Victim of Cheating?

The question came up recently as to whether I’d ever been cheated while playing cards, and the answer is yes, twice that I know of (and who knows how many times that I don’t).

The first time was on my very first visit to Vegas, back in ’91 or so.  It was while playing blackjack at the Pioneer Casino downtown.  The Pioneer is closed today (gee, wonder why), but it’s the site of the iconic giant neon cowboy that points to himself.  This was back before they made Fremont Street a pedestrian mall; at the time it was a street you could drive down just like any other.

It was around two or three in the morning, and at the blackjack table we were all running really good.  The floorman suddenly swapped out the dealer, and the new dealer came in and hand-shuffled the cards.  This was a short shoe, with only four decks if I recall correctly.  Anyhow, after shuffling the cards, she put them into the shoe.  From where I was sitting (nobody else could have seen this), I saw that when she put the cards back into the shoe, there were a whole bunch of cards already in it!  I thought that was extremely troubling.

Suddenly, we all started losing.  Some of the players were betting big stacks, playing their rush.  They lost a bundle!  Nowadays, I’d probably raise hell with the floorman.  But this was my first time to Vegas; I didn’t know what to do, so I just cashed out and left.  Probably the best solution anyhow.

The second time was at Foxwoods.  I was playing a limit hold ‘em table, probably $8/$16 or in that neighborhood.  I was sitting between these two guys who (it was clear to me) knew each other, and I figured were probably friends who’d decided to come out to the casino together.

Well it wasn’t too long after I sat down at the table (maybe 4 or 5 button orbits) that they both got up and left together.  After they left, the dealer said that he was convinced that they had been colluding.  He said that he had just signaled for security to come to the table (how he did this I have no idea) so when they got up and left, it was in the nick of time.

They may have been colluding, but lucky for me I didn’t happen to have lost any money to them.  I guess whenever they had me bracketed I didn’t have any hand worth playing.  And if the dealer hadn’t told me about it, I’m sure I would never have known!