
Man steals $33 million from Australian casino in 'Ocean's Eleven'-esque heist - jpatokal
http://news.msn.com/world/man-steals-dollar33-million-from-australian-casino-in-oceans-eleven-esque-heist
======
smoyer
The whole reason casinos stay in business is because the house "skims" money
from the players ... or in games where the player plays against the house, the
house has more favorable odds.

The head-line says "steals", but the reality is that he was simply cheating.
One is a crime but I'm not sure about the other. If I'm accomplished at
counting cards, I can still beat the house because I've changed the odds. The
casino may ban me (and I might forfeit the earnings for the day) but they
can't charge me with a crime.

~~~
robomartin
One aspect of the ilegality, if you will, of card counting I don't yet
understand is the fundamental idea behind it: using your brain to make
intellectually sound batting choices is not legal.

I know the casinos would rather have people turn their brains down to "idiot
mode" when they play. However, I can't understand why the law supports the
idea that I am not allowed to use my brain, memory and deductive reasoning
skills when playing.

Weird,

I don't get it.

~~~
andyakb
In the US, and likely most countries, card counting is not illegal. However,
casinos can refuse to do business with anybody they want, so they can ban you
for it. The exception is Atlantic City where you can't be banned for card
counting, but if you are suspected of it, they will use other tactics to
negate any advantage you may have (e.g. shuffling after every hand)

~~~
robomartin
Ah, OK, I thought it was illegal.

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robomartin
Assuming this wasn't a case where an insider broke into security and installed
a transmitter onto a specific video feed, isn't there an argument here as to
who owns a presumably unencrypted RF signals?

Also, is there an implied Terms Of Service you agree to when entering a
casino? I've been to many and have never seen anything even remotely
resembling a TOS.

I was asked to stop playing roulette at a major Vegas casino a number of years
ago. I wasn't betting big or making tons of money. I am what one might call a
geek gambler: I enjoy devising ways to improve my odds. During my occasional
trips to Vegas (example: Once a year for CES) I test the ideas with a couple
of hundred bucks. It's purely for fun. If the goal was making money it'd be
far more effective to spend four hours coding rather than gambling.

Anyhow, on this particular occasion I had memorized a betting pattern that
improved the probability of my bets winning. On average it seemed effective. I
got kicked out when I won thirteen times in a row. Fun while it lasted.

~~~
chrsstrm
You got lucky 13 times in a row. It happens. And since you were only playing
with "a couple hundred bucks" you were probably at a $5 or $10 limit table.
The casino wasn't worried that you were going to break the bank, it's more
likely you were asked to leave because of your behavior. The numbers on the
wheel don't correlate to the numbers on the table, so there is no betting
strategy where you can make multiple multi-number bet combinations to offset
any risk. Not even with a single zero wheel. Did you consider a win as one of
your numbers hitting or an actual net gain? Run your strategy over 5000 or
10,000 spins and you'll see it doesn't work. You got lucky in the short term
and it wasn't due to skill. Put the money in your pocket and walk away,
because streaks like that are rare.

~~~
robomartin
Are you implying I was behaving inappropriately? Sorry, I am not one of those
idiots. I was the only player at the table. I was sitting across the way from
the dealer betting. I was actually engaging the dealer in occasional chit chat
while running the patterns in my head.

With regards to what would happen over 5,000 or 10,000 spins, yeah, of course,
the odds are the odds.

That said, I went across the street to another casino and did just as well.

Will it happen again? Who knows? Probably not.

------
dhughes
> "Intercepting them [the surveillance signals] is simple as going down to a
> local Radio Shack," he told ABC.

Hunh? At my workplace the surveillance room, as in most casinos, is segregated
from the rest of the building by a separate entrance. Surveillance staff are
not permitted to socialize with other staff and can't work in any job in the
casino other than surveillance. The room has restricted swipe access via thick
steel double-doors aka a "man trap" with poured concrete blocks and reinforced
metal plates in the walls, of course Pelco PTZ cameras covering the outside of
the doors.

The camera system isn't accessible anywhere other than possibly in the ceiling
of the gaming floor which would be pretty obvious having someone trying to
splice in to a cable. Everything else goes to the surveillance room not to the
server room other than maybe the corporate LAN and intrusion detection server
but still that's a restricted access locked room but to get to that door there
are several other steel doors you need to swipe through, not even the big boss
has access to some of them, but I do ;)

Our surveillance manager was telling me he trained in Las Vegas at some guy's
house who teaches surveillance techniques to people in the industry. This guy
has a multi camera setup in his home and tables too. He cheats at cards while
on camera then shows it to the trainees but even he can't see himself cheating
on camera even though he did it himself and knew he was on camera.

Although I should add most times cheating especially Blackjack is from
collusion between player and dealer. There is a reason why staff and patrons
don't mingle or why staff can't use public washrooms when on-shift.

Now I wait for the men in black to come knocking at my door I've said too
much!

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damian2000
Rather than hacking the video feed, its far more likely remote access to the
feed was given to a second accomplice by the casino insider (who later was
sacked). This second accomplice then signalled to the gambler by some other
method (either physical or electronic). There's a bit more detail here:
[http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/crown-casino-
hi-t...](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/crown-casino-hi-tech-scam-
nets-32-million/story-fnat79vb-1226597666337)

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Samuel_Michon
"According to _Barron Stringfellow_ "

With a name like that, you'll either grow up to be a Bond villain or a casino
consultant.

