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Six individuals accused of cheating the Hard Rock Casino in Northern Indiana out of hundreds of thousands of dollars have been charged as part of a multi-state scheme.
According to charges filed on June 2, they pulled off similar scams at more than 10 casinos across the country, all of which centered on baccarat.
The Times of Northwest Indiana first reported the scam that took in approximately $700,000 in just under a week in 2023. The group is alleged to have cheated casinos out of $1.5 million in five other states between July 2023 and March 2024, based on court records from Lake Criminal Court. In addition to Indiana, the group is alleged to have scammed casinos in Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania and California
The six people facing charges are Jianchu Liu, Fuxiang Liu, Qingyong Zhang, Honghui Wu, Daiqi Wang and Yuhan Hu. Each of them is charged with felony theft and cheating at gambling. Warrants for their arrest have already been issued, according to online court records.
From ReadWrite:
Their scam centered around Baccarat, a casino table game that uses eight decks of cards. In Baccarat, each player and the “banker” (usually a casino staff member) are dealt two cards, and the hand that comes closest to a total of nine wins. Players can place their bets on the player’s hand, the banker’s hand or a tie.
Before the game begins, the dealer usually lets a player cut the deck using a special cut card. The cards are then placed in a device called a “shoe,” which holds the rest of the deck. According to the affidavit, that’s where the cheating began.
One of the group members would handle the cards in a way that violated casino rules. Sometimes they would fan or riffle through the cards, or even shift the shoe to get a glimpse of the card faces.
On several occasions, one of the suspects is said to have recorded the cards using a phone hidden under a pack of cigarettes. Surveillance footage reportedly shows another person using a Baccarat scorecard to block the view of security cameras while this was happening.
Video surveillance captured group members removing the phone and a cigarette pack from the baccarat table. Investigators believe they’d review the footage in a bathroom or outside the casino then return and place significant bets.
In some cases, two of the players would each bet between $10,000 and $20,000 toward the end of the round, which understandably raised eyebrows among the casino staff.
The group moved between different Baccarat tables until they found dealers who, unknowingly, allowed them to manipulate the cards.
Illinois gaming agents reported that the same group had previously run a similar scheme at Bally’s Casino in Chicago.
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