s right, you’re all gonna participate actively in this training. We’re gonna form casino cheat teams in here and you are going to do the cheating. You’re all gonna be in my head, gonna learn how I think, how I see a roulette table or any other gaming table...”

I let my eyes scan the layout. “I see this roulette layout different from the way you see it. When I look at it, my eyes take in the lines and the boxes and my brain receives those images and conceptualizes ways to cheat the game. That’s what I want you to be able to do…no matter what level you reach in achieving this…

“And by doing all this you’re gonna come away with very important knowledge, that being how to think like a cheat because if you can think like a cheat, you have a much better chance of catching on to a cheat-team--before the move is done and they’ve got your cash and left your casino.”

I take a breather because I shot that out like a gust of wind. I scan the attendees, focusing on the men. “Okay, I need a guy with a great personality. I guy who can walk into a bar and take it over. Get all the women to look his way.

There's a general consensus right away, and a guy named Frank is chosen. I look him over. He’s in his early forties, got the looks. And even better than that, when he laughs and speaks, I see he’s got a soothing laugh and a classic tough but sweet sounding voice.

I say to the group, “Now I need two chip bettors? What do chip bettors do?” Everyone in the room acknowledges that they bet chips, but of course they don’t yet know what that function exactly is. I will explain it once my casino cheat team is established.

“Okay, now I need a mechanic.” Some people look at me with a weird expression. So I add,“ Not for fixing my car!" Everyone laughs. "But in cheat jargon, that's what we call the guy who manipulates or switches the chips.

"So…I need a person who is cool under pressure, who can go right out on a roulette layout, lift the dolly, remove the stack of chips underneath it, then replace that stack with different chips and put the dolly back on top…all within a half second. Who here would like to volunteer to be the mechanic?”

Not one hand goes up. Then someone says dubiously, “Within a half second?” I retort, "Okay, a full second," and everyone laughs.

Finally, I get a volunteer. His name is Nick. He’s in his thirties, a bit slick-looking and he asks, “Do the size of my hands matter?” I laugh and say, “Not for this move, Nick. Maybe for some other ones.” Everyone cracks up at the connotation.

Now we’re all gathered by the wheel. You readers are with us. I’m standing in the dealer’s position, everyone else around the table, drinking it in. “Okay, we are a five-man roulette team. We have a claimer, a mechanic and two check-bettors. My role is leader and team surveillance. I have to protect everyone on my team’s asses. And I have to be better than casino surveillance. Why? Because if casino surveillance screws up, what happens? They get beat for thirty-five hundred. If I screw up, then we don’t get paid the thirty-five hundred and we’re all subject to have problems much more serious than that.

“So, let me explain what each person’s function is.” I indicate Frank, the claimer. “Frank’s job is to get the money off the table, claim the bet. It does not matter who makes the pastposted bet. Frank just claims it. Now, the two chip bettors, Rhonda and Bill; their function it to place bets in a strategic pattern. By doing this, they force the dealer to make certain movements that will get his eyes off the layout for at least a half second, the time that Nick, the mechanic, needs to do the pastpost move. This is one of the major differences between amateur cheats and professional cheats. Amateurs nearly always use silly or uncoordinated distractions to get the dealer’s eyes off the layout while they do their moves. Professional cheats have no need to do that. They can just design particular bet patterns that force the dealer to turn his head at the right moment, mainly when the dealer is sweeping losing chips off the layout or fetching chips to pay outside winning bets…

“So when the dealer gives Nick that half second, he’s gonna do the pastpost that Frank will claim.” I give Nick a look. “As a matter of fact, he’s so slick we’re gonna call him Slick Nick! Evereyone, including Nick, likes that.

“Okay, all we need now is a dealer and a supervisor.” I look around the room and see a few hands go up. I choose Ben and Cindy, a pretty woman in her thirties. Ben will supervise and Cindy will deal. They step up to the head of the wheel.

“So let’s begin,” I say enthusiastically, rearing to go. “This is how we’re gonna beat the casino for $3,500 by pastposting a $100 chip straight up in the third section. Most casino personnel wise to game protection know that the bottom of the layout is the most vulnerable to cheating, so we’re gonna have to be real sharp and put in a beauty of a move to get this paid.”

