Between all these recent gambling stories with coaches and players and the Kawhi thing I think I’m done with the NBA. The NBA’s gambling push has done nothing but gross me out. Greed unbridled. They saw the 1919 World Series and said “Let’s bet on this shit.”
This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win faster but doesn’t increase the amount the fish are willing to lose to have a good time.
“An X-ray poker machine was employed to read facedown cards and a rigged card-shuffling machine was also used in the plot, prosecutors say.”
Would love to know more about such a machine, if anyone has any insight. Are these developed underground? How expensive could they be?
If it can efficiently take in a deck of cards and deterministically return a rigged deck in a reasonable amount of time, I would be fascinated at how they solved that problem.
Doesn’t sound that profitable to me. $7m is a lot of money. But not that much after building all of that custom tech, setting up a dedicated space, training and paying a whole bunch of people to run these games. Then whatever’s left over gets split between multiple crime families? Seems like a lot of work.
That seems like a lot of work. TFA said that they arrested 30 people, and got $7 million out of it. The fancy tech involved must have taken a good chunk of that.
It sounds like each of them could get at most a six-figure payday out of this. Which is no chump change, to be sure, but it sounds like many of them could have made as much money without the risk of going to jail just by getting a desk job.
Plus, there's no way a conspiracy that big is going to remain secret for long.
Maybe the expected to get away with it for longer and get a bigger payoff. But wow, it seems like a ton of effort.
This one would be an amazing film exploring both the intersection of tech and the NBA and the families involved too. It would be a stunning production if done with high quality in mind.
> including members of La Cosa Nostra crime families,
I'm not sure if this reflects common usage in English but in Italian, Cosa Nostra is just a synonym for Mafia, not the name of a specific family. Also, in Italian it's never preceded by the article "La".
Isn't legal gambling default profitable? The house is allowed to remove players who are good at games that involve skill and set the win ratio on games that don't (as specified in regulations).
Is this a case of bureaucracy forcing people into illegality?
Semi related: A couple of years ago a waste facility in Berlin measured increased levels of radio activity and traced it back to a restaurant where 13 cards laced with radioactive Iodine-125 were found:
All this potential jail time and reputation lost for $7 mil stolen over multiple years total??? And how many criminals split those winnings?? So the take home pay for an NBA HOF was like under $1 mil? Billups just signed an extension as an NBA head coach making well over that amount EVERY YEAR. Just sad imo
This can be done with no tech at legit casinos. Just have a group of people with a predetermined “tell” system so that only the best hand in the group competes against the fish. In a 4 player game, with 3 teamplayers and 1 fish, thats 75% of games you’ll win. With zero tech.
This appears to be the / a source for the devices in question. It's worth reading over the technical details of how it all works. It's both terrifying and impressive. Cards can be identified using a barcode encoded on their thin edge from meters away.
X-Ray tables?? Seriously? Why are the feds looking at the gambling, and NOT the uncontrolled beaming of raw x-rays into a room full of people. There's GOT to be a law covering that...
27 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 50.7 ms ] threadPeople used to play poker, and cheat, and the whole thing was illegal.
Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government to police their poker games and make sure they're fair.
Complete waste of resources.
1: https://youtu.be/JQ20ilE5DtA?si=_MHmhjKGMKk4sobB
Would love to know more about such a machine, if anyone has any insight. Are these developed underground? How expensive could they be?
If it can efficiently take in a deck of cards and deterministically return a rigged deck in a reasonable amount of time, I would be fascinated at how they solved that problem.
Also, they spelled "Bonnano" wrong in that article. It is Bonanno.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanno_crime_family
Bon Anno = Good Year
It sounds like each of them could get at most a six-figure payday out of this. Which is no chump change, to be sure, but it sounds like many of them could have made as much money without the risk of going to jail just by getting a desk job.
Plus, there's no way a conspiracy that big is going to remain secret for long.
Maybe the expected to get away with it for longer and get a bigger payoff. But wow, it seems like a ton of effort.
The blazers didn't really listen to Dame at all, and the GM has known Chauncey for more than 30 years.
At the time of Chauncey being hired, his only coaching experience was ~1 year of being an assistant coach.
- high likelihood you lose money
- the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers
- you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours
- the only victory condition is that you take money from other people
I'm not sure if this reflects common usage in English but in Italian, Cosa Nostra is just a synonym for Mafia, not the name of a specific family. Also, in Italian it's never preceded by the article "La".
Is this a case of bureaucracy forcing people into illegality?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42157129
I couldn't find anything about how the cheat actually worked, though. In Mongolia they found radioactive dice at an airport: https://conferences.iaea.org/event/16/contributions/7187/att...
This appears to be the / a source for the devices in question. It's worth reading over the technical details of how it all works. It's both terrifying and impressive. Cards can be identified using a barcode encoded on their thin edge from meters away.