History’s Biggest Casino Scams – What Was the UK’s Biggest Casino Con?
Stories about people who have scammed or tricked casinos out of money are fascinating. As a society, we are obsessed with scammers, and recently there has been a huge resurgence in the popularity of these narratives. This is seen in numerous documentaries and docuseries focusing on con artists from “Inventing Anna” to “The Tinder Swindler”.
This blog post will focus on the biggest casino scams in history, that took place in casinos across the globe. We’ll end with a recent casino con that took place in the UK, and will also highlight some popular movies that focus on casino scams.
Types of Casino Scams
When compiling this list, we had a lot of scams to choose from and only selected the most interesting ones. Some of these cons took place decades ago and some are more recent. As you will see, casino scams can take many forms and have evolved a lot since technology and casino security has progressed. There are also many types of online casino scams, which we cover specifically in our dedicated article.
Some casino hustles, such as card counting, stray close to the line of legality. Others definitely cross this line. From identity theft to hidden cameras, we’ll cover all the biggest casino cons and see what casinos do in the aftermath of a scam and how they try to guarantee it won’t happen again.
The Top 6 Biggest Casino Cons in History
Here are the biggest casino scams in history. All of these scams used different methods and most culprits were eventually caught. We’ll start with the MIT Blackjack Team and end with the hidden camera scam that was carried out in London casinos.
- MIT Blackjack Team
- Who Were the Roselli Brothers?
- Louis Colavecchio: The Coin
- Cannes Contact Lens Scam
- The French Cigarette Pack Scam
- The British Hidden Camera Poker Scam
1. MIT Blackjack Team and Card Counting
The MIT Blackjack Team are so notorious that their story has been turned into a movie – more on this later. Numerous news articles also picked up on the story over the years.
Blackjack is unique as it is the only game that can technically be won. The MIT team was made up of students from MIT and other top colleges in the US, and they taught themselves card-counting techniques to beat the casinos. The team trained intensely and travelled around to make their fortune.
The technique of card counting is interesting because if no external devices or outside aids are used, it is completely legal. This doesn’t mean that casinos approve of it however especially as it negatively impacts their profit, and many of the MIT team were eventually kicked out of the casinos they frequented.
The team was created in the seventies by Bill Kaplan. He was a student who postponed his entrance to Harvard to go to Las Vegas and make his fortune gambling. He met a group of MIT students who wanted in on the hustle, and he became a mentor and coach for the MIT blackjack group, teaching them the tricks of the trade.
Kaplan has been interviewed about this experience many times and claims the team’s success was down to running the team like a business.
2. Who Were the Roselli Brothers?
This is an intriguing one, not least because we still don’t know the real identity of the Roselli Brothers. It’s probably the world’s biggest casino scam, or at least the most infamous one, taking place between 1995 – 2000. The men employed computer hacking techniques to steal identities from people with perfect credit scores and then set up accounts at casinos in their names.
They applied for credit in the casinos under these false identities and ran up huge tabs which they never paid off. They eventually cashed out and disappeared before the casinos noticed anything was amiss. The team managed to drain around $40 million from US casinos and the money was never recovered. Their last scam was in Las Vegas, with the pair placing individual bets in excess of $100,000.
Obviously, the casinos took a huge hit in this scam but so did the people whose identities had been stolen. Their once-perfect credit scores were completely ruined. This example highlights the importance of data security, which we talk about in our blog post on how to identify online casino scams.
To this day the identities of the “brothers” are unknown as it was discovered that even this identity was a stolen one and the real Roselli brothers were dead.
3. Louis Colavecchio: The Coin
Louis Colavecchio was a master counterfeiter and earned himself the nickname “The Coin”. Working previously as a jewellery maker, he became adept at forging casino slot machine tokens. His counterfeit tokens were so close to the originals that casino officials had a difficult time telling the fakes from the real ones, even under a microscope.
Colavecchio targeted Atlantic City casinos in New Jersey and some in Connecticut too. The amount of money he swindled out of casinos will probably never be entirely known. His scam was eventually discovered, and he was convicted in 1997 and given a 27 month prison sentence. Also, not surprisingly he was banned from every casino in the country.
Since his expertly forged slot machine tokens casinos have replaced these tokens with paper vouchers, which are harder to replicate. Not solely because of Colavecchio, but he probably helped speed up the process.
4. Cannes Contact Lens Scam
The next scam took place in Cannes in 2011. The mastermind behind the contact lens con was an Italian man, Stefano Ampollini. The exact amount of money stolen varies but it’s estimated to be the equivalent of between 70,000 – 120,000 dollars. So how did he do it? He used a combination of infrared contact lenses and invisible ink.
He was assisted by two employees of the casino, who gave him access to the cards. The team used invisible ink to draw on the stud poker cards. One member of the crew then returned to the casino wearing the special contact lenses which enabled him to see this ink.