I go on explaining how this will work. Professional casino cheat moves, especially at roulette, have four stages, each of which must be executed with precision in order for it to work, just like a military operation as I said before. The first stage is to get the four members of the team positioned at the right places around the layout and for them to buy-in for the chips needed to pull off the move. My place, as team surveillance, is not on the game but just above it by the wheel where I can face the entire team and have a clear view of the mechanic who will be seated at the bottom of the layout. We take the seats as they come available, which in a busy casino can take a while. The mechanic must have a position at the bottom of the layout. The two chip bettors can sit anywhere along the side of the layout, and the claimer does not come to the table until it’s time for the second stage, the set-up.

The mechanic arrives at the table with a stack of $5 cash chips and one $100 cash chip. He keeps the $100 chip palmed in his hand. The first chip bettor, Rhonda, buys in for a roulette color at the minimum value, usually $1 chips. She gets a color in the rear of the dealer’s chip well. If she cannot ask for a specific color, she will just wait until one of the desired colors becomes available. Remember that the actual color of the chip has no bearing, only its position in the dealer’s well.

The second chip bettor, Bill, buys in for any color of roulette chips at the minimum value. For this move, Rhonda will have purple chips, Bill gray chips. Once the three players have the chips they need, Rhonda makes a series of bets heading down the layout and finishes by placing three of her purple chips on number 35 for Slick Nick to swipe. Once he swipes them, he puts the three purple chips on top of his $100 black chip and keeps that four-chip stack, now called the move, palmed in his hand at all times. This completes the first stage of the move.

Now the set-up stage begins. Remember that all top-level professional roulette-cheat teams will use some type of set-up for almost all their big-money moves. Without them they have little chance of getting paid.

Our set-up occurs when Frank, the claimer, arrives at the table at the extreme top corner, behind the 1 to 18 box. In his hand, which he holds outward in plain view for everyone to see, he has a wide stack of chips containing a few $500 purples, fifteen $100 blacks and eight $25 greens. The very first thing he does is toss two of the greens on the layout, saying to Cindy in an upbeat and friendly voice, “That’s for you, honey…and I love your great-looking outfit!” Then he begins placing a series of five legitimate $100 bets straight up on numbers in the third section, between numbers 22 and 36. If the supervisor Ben is not at the table, Frank will bring him there, calling him right over to the table to introduce himself, peppering him with this pleasant rap, “Hey B-man, what’s goin’ on! My first time here in this lovely casino and I’m just lovin’ it. My friends have been tellin’ me I’ve been gamblin’ at the wrong casino and they’re right! I just love it here. Can you tell me which is your best restaurant here? Gotta take the ol’ lady out for a bite to eat when I take a break from the action. The little lady’s over there playing slots, blowing all my dough but what the hell do I care? The important thing is we’re both havin’ a shitload of fun and I don’t even have to have her hanging around me all night long!”

Now he throws another $25 toke at Cindy and says, “Let ‘er rip!” He continues the rap, telling Cindy he’s gonna win enough money playing roulette to not only cover all his wife’s slot losses but also to buy her a new outfit just like the one Cindy’s wearing now. Then he focuses on Ben and starts some sports talk.

Finally, Cindy spins the ball. Frank has five $100 bets straight-up in plain view. Both Cindy and Ben clearly understand that Frank is the person who made the $100 straight-up bets. If one of Frank’s bets wins for a $3,500 payoff, what do you think is the very first thing he will do? No, it’s not jump up for joy. No, it’s not clap his hands. No, it’s not praise for the casino or more mention of his wife.

It’s throw a $100 chip on the layout, another toke for Cindy! Then…he does all the rest of the things mentioned above.

What is the first thing Frank does if he loses those five $100 bets for a total loss of $500. That’s the kicker! Can you guess?

Yep! You bet! He does exactly the same thing he’d do when he wins, throws a $100 toke on the layout for Cindy! He thanks her and Ben, then leaves the table saying, “I’ll be back!”

