Baccarat Baccarat slug scams

cyph

Trusted Member
SLUG SCAMS

Its no secret, the most dangerous and prevalent scam in baccarat is the slug scam. The following headline and excerpt is typical.

Officials Allege Mini-Baccarat Cheating Ring

^m^aeporditig to fye indictment, several conspirators would go into a casino and begin to play at ., | the table where the conspirator dealer was stationed to work. Through a series of false shuffles several players would control play at a single table. The group bilked casinos out of $737,000... arrested Friday in connection with a 'false shuffle' cheating ring..

Hundreds of these scams have surfaced around the world, with a few scores exceeding the
above mentioned dollar amount many times; oven What/malces^the scam so appealing to cheaters? Why baccarat? Well, when it comes to slug scams, baccarat' might just be the perfect target.

Consider the-co'htrohof a five-card slug running: key card, 9, '2; 9,5. If the last card played in a hand is the key card, the next four cards produce a win for the player side with a natural eight; Gan you think of any, other game where the contifohof’6hly,li^p4^ds^ip^^ult^ih a score of hundreds of thousands of dollars? With gigantic limits in some clubs, and the option for all players to jump onto the same side, the results could be devastating. Make a minor change to the slug with key card,' 9?2,*9,o,' and you have aWie^-another wayjto exploit slugs.’ At 9 for 1 'odds, how could any cheater resist?

I know bf no Jotneriscam where so little efFort^ana'skili can be so dangerous. '

The scam must be discussed for two formats, big table and minibaccarat, The distinctions are significant. In the big table vefsidni the limits are higher, the table is bigger, three deidersoperate the game versus brie, there is mOre! floor supervision and surveillance,.players may handle the shoe and? deal the.cards, and the cards are changed every shoe.. Minibaccarat is primarily dealt like blackjack.

Minibaccarat

During play, a slug of cards is either committed tomerhory, recorded by hand, or recorded electronically. There are-many{ppt^w^|l

jpg'Recording Gards-Jf'1' ^

Some players are}?tapable ofomemon \■sequences;;of?cards using mnemohics|and other

. memory systems; my friend Sal fifty cards at an astonishing speed.

This duty can.be split among the crew soileach player bnly remembers a telephone number of seven cards. If the target slug is the played, the most common’ aim, then each

player can of the^pejs dealt. The individualsequences are

passed off to a crew captain, who puts the parts together, and gets back to the game;wjfh;tne complete list just prior to the slug hitting the layout. Naturally, this all occurs after the ,slug is false shuffled.

The simplest method of recording a slug is to simply write it down. This can be done openly and naturally during the normal tracking of winning hands On a courtesy scorecard.

One method of recording the cards is unique tobaccarat and is called the ’6-row system'. At some time during the deal, an agent will record a slug, in one row. A second row follows, starting with the second card in that slug. A third row starts with the third card of the slug, and so on. This process continues for six rows.

Now each row is played out for the winning sequence of player and banker hands, and marked accordingly with a P, B, or T to represent the winning side or a tie. Also, these letters ^yould almost surely be coded into nonlegible symbols.

Why this system? After the cut, the exact position of the slug is unknown. The first few cards of the slug must be played before the cheaters have a reference point. How much of the Slug gets dealt is random, and a function of the cut. 'Since the maximuttv number of cards needed to complete a baccarat hand is six, the maximum ftumber of cards'that cah.be played from the slug is six, before the cheaters can act on theinformation. Once part ofithe memorized recorded.slug shows, the order, starting from the top cardoftheShoe, is nowrepresentedhyoneofthesix rows. Based on the cards from the slug played'in the^preyidus round, the money row,is easy to spot.

The advantage ojf this system is that all six lists can be worked out long before the slug hits. Otherwise, with only one list, the plays need to be worked out prior to each hand—Mt|diat this is any problem for;experienced baccaratcheiaters.

If electronics are employed, both hidden computers and recording devices can assist in the .process,

As a general rule, the first cards into the discard rack is the slug most often targetted by cheaters. Its position is more manageable in respect to the false shuffle that follows. |I£;;S|p?gives the crew more time to work out the strategy, if needed.

As discussed in the blackjack chapter, the most common false shuffle found in slug scams is the lopsided riffle shuffle, used to control a bottom slug. To fake the strip, one quick strip off the bottom followed by legitimately stripping the rest of the cards serves, the purpose. Since many baccarat shuffles no longer incorporate a strip, a relatively easy,technique'is all that is required; definitely not sophisticated sleight-of-hand.
 
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