Gambler caught marking cards

[Rain Man]

I'm not a gambler, but I know some people around here are into poker, so I'm curious how you think he might have been marking cards. It seems like such a thing would be very difficult to do in modern casinos. And could he have been cheating at the poker as well?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/29/justic...t=hp_inthenews

Legendary gambler Archie Karas accused of marking cards in San Diego casino

By Emma Lacey-Bordeaux, CNN
updated 11:03 PM EDT, Sun September 29, 2013

(CNN) -- His was a rags-to-riches tale. A Greek immigrant who came to the United States and made it big. A waiter who gambled in his spare time. A poker prodigy who turned $50 into $40 million in just three years.

Archie Karas has described himself the "king of the gamblers," but authorities in San Diego are now calling him a cheater.

On Friday, police arrested the 62-year-old Karas, whose legal name is Anargyros Karabourniotis, at his home in Las Vegas, on allegations he marked cards during a blackjack game in San Diego in July. The alleged cheating was also caught on camera, according to authorities.

The alleged incident occurred at San Diego's Barona Casino. Karas won $8,000 playing blackjack, but San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says video shows the gambler cheated with a technique known as marking cards.

Marking cards allows a player to identify the value of cards. If done correctly, neither the dealer nor other players notice the marks -- only the player who is in on the scheme.

"This defendant's luck ran out thanks to extraordinary cooperation between several different law enforcement agencies who worked together to investigate and prosecute this case," Dumanis said.

Karas is being held in Las Vegas without bail. He faces charges of burglary, winning by fraudulent means and cheating. He is expected to appear in court Monday for an extradition hearing.

It was not immediately clear if Karas has legal representation.

Karas' exploits are legendary in the poker world.

In 1992, he went to Las Vegas with just $50. He got a $10,000 loan from a poker buddy at Binion's Horseshoe, according to Poker.org. Karas tripled the loan in one game.

From there he went on to bet and win at pool, then poker.

"I was the best," Karas told ESPN in an interview broadcast in 2008. "Anybody who'd come to town I'd play them, I didn't care who they were and I'd win, too."

But he had a problem, he recounted to ESPN. No one would play him anymore; he had simply won too much.

He didn't quit. Instead, he changed the game.

"I had to play dice," he told ESPN. He said lines of people used to show up to watch him bet $1 million on each roll. "I ran it up to $40 million," he recalled. "It was a lot of money."

But as quickly as it came, the money left Karas. He said he lost $20 million in 10 days. Soon, it was all gone.

It took him three years to win the $40 million and only three weeks to lose it.

If the loss hurt Karas, he didn't show it in his 2008 interview.

"I consider myself the king of gamblers," he said, chuckling. "I made it, I lost it and like Frank Sinatra says, I stood tall and I took the punches and I did it my way."

[Tombstone RJ]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm not a gambler, but I know some people around here are into poker, so I'm curious how you think he might have been marking cards. It seems like such a thing would be very difficult to do in modern casinos. And could he have been cheating at the poker as well?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/29/justic...t=hp_inthenews

Legendary gambler Archie Karas accused of marking cards in San Diego casino

By Emma Lacey-Bordeaux, CNN
updated 11:03 PM EDT, Sun September 29, 2013

(CNN) -- His was a rags-to-riches tale. A Greek immigrant who came to the United States and made it big. A waiter who gambled in his spare time. A poker prodigy who turned $50 into $40 million in just three years.

Archie Karas has described himself the "king of the gamblers," but authorities in San Diego are now calling him a cheater.

On Friday, police arrested the 62-year-old Karas, whose legal name is Anargyros Karabourniotis, at his home in Las Vegas, on allegations he marked cards during a blackjack game in San Diego in July. The alleged cheating was also caught on camera, according to authorities.

The alleged incident occurred at San Diego's Barona Casino. Karas won $8,000 playing blackjack, but San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says video shows the gambler cheated with a technique known as marking cards.

Marking cards allows a player to identify the value of cards. If done correctly, neither the dealer nor other players notice the marks -- only the player who is in on the scheme.

"This defendant's luck ran out thanks to extraordinary cooperation between several different law enforcement agencies who worked together to investigate and prosecute this case," Dumanis said.

Karas is being held in Las Vegas without bail. He faces charges of burglary, winning by fraudulent means and cheating. He is expected to appear in court Monday for an extradition hearing.

It was not immediately clear if Karas has legal representation.

Karas' exploits are legendary in the poker world.

In 1992, he went to Las Vegas with just $50. He got a $10,000 loan from a poker buddy at Binion's Horseshoe, according to Poker.org. Karas tripled the loan in one game.

From there he went on to bet and win at pool, then poker.

"I was the best," Karas told ESPN in an interview broadcast in 2008. "Anybody who'd come to town I'd play them, I didn't care who they were and I'd win, too."

But he had a problem, he recounted to ESPN. No one would play him anymore; he had simply won too much.

He didn't quit. Instead, he changed the game.