So let’s say he wins this initial spin and is paid. He will continue gabbing, complimenting Cindy on her dress and telling Ben how much he loves this casino and how he finally won some of the money back his wife lost playing high-limit slot machines. Then he bets a series of $100 straight-ups again, and win or lose this time, he leaves the table and disappears, placing himself three or four tables away, where he’s out of Cindy and Ben's sight but can still see my face, which I will use by touching my ear to signal Frank when I want him to return to the table.

Now let’s say he loses. He tosses Cindy the $100 toke, shoots her a few more compliments and bids farewell with a thank you.

That, my friends, is called a set-up.

So then, what three key things did Frank accomplish with his little act? The first is that he established a great rapport with both the dealer and the supervisor. He is very likeable. He is entertaining. He complimented Cindy's outfit, shot the shit with Ben, complained that his wife was blowing all his money on slots. And you know what? Ben and Cindy both probably felt sorry that his wife was blowing Frank’s money. And finally, Frank did something that probably all of you have never seen in your entire casino careers. How many times have you seen or dealt to a person who comes up to your table and tokes $75 before he even makes a bet? Probably less than fingers you have on your right hand. Now this question: How many times have you seen a person toke $75 before making a bet and then toke $100 after losing that bet? Not only at roulette but any table game. In that case, if your answer is not “never,” the person who did this type of toking was cheating you outta something!

And the third thing Frank did, by far the most important, was that he showed you all that action which legitimizes him as a true high roller. He plastered the layout with black $100 chips straight-up. So when he comes back to the table later, you remember him as high rolling black-chip player. You add all this up; he’s charming, tokes heavily, befriends the supervisor and establishes himself as a legitimate high roller. You have been thoroughly set up to believe that’s exactly what he is.

So now the set-up stage is complete. It’s time for the third stage, the move. The first chip bettor, Rhonda, bets a stack of her twenty purple chips in the third-dozen box. This is a strategic bet that controls the dealer’s movements, allowing us to do away with using a distraction. Knowing that if a number in the third section wins, the dealer, Cindy, will have to take her eyes off the layout to grab two stacks of purple chips to pay Rhonda’s third-dozen bet. Since those chips are located in the rear of the chip well, Cindy has no choice but to turn to get them. In the old days, roulette dealers were taught never to take their eyes off the layout, to back up while facing the layout to retrieve chips in the rear of the well. But in today’s casinos that instruction has gone by the wayside, and with the advent of the chipper machine, backing up to the rear of the well would be difficult for dealers to do.

Another game protection hindrance caused by the chipper is that dealers tend to turn their heads to the hole while doing the final sweep of losing chips off the layout. That gives the mechanic the half-second he needs to do the move right off the bat. There is no reason for dealers to turn their heads while sweeping chips in the hole, but they do. I teach them not to. If they miss doing a perfect sweep and one or two chips miss going into the hole, it’s no big deal unless they’re high-denomination cash chips, but those chips should have been picked off the layout anyway.

After making the stack-bet in the third-dozen box, Rhonda proceeds to bet four purple roulette chips straight up on the nine bottom numbers of the layout, 28 through 36. She bets them perfectly one atop the other, exactly on the center of each number, thus the result is nine perfect four-chip straight-up bets.

WARNING! This is a tell, the biggest tell that applies to all professional roulette cheat teams, and by spotting it, you will have the best chance to catch on to them and see their move in real-time, giving you the chance to apprehend them. What is the tell? The way Rhonda placed those nine four-chip bets. First off, why do you think I, being the head of the cheat team, instructed Rhonda to make those bets so perfect? Remember, we are replicating a real cheating scenario, exactly as it would be done by the top American, French and Italian teams, the Italians being the best current-day roulette cheats.

The reason is that we don’t want the dealer to have any reason to touch those bets or take second notice of them. Roulette dealers on busy games spend nearly the same amount of time fixing players’ messy bets as the players do making those bets. Sloppy bets are made all the time. Is it a corner bet or a split bet? Is it a street bet or six-number bet, whatever the location may be? We only want the dealer to have one look at Rhonda’s bets because when one of them wins, it’s going to be switched out and replaced by a new bet containing a $100 chip.

