Arrests Made Following Cheating Scheme at Wind Creek Casino
There seems to be an emerging trend of players cheating at baccarat in US casinos. In the latest scam, four people from Illinois are being charged in connection with a complicated baccarat cheating scheme that saw them take the Wind Creek Bethlehem casino for roughly $300,000.
Police believe that six people took part in the scam, which took place in the early hours of the morning earlier in March, but so far, just four of the six have been apprehended. Court documents show that Zu Lin, Yuhan Hu, Liping Zhou and Zhencan Chen were arrested after the departure of two other members of the group, Fuxiang Liu and the alleged mastermind of the plot, Qingyong Zhang.
Despite top online baccarat sites maintaining a clean record, there appears to be an uptick in cheating cases at brick-and-mortar casinos.
An Early Morning Heist
The four were detained and questioned at the Wind Creek Gaming Office around 7 am, but the scheme began far earlier in the morning, at 3:52 am when the six men took their seats at a baccarat table that Zhang had reserved at Wind Creek casino.
By employing a combination of body and card positioning as the deck was being cut and shuffled, Zhang was able to record the order of the cards by thumbing their corners and using a cell phone that he had positioned in his front-left pocket.
Shortly after the group sat down to play, Zhang and Hu departed and returned to their hotel rooms. They then reconvened at Hu’s room before making their way back to the baccarat table to rejoin the game. At roughly 5:10 am, Zhang motioned to the other players, signaling that they should start betting more.
The police claim that over the following thirty minutes, the players continued to place larger bets when signaled by Zhang. This saw all players at the table winning their bets before they finally left at 5:47 am, at which point Zhang went back to his hotel room and the other five continued to play different games on the casino floor. Eventually, Zhang and Liu left the casino while the others were detained.
During questioning, Hu claimed that Zhang paid him $5,000 to take part in the scheme and that all the winnings went to Zhang.
Prior Involvement in Gambling Rings
While investigating, the police discovered that both Hu and Zhou had been involved in similar casino gambling scams in Illinois and Missouri, respectively. All four of the apprehended are now facing felony corrupt organization charges. Three of them, Lin, Hu and Chen, have posted the $100,000 bail set by the judge, but Zhou was unable to, and he is currently residing at Northampton County Prison.
Lin hails from Mount Vernon, Illinois, while the others are all from Chicago. As of yet, there has been no further comment from police or the accused legal representatives, so further details of how the scam worked are yet to emerge.
Baccarat Cheats Uncovered in Multiple Casinos
While there are no known incidents of players cheating at online baccarat, as mentioned, there do seem to be a growing number of cheating incidents at land casinos.
In recent weeks, Pennsylvania State Police PSP have been looking for Jianchu Liu, a 47-year-old from China, who is believed to be part of a professional cheating ring that has targeted a number of casinos.
Similar to Zhang, Liu is accused of recording the sequence of cards in the deck using his cell phone. However, he was caught doing so on the casino surveillance cameras at the Mohegan Pennsylvania casino in Wilkes-Barre and then identified through his casino rewards card. The group he is part of is believed to have operated at several other casinos, including the Golden Nugget and the Imperial Palace in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Prior to this incident, a Mohegan Sun baccarat dealer cheating case, Yu Wen Fu, was accused of manipulating games and costing the casino $124,000. A pit manager spotted Fu setting up the deck before a player called Haoen Jiang took his place at the table. Fu arranged the cards in a specific order allowing him to signal when a nine would be dealt through the strategic positioning of face cards in the deck.
However, as casinos become more aware of the methods employed by cheats and start actively looking for them, it is likely that such incidents will become less frequent.
