Tim is a journalist, author, and columnist with two decades of experience writing for outlets like the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He is an expert on regulation, business, and industry and is fluent...
Read Full BioA combination of technology, deceit, and dealer manipulation has seen six Indiana baccarat cheats accused of stealing more than $1.5 million from casinos in the U.S.
According to the Times of Northwest Indiana, criminal charges filed on June 2 at the Lake Criminal Court name the suspects as Jianchu Liu, Fuxiang Liu, Qingyong Zhang, Honghui Wu, Daiqi Wang, and Yuhan Hu.
The case alleges that the group defrauded Hard Rock Casino, Northern Indiana, out of more than $700,000 in less than a week in 2023. Arrest warrants have been issued for all six individuals on charges of cheating at gambling and theft.
The Indiana Six Approach Shows Shifts in Cheating Methods
Initially, investigators suspected a casino dealer may have been an accomplice in the alleged crime. However, after examining phone records, police determined that the dealer had not previously spoken with any of the suspects.
After studying CCTV footage from casino floors, investigators discovered that a gang member used a cut card to fan out the casino’s card deck.
This exposed the cards for just long enough for another member to use a smartphone app or recording device to capture.
Another gang member then reportedly studied the footage from this app to determine the order of the cards in the deck before relaying the information via hidden earpieces to the members at the table.
Phil Ivey’s Deviceless Edge Sorting
The latest Baccarat scam demonstrates a notable increase in complexity compared to previous high-profile incidents.
World-renowned poker star Phil Ivey used “edge sorting” to take advantage of intentional dealer requests to manipulate the game’s element of randomness and gain insight into upcoming cards.
Ivey won over $16 million at Borgata and Crockfords (Genting), but lost legal battles in both the UK and US, where courts ruled that edge-sorting constituted cheating without intent to deceive. Ivey’s actions were deemed to “interfere with the process of the game.”
Tran Organization Rely On Dealer Collusion
One of the United States’ largest criminal card scams was undertaken by the Tran organization, in which dealers were bribed to perform false shuffles. Hidden earpieces were then used to communicate bets.
Approximately $7 million was stolen from 29 casinos across North America. Forty-seven people were charged, with 42 entering guilty pleas on charges including racketeering and fraud.
Sophisticated Methods Bypass Casino Security
The case documents note that the Indiana group used the same method “on multiple occasions,” hiding the recording device under a pack of cigarettes.
The CCTV footage also allegedly shows a gang member obscuring a casino camera’s view of the card-cutter with a score card.
The bettors at the table “placed very large bets upward of $10,000 to $20,000 toward the end of the game.”
At least one of the individuals is a Chinese national who has been accused of using similar techniques to win money at baccarat tables in the Mohegan Pennsylvania Casino Resort.
The group is alleged to have spent time moving around the casino’s baccarat tables until they could find a dealer whose card-handling techniques they believed they could exploit.
Illinois regulators say the group was banned from Bally’s Casino, Chicago, shortly after it opened, as well as having done similar at other casinos in the state, as well as Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, and California.
