Top 10 Gambling Scandals That Rocked The Industry

The dazzling lights of Vegas attract many hopeful and aspiring gamblers who come to try their luck. People who only want a fair shot at winning wealth and glory with their skill, determination, and a bit of luck mixed in. Similarly, it attracts people who don’t like to play fair and resort to cheating and scamming their way through to success. 

Even though most get caught, there are many who persist in a rather dishonest trade to make their money. For most, it rarely works out, but some are clever enough to make millions in the process. Today, we bring you the story of the people who shocked the entire world with their scandals. Here are the top 10 gambling scandals that rocked the industry itself. 

10. Cashier disappears with $500,000

[source: news3lv.com]

This casino heist took place in 1992, and it was an inside job, sounds like the plot of a low-budget B movie, right? Enter William John Brennan, who was a cashier at the now-demolished Stardust Hotel in Vegas. After he had been assigned to count the money after a successful night of football betting, he was never seen again. 

At first, there wasn’t much to be alarmed about as he had left a note saying he was taking a few days off to visit his mother. However, suspicion grew with each passing day as Brennan remained absent from his job. 

He took off with $500,000 in cash and chips and has reportedly never been seen since. Soon an investigation was launched, which proved he had been stealing small sums of money for a long time, as he had access to the casino vault as well. The case went cold pretty quickly as he left no trail. 

As much as we’d like to say he rode off into the sunset listening to punk rock, we can’t do that. Nobody knows where he went, and there have been no reports of him ever since he went awol on the night of September 22nd, 1992. 

9. Man wins $500,000 through a slot machine glitch

[source: abcblogs.abc.es]

The early 2010s saw the rise of video poker throughout mainstream gambling. As a relatively new technology at that point, many exploits and bugs remained in the code. One such bug was exploited by John Kane and his friend Andre Nestor to win hundreds of thousands of dollars regularly. 

They started off with a Game King machine very popular at that time. Kane found out that if he played a certain sequence of bets at the right time, he could glitch the system and give him huge amounts of money as wins. He first found out about this glitch in 2009 and would use it over a period of two years to win large sums, even $500,000 in one instance! 

However, in 2011 he was arrested and charged with multiple counts of theft and cheating. He would eventually plead guilty to computer fraud and conspiracy and return all the money he had won. 

8. Baccarat dealer scams casinos for over $5 million

Richard Marcus had some financial problems after his move to Las Vegas, which led to him taking up a job as a blackjack and baccarat dealer. After carefully studying how dealers act, he developed a technique that he called "past posting" and would go on to win millions through it. 

Typically, Marcus would work with a team of collaborators where each had a specific role. Marcus would deliberately place low bets on games and wait till he had won. As soon as he had one, one of his accomplices would distract the dealer as Marcus would switch the lower bet with a much higher amount. 

He was primarily a blackjack player, but he would use this method in other games like roulette and craps as well. Through it, he had amassed upwards of $5 million by scamming casinos. 

Now comes the shocking part, he never faced any penalties for his actions. He never got caught throughout his career, and even though he was caught by the police well after his retirement, he was never convicted of any crimes. His lawyer definitely made Saul Goodman proud. Today he makes money by selling books detailing how he won his money.

7. The Tran Organization scandal

[source: dailymail.co.uk]

The Tran Organization was a well-known rising star in the gambling world in the 2000s. It was founded by husband and wife duo Van Thu Tran and Phuong Quoc Truong. The group would grow as big as 15 total members, and they set their sights on cheating casinos out of their money. 

They would go on to master a fake shuffling technique where they kept specific cards in a predictable order giving them a massive advantage over other players. The group would target 28 casinos all over the US, including big names like the Barona Casino in San Diego and the Red Hawk Casino in Sacramento. Together, they managed to take away $7 million in prize money through their illegal activities. 

They were eventually caught as casinos started becoming weary of their success and checked surveillance footage to find out about their escapades. The husband and wife duo got several years in prison, and the scandal became hotly debated, with some claiming stricter rules and surveillance was necessary for casinos. 

6. Bellagio dealer helps friend win $15 million

[source: dailymail.co.uk]

Mark William Branco and James R. Cooper Jr. were a pair of craps dealers in The Bellagio, and what they, along with their two friends, accomplished was nothing short of a miracle. Their friends won 76 times over a period of two years and, at one point, won $1 million by betting on craps! 

How did they do that, you may ask? The odds of that happening are astronomically low! Apparently, the players would play on lower-limit tables where the dealers were not paying attention. In between real bets, they would mumble something about the craps wager when the dice were being thrown. 

After that, either one of the dealers would just pay the pair money as if they had won the bet. Through this method, the pair of bettors had amassed a total of $15 million together. 

