Casino Surveillance News

May 2010

It’s News Time:

(I will supply text of the news article if any of these links do not work. Email to inquiry@casinosurveillancenews.com)

Busts and Scams:

A New York judge refused to stop subpoenas from the state inspector general seeking state Senate information about the awarding of a lucrative video slot machine contract for Aqueduct racetrack to a politically connected group. See the story

Late last autumn, a Hong Kong jury convicted four men of a conspiracy to commit bodily harm and a fifth of soliciting a murder. The men had been ordered to break the arms and legs of a dealer at Sands Macau suspected of helping a patron cheat millions of dollars from the business. Later, a call went out to murder the dealer, court records show. But then one of the gangsters balked and reported the plans to authorities. (Editorial note: this is a very in-depth story reported by Reuters, recommended reading for casino surveillance and all other personnel and gaming regulation personnel.) See the story

A U.S. District judge sent a Pennsylvania man convicted in a major credit card scam at Foxwoods Resort Casino back to prison after surveillance staff captured recent video of him at both of the region’s casinos. See the story

THREE foreign nationals, caught cheating at the roulette tables of Resorts World Sentosa’s casino, were arrested in Singapore. The trio – a Spaniard and two Frenchmen, between the ages of 46 and 64 – almost made off with $13,400 in winnings. Their scam was a standard past-post on roulette. See the story

A woman claims that a Harrah’s night club boss attempted to ply her with alcohol and coerce her to provide companionship to several men at the club when she interviewed for a job. She and a friend of a worker have joined 13 others who filed suit against the manager and the casino, alleging harassment. Harrah’s insisted it fired the manager once an investigation found evidence of inappropriate behavior. See the story

A team of masked thieves burst into a crowded French casino, fired their assault rifles into the ceiling and made off with nearly $39,000. The headquarters of the international police agency Interpol are just down the street. It was the third high-profile casino robbery in Europe recently. The other two were in Switzerland and Germany. See the story

A U.S. District judge sentenced a former Mohegan Sun table games dealer to two months in federal prison and three years’ supervised release for participating in a card cheating scam operated by the Sand Diego-based Tran Organization. This is one of the latest in the long, involved story of the Tran organization. Twenty of the team members and other involved people have been convicted or pled guilty. See the story

The FBI is investigating possible public corruption involving Alabama lawmakers’ handling of a bill that could legalize electronic bingo casinos. Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who opposes the measure, set up a task force a year ago to halt the spread of the casinos. The middle-of-the-night raids stirred racial tensions as black leaders were angered their communities were stripped of jobs and tax revenue. See the story

An Indianapolis man banned from a riverboat casino’s blackjack table because he counts cards just wants the casino to follow the rules, his attorney told the Indiana Supreme Court. The casino on the maintains that it, like any private business, has the common-law right to choose not to do business with anyone “for any reason or no reason.” See the story

MGM Mirage started trying to find a way to get into the Macau market in 2001 but was shut out until the company began negotiations with Stanley Ho, the Hong Kong billionaire long suspected of ties with Chinese triads through his Macau casinos. When Nevada regulators nixed that idea, the MGM Mirage substituted daughter Pansy Ho and struck a joint venture agreement with her in 2004. Nevada regulators approved it in March 2007, after construction of the MGM Grand Macau already was under way. Pansy Ho was deemed an independent woman by Nevada authorities. But not in New Jersey. Officials there had trouble with her associations, and one major issue was that daddy was the source of 90 percent of “her” money for the partnership. See the story (Editorial Note: MGM Mirage has put its Atlantic City casinos and license up for sale, deeming them less valuable than the Macau properties. As yet there is no further inquiry from Nevada GCB.)

Saying a New Jersey Casino Control Commissioner had “a predetermined result” in mind when he recommended that relatives of high-ranking mobsters be awarded a casino license, the state Division of Gaming Enforcement blasted the decision as “a travesty.” The division says the commissioner ignored overwhelming evidence that owners of a concrete reinforcing company continue to have contacts with organized crime figures. See the story

A federal jury returned a $200,000 verdict after finding that Venetian security officers had falsely imprisoned a hotel guest from New York in 2004. See the story

After a nine-year legal battle, professional gambler James Grosjean will receive a settlement from the state for up to $65,000 on his allegation he was held illegally by two state gaming agents in a Las Vegas casino. See the story

Two managers at Lilac Lanes and Casino in North Spokane are accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gambling commission agents say the accounting manger and general manger skimmed almost $175,000 from the casino’s ATMs. See the story

A former Chinese police chief was sentenced to death, in a sprawling gangland corruption case that has riveted the country. Prosecutors had accused him of taking bribes worth more than $2.4 million from gang members he protected while he was director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau. The chief was accused of protecting the gang operations masterminded by his sister-in-law, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for running illegal casinos and bribing government officials.  See the story

Two New Jersey casinos have been hit with separate $10,000 fines by state gaming regulators, while three casinos forfeited more than $3,200 they collected from 117 underage gamblers. The Casino Control Commission fined Bally’s Atlantic City and Caesars Atlantic City for failing to exclude a gambler who put himself on the state’s self-exclusion list in 2003. The person was able to gamble several times in 2005 and 2006, losing $48,562 at Bally’s and $38,759 at Caesars. See the story

Online poker houses that were owed tens of millions of dollars by internet tycoon Daniel Tzvetkoff turned him in to US authorities.  Mr Tzvetkoff, 27, who at his peak was worth about $80 million, will apply for bail in the US this week after he was arrested on Friday and charged with money laundering of up to $600 million. He is charged with money laundering, money laundering conspiracy, gambling conspiracy and bank fraud conspiracy and faces 75 years in a US prison if convicted.  See the story

Other News:

Investors in the Philadelphia Foxwoods Casino project stated they were “blindsided” by the abrupt decision of Steve Wynn to pull out of a deal to build a South Philadelphia gambling hall. See the story

Sydney, Australia’s Star City casino has launched a surveillance blitz to crack down on cheating, theft and unruly patrons, as it seeks to clean up its image ahead of a relaunch next year. See the story

For a feature article taken from an interview with Surveillance Director Ted Whiting on building the Surveillance system for a megaresort-casino, see the story

Another feature story on retro coin-operated slots machines returning to Vegas can be found here (Editorial note: I really hope their Surveillance team has someone who remembers old coin-op scams. There aren’t many of the old-timers left. There weren’t many to begin with who really knew this part of the business–we were often discouraged from even watching slots–but there are still a lot of the old scammers out there, who were almost put out of business in the last few years.)

That’s all for this month, Folks.