UNCASVILLE, Conn. — The man at the poker table had a ball cap pulled down almost to his nose, but his glance up at a television screen revealed a familiar face to Mohegan Sun’s surveillance cameras: A photograph of the known card cheater had been sent by bulletin to casinos around the country.
Within hours, the bettor was arrested, accused of marking cards with invisible ink.
‘‘The officer who identified him, basically she had a ‘Holy crap!’ moment,’’ said Jay Lindroos, the casino’s surveillance director. ‘‘She saw the face and said, ‘I recognize that guy!’ ”
I had one when I saw that word in my respectable new$paper.
Casinos from the United States to Australia use their own intelligence network to warn one another about cheaters. As table games spread across the Northeast, resorts are using it more than ever to stay ahead of suspect players — professional thieves and card counters — who can easily hit multiple casinos in the span of a few days.
Are you flipping shitting me (I'm a disreputable blog so....)?
Mohegan Sun, one of the world’s largest casinos, began sharing intelligence a decade ago with its giant, next-door rival in Southeastern Connecticut, the Foxwoods Resort Casino. Although it was once less common for casinos to talk with competitors, the online network has evolved through mutual self-interest.
Talk about odds being stacked in favor of the house.
***************************
The element of luck makes it impossible to know exactly how much revenue is lost to cheaters, but 100 percent casino surveillance coverage is a security standard for a US industry that generates tens of billions of dollars annually.
Workers at Mohegan Sun monitor feeds from roughly 4,000 cameras, scrutinizing dealers as closely as players. On a given day, they could be on the lookout for as many as hundreds of faces, some pointed out by other casinos, others by law enforcement agencies seeking criminals who might be trying to launder money.
Huh?
If a camera picks up somebody who’s been flagged for possible cheating, security officials will watch the person play before taking any action.
The man arrested Sept. 15, Bruce Koloshi, 54, was the subject of a bulletin issued two weeks earlier by Louisiana officials. He had cheating convictions in Iowa and Nevada and was facing charges in Louisiana that he marked cards last month at the L’Auberge Casino in Baton Rouge.
After the surveillance officer spotted him, Koloshi was seen moving his hands away from the Mississippi Stud poker table, allegedly for the marking substance, and cameras detected ink that wasn’t visible to the naked eye. Koloshi wore special contact lenses to see the ink, authorities said. He was charged with cheating, conspiracy to commit larceny, and being a fugitive from justice.
One tell-tale sign is gamblers placing higher bets than might be expected with the hands they’re dealt.
You won't be catching me in the casino no matter where they are located.
--more--"
What's in your hole?
"Milford voters reject Foxwoods-backed casino plan; The field dwindles for resort license for Greater Boston" by Mark Arsenault and Ellen Ishkanian | Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent, November 19, 2013
MILFORD — Town voters emphatically rejected a $1 billion Foxwoods-backed gambling resort on Tuesday, crushing casino plans five years in development and shrinking the field of applicants for the state’s most lucrative gambling license.
The last of 11 original Massachusetts casino or slot machine parlor proposals to reach the ballot box joins a prominent list of pricey projects to die at voters’ hands.
“There was always a lot of opposition,” Foxwoods chief executive Scott Butera acknowledged somberly in an interview after the votes were counted. “We tried to change people’s minds and educate people, but we weren’t able to do it. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
The Massachusetts suburbs have been the graveyard of casino dreams, and Milford voters followed suit Tuesday, defeating the proposal 6,361 to 3,480 in a townwide referendum. Turnout was 57 percent of 17,400 registered voters, according to the town clerk’s office. The no votes prevailed in each of the eight voting precincts.
As opponents celebrated, the group Casino-Free Milford credited a low-budget ground campaign that overcame an overwhelming spending advantage by Foxwoods and its partners.
A good rule of thumb in AmeriKan politics these days is vote against the money wherever it leads.
“We knew we would never be able to match the dollars of the Foxwoods’ campaign,” the group said in a statement after its victory. “We also knew that money does not buy you everything, and so we focused our efforts where they would count the most, on the people of Milford, by spreading our message slowly, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor.”
Foxwoods spent $792,000 between April and the end of October, according to campaign finance documents; Casino-Free Milford raised $23,770 for its campaign.
