Piked cards, faked machines, bribed croupiers: Fraud in the casino has been a constant theme on the big screen for years. In reality, however, it looks quite different!
Today we have invited the editor-in-chief of Bestcasinoincanada, Jeff Vertes, as an expert who can easily distinguish truth from fiction when it comes to fraud in the casino. He has been working in the casino business for years and loves watching movies in her spare time.
Read on to learn how to tell fake from real and how some movies have worked with scams in the casino. However, one thing is for sure and not fake: you can find real money bonus promotions at casinos online in New Brunswick that will help you win big, in a very real way. Have fun!
1. Casino scams – movies vs. real life
Jeff Vertes was able to start her career in land-based casinos. He knows all kinds of cheating. Card counting, manipulation of the first “one-armed bandits” and also the exchange of fake money for casino chips. Such coups were popularly included in action movies of the past years, but they are hardly feasible today.
Why? The technology in casinos and the gaming software have changed a lot in the last decade. A camera is now “intelligent” and can, for example, detect when a player is nervous, making the same movements over and over again, or communicating with other players in the room – and it immediately sounds the alarm.
Also, the software of the slot machines no longer allows any manipulation and the real money is checked in real time. And if you now think that games can be manipulated better in online casinos, then you are very much mistaken. There you do not need to resort to tricks to win, because the software of the games is absolutely fair. This is easy to check thanks to the list of real money casinos on casinoallianz.com. Now let’s look at a few examples of some movies.
“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998).
This film, called in German “Bube, Dame, König, grAS,” tells a story involving a robbery. A confident young card player loses 500,000 pounds to a powerful crime lord in a rigged three-card game. To pay off his debt, he and his friends decide to rob a small gang of criminals who happen to work in the apartment next door.
Three-Card Brag is a simple poker game that you can play in card rooms around the world or in your favorite online casino. The trick to betting safely on a hand is to know your opponent. And that means recognizing his playing tendencies. If you don’t know your opponent’s playing tendencies, you won’t be able to make an accurate assessment of his range of play in certain situations. If you can’t decipher his style and playing tendencies, his hand will usually remain a mystery and you will have no idea how well your hand plays against his range.
Expert Jeff Vertes is very skeptical about the movie’s content, because you can’t just quickly decipher the playing tendencies of your opponent(s) and then win hands down. You can start the process of betting a player on a hand by making an assumption and sticking to it until an examined player proves otherwise.
“Original Sin” (2001).
This story simply begins in the late 1800s with a wealthy Cuban, Antonio Banderas, who practically orders and marries a bride, Angelina Jolie, but it ends with her running off with much of his money. He doesn’t know what is going on, but he wants to find her and kill her. This is where things get complicated, because he finally tracks her down with the help of private detective Thomas Jane, but he can’t do the deed and just wants her to stay with him forever.
At one point in the story, Jolie and Banderas cheat at cards to rake in some money. But the guys notice that the two are working together and beat up Banderas and rape Jolie.
All Catherine can say about this is, “Especially in 3 Card Poker, never allow people to stand behind you when you are playing, as they could easily give an opponent important information about your hand. If you’re playing in an open space such as a bar, be extra vigilant.”
“Casino Royale” (2006).
Casino Royale is set at the beginning of Bond’s career as Agent 007, when he is just acquiring his license to kill. In the plot, Bond is tasked with bankrupting terrorist financier Le Chiffre in a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, an employee of the Treasury Department, who is supposed to get him the money he needs for the game.
Le Chiffre organizes a high-stakes Texas Hold’em tournament at Casino Royale. Bond appears to gain control by figuring out Le Chiffre’s “hand.” Obanno ambushes Le Chiffre, but lets him continue playing to win back the money. The poker face is difficult to decipher, but Bond manages it. Is it really possible to win large sums of money via this poker strategy? “Yes, it is possible, but it requires a lot of practice,” says Jeff Vertes.
Poker Face Expressions – There are many different ways to tell if someone has a weak hand in a real money casino. Here are some of them:
- Lip biting
- Laughing
- Tense mouth
- Breathing with the mouth
- Careless handling of the cards
- Excessive blinking
- Rolling eyes
- Holding the breath
- Forcibly throwing chips into the pot
“21” (2008).
Based on the true (albeit embellished by writer Ben Mezrich) story of the MIT blackjack team that beat the house for nearly a decade, “21” turns an interesting math and economics story into a kind of silly heist movie with a lot of young actors.
“The film may seem a bit over-the-top and shallow, but it’s entirely possible to apply the card-counting system to blackjack (before cameras with AI were used),” Jeff Vertes reveals to us.
This was never possible in the online casino, as the deck is shuffled with each draw. Card counting is the technique you use when keeping track of the number of high and low cards left in the croupier’s deck/stack. When you successfully count cards, you can increase your bet knowing that the odds are in your favor, which significantly increases the probability of winning big.
It will hardly work today, as the monitoring systems will immediately sound the alarm as soon as you win several times in a row. Besides, you need to be skillful with your facial expressions to avoid being tracked down by the specialists. However, the system is known and might work, apart from the disadvantages already mentioned.
“Molly’s Game” (2017).
“Molly’s Game” is based on the memoir of Molly Bloom, a former successful skier who changes careers after a terrible accident and turns to the world of underground poker. Jessica Chastain, as Molly, is a high-spirited go-getter who guides us through this illegal but highly addictive and lucrative network as He becomes the queen of organized high-stakes games.
Molly is initially uninformed about poker topics, but quickly learns how to approach players to get tips. In particular, she hopes to please the most successful player. When Dean sees Molly running the games more and more independently, he tries to control her and eventually fires her. Molly, who has gained contacts from running the game for years, decides to start running her own poker games.
Of course, she has also learned to put on her poker face and read hands where no one else could. “What cheating is shown in this film is hardly believable,” explains Jeff Vertes.
Cheating in the casino away from the big screen is hardly possible today
Now we finally know what might be real and what might not be in the movies. As mentioned before, it is hardly possible to cheat a casino today. And that’s why Catherine is so excited about the film, which is scheduled for release in 2024 and has as its promising title “The Card Counter,” which indicates that it will be about card counting. Filming on the movie has already been halted in March 2020 – with only five days left in production. But director Paul Schrader and his crew were able to finish the film safely in Mississippi in mid-July.
Now we just want to see how the lead actor manages to cheat at card counting! We’ll tell you all about it later….