"I had to play dice," he told ESPN. He said lines of people used to show up to watch him bet $1 million on each roll. "I ran it up to $40 million," he recalled. "It was a lot of money."

But as quickly as it came, the money left Karas. He said he lost $20 million in 10 days. Soon, it was all gone.

It took him three years to win the $40 million and only three weeks to lose it.

If the loss hurt Karas, he didn't show it in his 2008 interview.

"I consider myself the king of gamblers," he said, chuckling. "I made it, I lost it and like Frank Sinatra says, I stood tall and I took the punches and I did it my way."

call me stupid but doesn't the house provide the deck of cards? How can someone mark house cards?

[Tombstone RJ]

Originally Posted by Third Eye

There are countless ways to mark cards. More than likely he was probably doing something simple like nicking 10-valued cards with his fingernail. This could pay dividends in blackjack. It's doubtful that he was cheating at poker though. You would need a much more robust method that would not only identify the value of the card but also the suit to really be effective.

For what it's worth, there really is no such thing as a good gambler. Rather there are good cheaters and lucky gamblers. Cheaters get caught though, and the law of large numbers usually limits how lucky people are in the long run.

Edit: I'm editing this because everyone seems to be missing my point. If you know what you are doing poker is not gambling, and sports books are not gambling either. They both require skill to be successful in the long run. Black jack, craps, roulette, any table game with a specific probability of winning that is never in your favor is gambling.

Yah but fresh decks are used all the time, right? The house doesn't keep using the same decks over and over, does it?

[Tombstone RJ]

also, even if Karas was "marking" the cards, you gotta have extraordinary eyes to see that. I watched a program on tv a while back that explained how old time gamblers (back in the wild wild west days of yore) marked cards and I was thinking to myself, "damn, how does a gambler in a relatively dark room even see that tiny little mark/descrepency on the card, it's soo damn small!?!?"

Lee Majors and the bionic eye??

[Lex Luthor]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I feel like it should interest me, but it doesn't. I don't see the justification to invest time so I can influence the 1% of the equation that I can influence.

With blackjack I lost interest as soon as I learned the "double your bet" trick. If you do that and you have an iron gut, you win every time. But big deal, you win a small amount. It's not worth the effort.

OMG Rainman, I can't believe you said that.

The "double your bet" trick is a fallacy. You CAN'T win that way, because in addition to an iron gut, you have to have a bankroll that's almost infinitely large, and you put huge amounts of money at risk to win a tiny amount.

Think about it. It's not uncommon at all for a Blackjack player to lose 5 hands in a row. If you're playing a $5 minimum table, and you lose 5 hands in a row, you just lost $155 (5 + 10 +20 + 40 +80). If you win 5 hands in a row (which very rarely happens), you just won a grand total of $25.

The "double your bet" trick is talked about only by people who have no idea what they are talking about and have never tried it. Try playing free online Blackjack and see how well it works. You will lose all of your money every single time, usually within 5 minutes.

[Lex Luthor]

Originally Posted by Tombstone RJ

call me stupid but doesn't the house provide the deck of cards? How can someone mark house cards?

The player can mark the cards when he picks them up and looks at them.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by Brainiac

OMG Rainman, I can't believe you said that.

The "double your bet" trick is a fallacy. You CAN'T win that way, because in addition to an iron gut, you have to have a bankroll that's almost infinitely large, and you put huge amounts of money at risk to win a tiny amount.

Think about it. It's not uncommon at all for a Blackjack player to lose 5 hands in a row. If you're playing a $5 minimum table, and you lose 5 hands in a row, you just lost $155 (5 + 10 +20 + 40 +80). If you win 5 hands in a row (which very rarely happens), you just won a grand total of $25.

The "double your bet" trick is talked about only by people who have no idea what they are talking about and have never tried it. Try playing free online Blackjack and see how well it works. You will lose all of your money every single time, usually within 5 minutes.

Ah, the old Martingale System. It's a great system for losing all of your money very quickly.

[Lex Luthor]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

Ah, the old Martingale System. It's a great system for losing all of your money very quickly.

I read in a book a long time ago that it would actually be a better strategy to double your bet every time you win rather than every time you lose. That way you only risk the minimum bet with each hand, but you have the chance to win amounts if you win several hands in a row.

Sounds good. Tried it online with play money. Lost all of the my money every time. That's the nice thing about these online sites that let you play casino games for free. You can easily test all of these simple strategies and see whether or not they work.

[mcaj22]

Originally Posted by Brainiac

And yes, I've seen Rounders many times. I've seen Matt Damon make the claim that poker is a game of skill and that luck has no bearing on it. I've seen him talk about the World Series of Poker, make the claim that the same guys are at the final table every year, and ask "are they the luckiest guys in the world?".

The problem with that argument is that the same guys DON'T make it to the final table every year. It's rare for anyone to make it to the final table two years in a row.

pay da man his monies

[ct]

strange game, the only winning move is not to play

[Lex Luthor]

Originally Posted by ct

strange game, the only winning move is not to play

How about a nice game of tic-tac-toe?