The actual tell is that no legitimate roulette players bet like that. They do not knock themselves out to make sure their bets are perfectly centered and perfectly straight. So if you ever catch on to a roulette player making a series of perfect multi-chip bets even once, watch closely, and if the person does it the following spin, CALL SURVEILLANCE! This does not apply to single-chip bets perfectly centered for the obvious reason there is no bottom chip to hide. Also, if you see a person betting just one perfect stack-bet straight up successive times, don’t worry so much about that because people only making one bet at roulette sometimes do place their chips perfectly, but not someone placing four, five or six bets for a single spin. The odds of a person doing that and not being a professional cheat might be a million to one. I am not kidding! In my twenty-five years of cheating casinos, either placing perfect bets on roulette layouts or watching my teammates do the same, I have never seen someone else betting in that fashion. Never! So again, as I tell the attendees at my seminars; if you ever notice a roulette player placing a series of consecutive perfect multi-chip bets on the inside of a roulette layout, be it straight up, split or corner, call surveillance quickly. Surveillance should then focus on that game and prepare to take down a cheat team.

The second chip bettor, Bill, bets a half stack of his ten gray chips in the third-dozen box next to Rhonda’s purple stack. Then he sprinkles some more of his chips on inside numbers in the first and second sections, avoiding the third section where the move will go down.

The mechanic, Slick Nick, makes just two bets, one $5 cash chip on both the first and second dozen boxes. The idea is he will lose both bets when a third-section number wins, so he will not have to hang around and wait to be paid. He needs to leave the table as soon as he puts in the move. ??

Now we’re ready to go. All the bets are placed. All we have to do is wait for one of the bottom nine numbers containing four of Rhonda’s purple chips to win. It could be the very next spin. It could be hours if the third section goes cold. In a real casino scenario, the cheats would just wait, but since we’re at a seminar, I am going to instruct Cindy to mark number 32.

She does.

I tell Slick Nick to do the switch. I say, “Okay, Slick Nick, you have a half second to pick up the dolly, remove Rhonda’s four purple chips, put your move chips in its place and then replace the dolly. And the move with the dolly on top must land in the center of the number where the original chips had been.” I pause. I look at Slick Nick. He frowns. Then I say to him, “Slick Nick, do you think you can do it?” He purses his lips, nods, then shakes his head and finally says, “I don’t know.” So I tell him to give it a shot.

Cindy sweeps the losers off the layout, but does not turn during the sweep because she’s self-conscious and does not want to look like a weak dealer. Note that this training wheel does not have a chipper, so I have asked one of the attendees to serve as a mucker. In real casinos that don’t have the chipper, dealers tend to turn their heads to the mucker as they make the final sweep, practically presenting those chips to the mucker on a silver platter.

Cindy has swept the chips and now it’s time for her to pay Rhonda’s twenty-chip stack in the third-dozen box. She has to reach over and grab the two stacks of purple she needs to pay the bet. They’re located at the rear of the chip well, and she wants to get them without turning her head. She can’t. She turns her head and reaches for the chips.

I yell out to Slick Nick, “Okay…go!

Slick Nick’s hands shoot out to the number. He does something I would need too many words to describe. In short, it’s a mess. The move he switched in is upside down. I had told him to make sure the black $100 chip is on the bottom. Not only is it now on top but it’s slid halfway off the three purple chips he switched in with it. And the dolly has fallen down.

I look up at the attendees, some of whom are laughing, and I announce, “Anybody here happen to have a set of handcuffs? Slick Nick’s going to jail!” The laughing subsides and I ask Nick to try it again. He does but again falls short. I knew he would fall short just as I knew he would on his first attempt. That’s from my experience seeing how people conceive the mechanics to do that move. Their natural instinct tells them to rush out to the number, pick up the dolly and then take out and replace the chips. But picking up the dolly is actually the last thing the skilled mechanic does. The professional pastpost of removing and replacing chips underneath the dolly is a skillful combination of timing, agility and soft touch. Speed is not a factor. Like I′d said before, a half-second is lots of time for casino-chip manipulation moves. Timing replaces the speed. So, what the mechanic does is slide both his hands toward the dolly. With the move-chips gripped by the fingers of his right hand, he gently nudges the four chips underneath the dolly to the left, the dolly sliding along on top of them. Then he lays down the move chips exactly where the four original chips had been. His left hand then picks up those original chips while his right slides the dolly back on top of the four chips he switched in.

