Live Cheating Scandal?

The best thing casinos could do is to ban cheaters and scammers. In every other area of gambling, they will ban players at the drop of a hat, and are willing to occasionally ban a rec by mistake in the proccess. You might say, "well yeah, because casinos care if they get cheated and they don't care if a customer gets cheated." That's partly true. But all winning players are kind of bad for their bottom line. This is true even if they take money from other players. Ideally they want the losing players pushing money back and forth as they take the juice over and over.

Poker is a game where they need some players to be long term winners. But from a totally cynical perspective, they should be looking to remove as many long term winners, who take money out of the pool and use it to buy houses and cars and stuff, as possible. So when there is good reason to suspect that someone is removing money from the pool unethically, it is in the mutual interest of the casino and the customers to ban that person from playing and certainly from registering for any tournaments.

It shouldn't that be hard to put these guys' names on a list, alongside Hawkins, Postle, Men the Master, etc. as well as people who are well known to scam off the felt. Since you have to actually register for a tournament it would be easy to keep them out. Other players (for example the team that won the main event) would have to factor in this risk when making their decisions.

I don't think most floors and dealers make much of a living, so Little's proposal that they all spend their free time becoming cheating experts and traveling to conferences seems unrealistic.

OK GG, they should just ban winners then. Not.

Even from the casino's self-interested perspective it's important for there to be winners. It's the illusion that losing players are winning or could become winning players that keeps the games alive.

Just banning people because they're winning and based off of vague suspicions is the worst case scenario, IMO.

On the other hand actual confirmed cheaters with evidence showing they cheated should be banned. It's not complicated. Sure there will always be some grey areas around the margins, but a good start would be just banning confirmed cheats that have been caught.

They should also be prosecuting cheaters, which would be way more of a deterrent than a ban. I think the lack of perceived legal consequences is the main reason cheating has gotten to be as rampant as it is.

And why shouldn't dealers and floors learn about cheating methods and how to combat them? It is their career and livelihood. Many of the poker dealers also deal house games so there's an additional benefit to the casino that they may stop people from cheating the house as well. You said it's unrealistic for casino employees to spend their free time traveling to conferences, which I agree with, but there's no reason the casinos can't bring in some cheating experts to educate their employees.

When a company or so-called important person is conned it's fraud, when it's your ordinary Joe/Jane it's **** em. Sad way of the world unfortunately.

Good advertisement for the casino when their list of banned legitimate winners and luckboxing recs comes out in the open.

Seriously, winners create rake like everybody else. And 90%+ of the players ultimately spend their winnings at the casino/casinos.

Ban cheaters though, of course.

I have a theory that casinos and management don’t realllly try and teach about cheating to staff and dealers because they think the information would do the opposite of its intended effect.

Dealers and floor who play poker (large %), would see how to implement and would start doing it themselves. I think they assume that cheaters move around and never get comfy in one spot so they will only have to deal with cheaters who aren’t as good, in waves.

Of course I'm not saying casinos should ban winning poker players with the frequency that they ban winning sports bettors or VP players. Nobody should be banned for winning alone. However, there already are curated cash games, seniors events and lady's events because a lot of people would like to play with fewer sharks.

I'm pointing out that, just because these guys pay tourney rake, it is not in the casino's interest to keep them around, because they remove money from the pool and take it home and spend it on other things, while the rec players push the money back and forth. If you could push a magic button to make the events all recs, the recs and casinos would both benefit.

Obviously, in reality, poker thrives partly because there is the promise of long term winning and the "famous" players help market the game, so you need to have that and you can't ban someone for winning or on flimsy pretenses.

However, you don't need evidence enough to criminally convict someone to ban him. If the standard is that you must have texts in which they discuss cheating, or irrefutable video evidence, then for all practical purposes cheating is allowed in poker, which is the case now. The reason for this thread is that several pros were frustrated that a cheating stable is more or less openly cheating, have been caught, and nothing is done.

If you use team play and a computer on any game in Vegas other than poker, you go to prison. In poker, you win The Main Event.

If your solution is that dealers and floorman who make like 50k should all become world class cheating experts with laser focus on their jobs, then you might as well just say cheating is allowed. If you want video evidence, etc. then you might as well say cheating is allowed.

The standard for a ban can be far higher than in blackjack, sports, etc. and still ban people like those described in the videos, those with multiple independent accounts of swindling backers and so on. You don't have a right to play poker tournaments. It's not like you're taking away someone's driving privileges or health insurance. You're simply deeming them an undesirable customer for your business.

Polk banned Men The Master from his room, though he was unlikely to play there. What is the downside to this?

Otherwise, you can add this to the large pile of test cases that prove there is no downside to cheating at poker. You won't be prosecuted. You won't be successfully sued. You'll be welcome at the next event. As this becomes more obvious and cheating tactics improve, cheating will become the norm more than it already is.

Take away all incentive to cheat by banning all players.