Former swindler warns Asia's casinos they can't beat cheats

Former swindler warns Asia's casinos they can't beat cheats
by Bernice Han
Send by e-mail Save Print Casinos in Asia, take heed: There is no such thing as a foolproof hi-tech system for catching professional cheats.

That's the warning from former swindler Richard Marcus, who says he ripped off 20 million US dollars from the world's gaming tables over more than two decades.

Marcus, 50, is now a consultant to the casinos he used to cheat.

He was never caught despite the array of surveillance gear installed by gaming operators in Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, Macau and Australia, he told AFP in a recent interview.

"I was the most wanted casino cheater ever in the history of the world. They just could never catch me," Marcus said, his face beaming with pride at his 25-year track record.

He says he remained at large partly because casinos are too reliant on technology to catch the conmen.

Asia's gaming industry is undergoing an unprecedented expansion and will face the same problem, said Marcus, an American now living in Paris.

"There is never a foolproof system because it depends on people. Never 100 percent," he said on the sidelines of a regional gaming conference in Singapore.

"No matter how many millions of dollars they invest in surveillance systems, if you don't have the people, if the people are not smart, they are going to get beat anyway and that's the problem."

Even Asian casinos run by Las Vegas Sands and other heavyweights of the industry are ill-equipped to handle professional cheats because their local staff lack experience, Marcus said.

Sands spearheaded the expansion of gaming in the southern Chinese enclave of Macau, a former Portuguese colony, when Sands Macau opened in 2004.

Las Vegas Sands is also developing one of Singapore's two multi-billion-dollar gaming complexes. Malaysia's Genting International has broken ground on the city-state's other gaming and entertainment development.

Early in April, Macau said it had overtaken the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest casino draw, saying it raked in more than seven billion US dollars in 2006, five years after the sector was liberalised there.

"All the cheating teams, especially the ones that are good, they are going to converge in Macau more and more because you have big, brand new casinos with inexperienced people," Marcus said.

"So they are going to get killed," he said.

Marcus also foresees a similar "big problem" in Singapore when the Sands and Genting-run complexes open by 2010.

"Big problem because it's a brand new area and it's going to be loads of inexperienced people, especially the dealers," he explained. "They are going to get destroyed."

He said casino operators can limit the financial damage from professional cheats by following his advice and placing more emphasis on training staff to detect deft moves at the gaming tables.

"I teach them certain moves to look for," Marcus said.

He also trains casino surveillance teams. But security is not just their responsibility -- no one from the dealers to the one monitoring the video cameras can afford to relax, he said.

"The problem with casinos is the people on the floor. They feel so secure because of the cameras that they don't really do their jobs," said Marcus.

"The casinos are big now and in order for them to really protect their games, everybody has to be on guard."

Marcus said he quit cheating in 2000 because he had made enough money, and it is "almost like a natural crossover" to go from casino swindler to consultant.

"I do it mainly because I need to be doing something to keep my mind going," he said.

He has written five books about gambling cheats, including "American Roulette," a memoir of his own experiences as a jet-setting casino swindler.

"People love scam stories where the small guys make all the money and nobody really gets hurt," he said. "I never hurt anybody."