This one-in-a-452-billion chance winning streak would eventually catch up with them. They were arrested in late 2015 after the casino grew increasingly suspicious of their antics. As they were caught red-handed after the Bellagio staff started tracking their records, huge fines upwards of hundreds of thousands ensued, and they even got jail time upwards of 4 years. 

5. Monkey’s Paw wins millions

[source: medium.com]

Tommy Glenn Carmichael was a lot of things, and innovative is certainly one of them, the other being a criminal. From the 1980s to the 1990s, Carmichael would derive several contraptions to fleece slot machines. He started out by trying to scam small-time vending machines but would soon turn his attention towards bigger opportunities like slot machines in casinos. 

He is credited with developing devices like the "top-bottom joint", "monkey paw", and the "light wand". The latter two came in later as casinos started to bump up the security features present in slot machines. Throughout his career spanning over two decades, he managed to steal millions of dollars in smaller amounts from slot machines, with the exact figure being unknown. 

He had to serve time in prison many times, with one instance where he was sentenced to five years and had to pay $720,000 back to the casinos during his early career. He would be arrested twice more but served relatively little jail time. 

4. Phil Ivey accused of edge sorting 

[source: wsop.com]

2012 was a big year for Ivey. The professional poker player was winning big and even decided to try his luck at the Crockfords casino in London. He was playing Punto Banco, a variation of Baccarat that was popular at the time and would end up in a big controversy. 

Ivey had already won $12.1 million by the time he was done, but trouble came when he decided to cash out. The casino claimed Ivey had been using a technique called “edge sorting” to gain an unfair advantage in the game. A UK court ruled in favor of the casino, and Ivey had to return all the money he had won. 

This wouldn’t be the first time that Ivey would find himself in hot water with claims of cheating. Later on, he would land in a similar controversy in the US, but the case would be dismissed. This situation had divided the gambling community, with some claiming he was using his skills to gain an advantage, whereas others weren’t so convinced. 

3. The Black Box Scandal

[source: themobmuseum.org]

One of the most shocking sports betting scandals took place all the way back in 1919. The Chicago White Sox baseball was on its way to winning the World Series, but they ended up losing to the Cincinnati Reds. Speculations and theories popped up right after their loss, and eight of the players were accused of accepting bribes to lose intentionally. 

Soon afterwards, an investigation was launched, and it was found out that the eight players did indeed take bribes. The mastermind behind this was a man named Arnold Rothstein, who offered them money to lose the match. 

Reports suggest the players were getting anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 at the time to do this. Some would later claim they didn’t even get the full amount that they were promised. They would be charged with conspiracy to commit fraud in 1921 but were later acquitted of all charges.

They didn’t get away scot-free however, they were banned from Baseball for life by the commissioner of baseball. The lack of evidence and conflicting testimonies might have saved them from jail time, but their careers were over due to this scandal. 

2. The MIT Blackjack Team Scandal

Anyone with a basic knowledge of blackjack or gambling has heard of the legendary MIT Blackjack Team. A team consisting of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using statistics and card counting techniques to win millions in prize money. 

Founded all the way back in the 70s, the MIT Blackjack team had perfected their art by the early 90s and were earning millions every year. Each trip to Vegas would see them come back with $100,000 at the very least and, on particularly successful days, even over $1 million. The team was soon exposed by Ben Mezrich's book "Bringing Down the House", which would also get adapted into a movie named ”21”. 

Records suggest they took home over $400,000 in one weekend, and they have allegedly made anywhere from $6 million to $10 million over the course of their escapades. Though the team was eventually banned from most casinos due to their exploits, they largely managed to avoid any serious legal issues. 

1. The Cantor Gaming Scandal

[source: reviewjournal.com]

Another more recent sports betting scandal shocked almost everybody in the sports betting community back in 2012. The director Michael Colbert and other executives were involved in money laundering and illegal betting from out-of-state sources since 2009. 

The illegal betting ring that gave Cantor Gaming the money was based in New York and bet on a wide range of sports like baseball, basketball, and football. The bets were reportedly put by intermediaries, and the executives at Cantor Gaming had knowingly taken these illegal bets knowing their ramifications full well. When the story came out, the company was fined a whopping $5.5 million by the Nevada Gaming Commission, and countless lawsuits followed the parties involved. 

The case would drag on till 2016 when Cantor Gaming finally decided to settle it outside of court with over $22.5 million being paid out to the victims. This scandal would ruin the reputation of not only Cantor Gaming but also its parent company Cantor Fitzgerald for years to come. 

That concludes our list of the top 10 scandals that sent ripples through the gambling industry. The industry is no stranger to people trying to take undue advantage, but these instances would take it up a notch and result in extensive media coverage and embarrassment for them. 

What was the most shocking scandal that you have seen throughout the years in the gambling community? These stories have been passed down so many times that they have started to take on a legendary space in people’s minds and no doubt will be talked about and discussed for years, if not decades.