With Foxwoods eliminated, the field of competitors for the sole Greater Boston resort casino license is down to a Wynn Resorts proposal in Everett and possibly a Suffolk Downs plan in Revere, as the racetrack hastily works to get around a Nov. 5 referendum defeat in East Boston by shifting its planned resort over the city line, into Revere.
Related:
Land deal for Everett casino plan under scrutiny
I'm out.
The competition for the sole Western Massachusetts resort license has also been ravaged by voters, leaving just MGM Resorts standing in Springfield.
Wynn and MGM are still awaiting the results of state background checks and are refining their proposals ahead of a year-end deadline to submit all remaining plans and documents for their applications....
The Milford vote extended a losing streak for big casino projects, which includes the Suffolk Downs defeat in East Boston. On Nov. 5, Palmer voters rejected a $1 billion Mohegan Sun casino by 93 votes. The company is seeking a recount....
Time for them to leave the table!
In the Milford campaign, proponents tried to sell the benefits of the development: thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue to the town.
Translation: people will no longer be bribed with fal$e promi$es and the illu$ion of riches.
But a well-organized opposition gained traction with the electorate by painting a 24-hour gambling resort as an out-of-scale development for the suburbs....
Related: “You have a group of people on the anti side who are literally opposed to change”
Depends on the kind of change.
--more--"
Related: Two years later, a shifting landscape for casinos
Globe Concerned About Casino Losses
They thought we would embrace them.
"In casino, some see risks for Vineyarders; Say offseason use of substances could increase" by Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, November 18, 2013
They call it the end-of-the-line syndrome: Residents choose to live on Martha’s Vineyard for its solitude but then turn to drugs and alcohol during the long winter months.
And here it is snowing outside again as I type and prepare this post.
Now, some mental health advocates fear a casino could worsen these problems, particularly in the offseason when the population dwindles to 15,000 and the island becomes more isolated.
“From the point of view of my patients, a casino on Martha’s Vineyard is a disaster,” said Dr. Charles Silberstein, a psychiatrist at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, who treats residents with drug and alcohol addiction. “Like some alcoholics at a family gathering, it triggers them.”
The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, which says it wants to operate a casino year-round on the western end of the island, emphatically rejects those predictions. The tribe says a casino will draw winter tourists and provide jobs and entertainment for residents, improving livelihoods and helping people avoid drugs and alcohol during the lonely winter season.
I was against the casinos, but now that they are here how could you not want a casino in your town?
“I’ve been involved with tribal gaming for 25 years and I’ve heard that argument virtually every time, and virtually every time it turns out the opposite is the case,” said Scott Crowell, a lawyer for the tribe, referring to warnings that casinos breed substance abuse. “If you have a struggling community that has vices and then provide them with steady jobs and steady incomes in the local area, the water lifts all boats.”
Gee, I heard that last one before and the opposite was true! It has lifted only the yachts lately, while flooding under all the other boats!
--more--"
And across the table:
"Online gamblers at NJ border may be locked out" Associated Press, November 17, 2013
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey is deadly serious about making sure anyone who gambles online once Internet betting begins this week is physically within the state. And the technology designed to ensure it may freeze some bettors out of the action unless they move farther away from the state’s borders.
A key aspect of the law legalizing Internet gambling is that all the activity takes place within New Jersey’s borders. To comply with that, technology companies working with the Atlantic City casinos have erected so-called digital fencing near — but not exactly conforming to — the state’s borders.
The result in some places will be small no-play zones, from which potential gamblers will have to move temporarily if they want to bet online. These include places like the edge of the state’s borders along the Hudson and Delaware rivers, where the fence has been moved an unspecified distance inland to guard against anyone located in New York or Pennsylvania slipping through the safeguards and gambling online in New Jersey.
It is one thing the casinos and their regulators will be paying close attention to when a five-day, invitation-only trial of online gambling begins at 6 p.m. Thursday. If all goes well, the entire state will be allowed to gamble online as of Nov. 26.
--more--"
Also see: Gamblers in other states tried to bet online in NJ
N.J. backs casinos’ Internet gambling
Top 2012 donor fights to block online gambling
N.J. group has winning lottery ticket
Related: Sandy Anniversary