These steps may seem somewhat complicated as you read them, but out there on the roulette layout the move can be done comfortably in a half second.

I show the method to Slick Nick. He tries a second time, and he nails it! Then he calmly gets up and leaves the table. Underneath the dolly sits the black chip on the bottom of three purple roulette chips. I’ve already signaled Frank, the claimer, to approach the table and now he’s suddenly there. He fits himself right into the same spot he’d occupied before during the set-up. He’s got the same stack of purple and black chips in his hand, but this time no green chips as they’re not necessary.

“So what’s the first thing Frank does?” I ask the class.

About sixty percent get it right. Though this time he tosses Cindy not one black chip but two! A $200 toke! In the real world, the dealers are thrilled. And as he does it, he goes right back into his gab, chatting up both Cindy and Ben, the supervisor. “Hey, I finally hit one,” Frank chimes, following the script. “That’s two-hundred for you, Cindy-Honey! And when I hit the number again, there’s more where that came from!” He turns his attention to Ben, “I gotta make some more hits to get even from my wife’s losses!”

And Ben, on his own without my instruction, says with a chuckle, “That might take quite a few hits!” Everyone laughs. Frank, as per my instructions, begins betting more black chips on the layout, but Cindy stops him and informs that the betting for the next spin is not open until she removes the dolly. Of course Frank knew that, but the reason I told Frank to do it is because in the real world, the claimers doing that show more proclivity to continue making large bets, further buying credibility as a high roller. There are so many psychological tidbits at play here that even Freud would be proud!

Cindy begins to pay the $3,500 but I let her know it’s not necessary. The chatter goes on and then I abruptly stop it. “Okay, guys, remember at the beginning I said that one hundred professional pastpost teams came in here and tried pastposting the same $100 chip straight up? Well, now I’m going to ask you a question. In reality, out in the casino in real time, not in a classroom situation like this where everyone is focused on cheating, what percentage of the time do you think casino floor staffs around the world, including the US, call surveillance with suspicion on this move. I am not talking about payoff verifications. I know most casinos have a policy that surveillance must be called at a certain amount going out, and in that case the operator in "the eye" just acknowledges and verifies the payout…So what percentage of the time do you think that is? That someone on the floor calls surveillance because of suspicion on the move.”

“The correct answer is three percent,” I say, based on my having kept records of every cheat move I was involved in over a quarter century. And then I explain why. “The first thing to take into account is the set-up. Like I said before, Frank established himself as a ‘George’ player. He built a rapport with both the dealer and the supervisor, and, most importantly, he left no doubt that he’s a high roller because he not only talked the talk, he walked the walk, meaning he bet black $100 chips all over the layout. Then the move goes down and there’s Frank again claiming it’s his bet. Now, where did he come back to, what part of the table? He came back to the exact same spot where both Cindy and Ben saw him before, right up front by the first-dozen box. They feel comfortable with Frank at that spot because that’s where they saw him before. This comfort is, of course, subconscious. So he tokes big, just like he did before, and he chats up the dealer and the supervisor, just like he did before. You see, he does every single thing just as he did the first time…

“Now, let’s say that despite all these strengths, either Cindy or Ben is somewhat suspicious. After all, they never saw that black chip underneath the roulette chips. Of course they didn’t see it because it wasn’t there. So if they’re thinking that maybe it was a pastpost…fine…” I point to the bottom of the layout where the move went down and where it sits underneath the dolly on number 32. “OK, if it was a pastpost, who did it? Who did the move?” I make a gesture indicating the vacant seats at the bottom of the layout. “There’s no one there. Slick Nick, the mechanic is long gone. And Frank himself could not have done it. His position behind the 1 to 18 box is six feet away from the move. So all this removes the physical possibility that it was a pastpost, and if you’re thinking about Slick Nick, the dealer and supervisor certainly are not. Slick Nick has been gone for five minutes and all he did during his time at the table, besides put in the unseen move, was make $5 bets on the first and second dozen boxes. He didn’t buy-in; he didn’t color out. He had absolutely no interaction with either the dealer or the supervisor. For them, it was like he was never there, so no way is either of them going to think, ‘Maybe that guy at the bottom of the layout who’s gone now did the move.’ No way.”