~~~
Apocryphon
Or both.

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droithomme
Perhaps the words "steals" and "heist" are not the best choice given the man
won the money playing cards and the claims that he must therefore have been
using a second person to feed him information taken from video feeds is
presented without any evidence.

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antidaily
So he won by cheating at the tables? Was not expecting that from headline.

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sbarre
So they article is assuming or speculating that someone basically tapped into
the video feeds for the casino surveillance?

I would have assumed the camera feeds would be wired, but I guess maybe for
ease of maintenance they're wireless feeds?

If they're just using run of the mill Wi-Fi cameras, then I suppose they get
what they deserve..

~~~
BryanB55
I really doubt they had wireless wi-fi cameras. Any decent installer would
never do that for such a large establishment with that many cameras. In fact,
it would probably be more maintenance because they are not as reliable. It
would be interesting to see how he got the feed but I really doubt they had
wireless cameras in a casino.

~~~
sbarre
Yeah after reading some other articles, it really does sound like someone on
the inside gave them access to the security system, as opposed to them hacking
into it without help.

------
joonix
Crown is poorly run with incompetent staff, not surprised and not sympathetic.

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raldi
Better title: "Man taps into security camera system to cheat casino out of $33
million"

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peterjancelis
I think the chance of recovering the money is higher than zero, close to 1 in
fact. All the casino has to do is store the tape and wait for facial
recognition technology to take off on the web. In a decade or so we'll just be
taping crimes and than the web will tell us which individuals have matching
bone structures.

~~~
rescripting
The title of the article is misleading. He didn't steal it, he cheated the
casino out of it. This is an important distinction since in the eyes of the
law the casino willingly gave him the money when he cashed out. The casino can
catch you cheating and prevent you from cashing out, but once you're out the
door you're pretty much free (although I probably wouldn't come back).

In fact the article actually says they've identified the man and banned him
from the casino. If they had legal backing I'm sure it would have mentioned
the manhunt, and not a "near zero chance of recovering the money."

~~~
rtwtlkj
Or they are just making it up and using this as an excuse to never allow him
to play in their casinos

~~~
andyakb
If they want to ban somebody, they don't need to make up a fake story and get
it in the news, they just ban them

~~~
bhickey
Sure, but they need a good story if they want to recover a $33m loss.

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taude
Always love a good heist story.

~~~
shocks
This is my favourite article on heists:
[http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blancha...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard/)

~~~
taude
Thanks, adding that to my reading list.

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applecore
Any idea what game he was playing? Was he playing against other players or the
house?

~~~
csense
I'm guessing blackjack or roulette.

For blackjack, he could use the outside accomplice to count cards, then start
playing at a table with favorable shoe.

For roulette, I think I've read elsewhere that precise timing of the spinning
wheel allows you to model its physics well enough to figure out where it will
land.

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triplesec
Good man, good hack. I have no sympathy for the casinos whatsoever.

