The Most Daring Casino Cheats in History
Casinos and all they have to offer have been hugely popular for centuries, but not everyone wants to play by the rules. There are some people who think they can beat the system and get their winnings without the need for Lady Luck to shine down on them.
Over the years, there have been some downright daring casino cheats and scams. However, as you’ll soon find out, the people behind them always get caught. And when they do, they face severe consequences!
The MIT Blackjack Team
When you play online casino games like blackjack, you’ll notice how most of them use multiple decks of cards. This is to make the gameplay more random and harder to predict, and it all stems from the famous instance of the MIT blackjack team that operated in the 1980s and 1990s.
This was a team of highly adept mathematicians who worked out a sophisticated method for counting cards in blackjack. They were able to track the cards as they were dealt and deduce which card values were likely to peel off the deck next. They worked as a team and communicated with one another covertly, so as not to draw attention to one player winning big all the time.
The process of card counting technically isn’t illegal, but if casinos catch people doing it, they normally blacklist them. There are also various systems in place to make it more difficult nowadays, such as the use of multiple decks of cards. The MIT team were made famous in the book, Bringing Down the House, which was subsequently adapted into the movie 21 in 2008.
The Roulette Laser Scandal
The roulette wheel has always been a source of debate. Can it be predicted? Is there a system that can beat the wheel? People have always tried to come up with a genius method to play roulette, but the game continues to baffle people with its randomness.
Instead of figuring out a pattern to the play, scammers in the past have turned to technology to try to get the better of the game. In the early 2000s, casino cheats embarked on one of the most daring scams ever.
A UK-based team used a concealed laser scanner and a mobile phone to predict the outcome of roulette spins. The technology was able to analyze the ball’s speed and trajectory and make an accurate guess about where it was likely to land. This info was fed through a computer program that could calculate the winning numbers in seconds, and this enabled the players to win more than £1.3 million at a London casino.
The cheats were ultimately caught, but here’s the amazing thing – they kept their winnings. That’s because there was no law in place at the time to say that they couldn’t use this method of cheating. You can rest assured, though, that there’s no way anyone could get away with it at a modern-day gambling house.

The Slot Machine Top-Bottom Joint Scam
Slot machines have evolved exponentially over the last one hundred years, and many of the upgrades have come about because of people trying to cheat the reels and get money for nothing. A few decades ago, slot machines were much more fallible than they are today, and cheaters managed to discover tricks to get them to pay out without even having to spin the reels.
The top and bottom joint was pioneered by Tommy Glenn Carmichael and his accomplices in the 1970s. The scammers came up with a device that they could insert through the coin slot of the machines and then trigger the internal sensors of the game to make it pay out. Even as slot machines evolved, Carmichael found new methods to cheat them and got away with it for nearly 40 years. The good news is that he inspired developers to increase security protocols on the machines and inadvertently pushed the industry forward in its evolution.
The Master of Misdirection
There have been various famous con artists over the years, and Richard Marcus is up there with the most notorious. The cheat was a master of misdirection, who used sleight of hand and psychological techniques to cheat casinos. Famous for many daring schemes, his best-known trick was known as the Savannah Method.
This involved a stack of chips, with a high value chip hidden underneath lower value ones. If he won the bet, he would reveal the high value chip and claim a greater payout from his wager. However, if he lost, he’d swiftly remove the large chip and hide it, leaving the lower-value stack in place. This meant that he could minimize his losses and get maximum gains from his wins.
Marcus claimed to have cheated casinos out of more than $5 million over his career, but it’s hard to verify whether this is accurate. He later repented for his crimes, and went on to become an advisor to casinos who wanted to improve their security methods. Who better to teach casinos than the man who scammed them for years?
Can Online Casinos Be Cheated?
All these unbelievable stories about cheats and scams may fill you with trepidation about the safety of casinos, however, the most important thing to note is that all these stories happened at land-based casinos. By contrast, cheating is not possible within the online casino industry, and there’s a lot of advanced technology in place to keep players safe.
When you play casino games here at PlayStar, your chances of winning are the same as any other player. That’s because the games are regulated, and they are governed by random number generators and a set return to player percentage. Trust us, it’s much more enjoyable when you win fairly than if you do it through cheating!