An attendee asks a valid question. “I get all that but if Frank were too far away to have done the pastpost, wasn’t he also too far away to have made the bet? Don’t they wonder because they never saw him make the bet?”

“Great question, sir,” I said, although I had been asked it before. “Believe it or not, it never enters the equation that Frank was too far away to have made the bet. Why? Because the psychology overcomes all those type of doubts. True, they never saw him make the bet, but the pastposted bet he claimed was made in the same part of the layout Cindy and Ben saw him make on several numbers during the set-up. And he bet the exact same amount on the same bet, one $100 black-chip bet straight-up in the third section. Also, there’s another possible subconscious reason the dealers and supervisors don’t question who made the bet. Since everything else in appearance suggests he made the bet, they just subconsciously take it for granted that he did…

“After he’s paid, Frank makes a few more $100 bets, then win or lose he leaves.”

At this point, I open it up to questions. But first Cindy gives everyone a laugh. I had told her and Ben they could leave their positions at the wheel and before doing so, Cindy clapped and cleared her hands for the camera above that wasn’t there. I commented lightheartedly and we all laughed. I always break up the training with some light moments. I find if you don’t, the attendees suffer and therefore lose interest and retain less of what was shown during the seminar. I always keep in mind that some people want to be there and some are there because they are required to be there. It is very important that a trainer not only know who their attendees are according to rank and file but also their personalities. That helps immensely in creating a rapport with them, which of course leads to a better outcome for the attendees.

Slick Nick asks, “Don’t other people at the table who are not on your team see the move?”

I answer kiddingly, “Not if the mechanic doing it is as slick as you!”

And then another right off that asks, “Don’t they rat you out?”

I explain how few people who see the moves are willing to rat, and how we handle that when it does happen. The main thing I did as head of our security on the outside is interject rapidly and create a conversation with the person who I know saw the move. I did whatever it took to get that person's mind off what they′d just seen go down. I'd go as far as flirting with a potential rat's wife at the table to get him mad and speed up his forgetting about being a rat. If the woman were the potential rat, then I'd approach the man and say, "Aren't you the guy I saw win the million-dollar jackpot last month at the casino down the street? I sure hope you told your wife about it? You could imagine how many conjugal arguments I started at casino roulette wheels over the years!

So, the demo of a psychologically engineered roulette pastpost comes to an end. I let the attendees know that I'd be showing even stronger psychologically driven moves than that one. Some of them were so unbelievable, I'd need to write a book just on them, but you can read about a lot of them in my memoir, "American Roulette."

I finished up the roulette game protection class by stressing and repeating what I'd said at the start of the class.

"There are two points I want you to take from this roulette class. The first is CASE YOUR LAYOUTS. Train your dealers how to properly case their layouts from a game protection standpoint, the way I showed you how to do it when we spoke about the Savannah move…

“Second, and remember this!... It is a game protection commandment. It goes: No matter how good it looks, it wasn’t there. I’m talking about all situations when unseen high-denomination chips suddenly appear on the layout as winning bets. It is most demanding at roulette but it goes for all the games. The move we just did was nothing more than a pastpost, a con, but with all that psychology and set-up, it looked real good. And when we come back from lunch, I am going to show you the same version of that move with an entirely different type of claim, which is ten times stronger. A move that almost can never miss. And when I'm finished showing you that move, I will say, "No matter how good it looks, it wasn't there.

I repeated the phrase one more time and then thanked them for attending the session.

Link to previous articles in this Table Games Protection series: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/richardmarcusgameprotection/recent-activity/articles/

Link to Richard Marcus Game Protection Page and Testimonials: https://globaltablegamesprotection.com/game-protection-training-at-your-property/

Link to Regisiter for the Globat Table Games and Game Protection Conference March 5-7 at Sahara Las Vegas: https://globaltablegamesprotection.com/register-now/