Casinos Remain Vulnerable to New Scams

CDC Gaming Reports correspondent Buck Wargo attended the event, which reunited 600 people from the industry, interested in improving security on-site casinos and protecting against scams and cyber fraud.

Conference Highlights Ongoing Challenge in Containing Casino Scams

The conference confirmed that casinos face new sets of challenges and that the pandemic had led to a decline in the number of cheating at casinos. However, as the industry emerges from the worst of the pandemic, dangers continue to mount.

Willy Allison, the founder of the World Game Protection Conference, noted that there had been a correlation between the increase in casino revenue and the level of cheating detected and conducted on casino floors. While the industry faces cyber threats as a whole, the conference itself focused on the cheating attempts carried out in person by people on casino floors.

One of the biggest scandals caught in 2022 was “dice sliding,” Allison said cited by Wargo who attended in person and did the full original report of the story. Sliding a dice is basically a practice where the person tries not to roll the dice and just leaves them with the face value pointing up so that they can get the desired outcome.

Casino security and staff have been on high alert and received training on how to spot such players. “Dice sliders are coming out of the woodwork, “Allison explained. A big part of the scams though involve people distracting the dealers who are by default capable of spotting such offenses but may be misled by players.

Some of the criminals are in fact, former casino workers. One prominent case involves an ex-casino dealer who used his skeleton key for electronic table games (EGTs) to bet and then reset any loss they might have incurred by using the key. EGTs are particularly vulnerable to manipulation as well.

Or, rather – once a scam is perpetrated it’s harder to spot it. This mostly stems from the fact that there are fewer eyeballs on EGTs as they should be sound and safe of design, notwithstanding manipulations done to their software or using skeleton keys as in the previous case.

Casinos Bleed Cash Due to Cheating and Scams

“Scammers who want to fiddle or put USB ports in and mess with the electronics are left to their own devices,” cautions Allison. While these scams continue to be perpetrated – despite the risks for those carrying them out – casinos are bleeding money that could have otherwise bolstered their bottom lines and gone into the staff and betterment of operations.

Industry insiders confirm that scams cost them a lot of money, as many scams certainly go undetected, many executives worry. Casinos have been readily employing experienced “cheats” themselves, such as card counters to help them counter many popular forms of cheating as well. The challenges piling on for the sector continue to abound, though, as footfall returns to casino floors.