They devised a code for the cards so they could see if players were holding a King, an Ace etc. It worked extremely well and after winning a lot of money, the casino became suspicious about the unusual winning streak, and the scam was discovered.
All those involved were eventually arrested including the casino employees. The ringleader, Ampollini, got two years in prison. This casino scam shocked everyone, and it was allegedly the first time that infrared contact lenses were used in such a way.
5. The French Cigarette Pack Scam
For this casino scam, we need to go back to 1973 in France. It was a very advanced scam for the time and involved a crooked roulette dealer, his sister and her husband. The roulette dealer also had an interest in radio which helped him pull off this deception.
His job involved spinning the roulette wheels, so he had full access to the wheels. The team developed a radio transmitter and hid it inside a cigarette packet. They then placed a small receiver into a roulette ball and swapped out the real roulette ball for this one.
Someone, often the sister Monique Laurent, would stand near the roulette table and press the button inside the cigarette packet, the ball would receive this signal and land on groups of 6 possible numbers. Her husband would be at the table and place his bets. The accuracy of choosing which number the ball would land on was as high as 90%.
The casino eventually became suspicious, especially when it was Monique’s turn to be in control of the cigarette packet transmitter. She raised suspicions by coming into the casino often, on her own and always sitting near the same roulette table with her back turned and not placing any bets.
All three got caught after the casino owner hired a debugging team to get to the bottom of things. It has been reported that they conned the casino out of the equivalent of one million dollars in just one week before their cover was blown.
6. British Hidden Camera Poker Scam
What about the UK’s biggest casino scam? Arguably it was one that took place in 2007. The story reads like something out of a movie and involved a tiny hidden camera. This minuscule device was used to see the cards being dealt during games of three card poker.
The person behind the con was Yau Yiv Lam and two accomplices. They managed to make around £250,000 and targeted at least six casinos in London before finally being caught. UK police said this was the first time they had seen something like this.
Lam filmed the croupier from different angles dealing out the cards and then this footage was watched nearby by an accomplice sitting in a white van outside the casino. He then radioed the third person who was sitting at the poker table, Bit Chai Wong, to tell her the card details and give betting instructions.
Similar to the other scams we’ve seen, casino staff eventually became skeptical after Bit Chai Wong had a suspiciously good winning streak. All three were quickly discovered and arrested. Lam was given nine months in prison and the two accomplices were given suspended sentences, and of course, banned from all casinos.
What Casinos Learnt from These Scams
Casinos have used these real-life scams as lessons to change the way they operate. Most casinos will have an extensive array of security cameras that monitor everything going on, and these are the first port of call if there is a dispute to be resolved. Some casinos may even have extra security.
And as we have seen from many of these scams, casinos will happily ban or bar people from entering that they suspect have been cheating. There are other rules enforced too, such as during games of roulette, it is forbidden to use any electronic equipment at the table, including phones and cameras.
These lessons aren’t just learned in land-based casinos either. Internet fraud is prevalent in the gambling industry too, which means most reputable online casinos have stringent security measures in place to prevent online crime.
Fact or Fiction: Casino Con Movies
Many of these casino cons we’ve examined seem like something out of a Hollywood movie, so it’s no surprise that many have inspired some great films. Others are purely works of fiction but play into this cultural obsession with cons and scam artists. Here are our top picks:
21
Released in 2008 this movie focuses on the MIT Blackjack Team, and although it takes some liberties with the facts, it is based on reality. It follows an MIT professor (rather than a student) who builds a team and trains them to use card counting to win at casinos and walk away with loads of cash.
3000 Miles to Graceland
A characteristic heist movie starring Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner. The main characters rob a Las Vegas casino in an outlandish way. They dress in Elvis costumes to blend in with the Elvis convention being held at the casino. A high-action, comedy movie that makes great use of the Las Vegas setting.
Ocean’s 11
This classic heist movie was so popular it spawned a whole franchise. The story follows George Clooney’s character, Danny Ocean, as he pulls off a heist on three casinos, set of course against the shiny backdrop of Las Vegas. Ocean naturally goes after the casinos owned by his rival and current lover of his ex-wife.
What Was the Biggest Casino Scam?
This blog post has covered the biggest casino cons in history. We’ve seen the fine line between cheating and advantage play techniques, like that employed by the MIT Blackjack Team. Card counting is not illegal and is a legitimate strategy that can give players an advantage. However, this doesn’t stop casinos from banning players if they believe they are using these strategies.
You will also notice that most of these scammers eventually got caught, got greedy, slipped up somehow gave the game away, usually after initially taking a lot of money. We have recently covered the perfect example of a scam gone wrong in our story on the Hot Lotto scandal. The only exception to this rule is the Roselli Brothers. Who knows if we will ever find out their real identities?