Casino For You

  Fill a room full of flashing lights, loud noises and loads of cash, and what are you most likely going to attract? Criminal masterminds! Casino heists are common in the industry, and while many perpetrators have snatched the cash and chips never to be seen again, the same cannot be said for the following casino crime participants. At EjWagner-CrimeHistorian.com we have taken a special interest in crime which occurs in the land-based casino and gambling environments, and not only do we report on gambling crime history, but we also provide the last casino crime news.

I have a gambling addiction. It took me a long while, and a lot of money and stress, before I realised it. But that’s the truth of the matter. I can look you in the eye today and tell you that I’m a compulsive gambler. My addiction started in my early twenties. Me and my mates liked a flutter at the bookies, every now and then, to liven up a Saturday night out. Usually we’d put on an accumulator and watch the results come in at the pub. It was fun, a buzz, especially on the rare occasion that one of us would score. By my mid-twenties, most of my mates were settling down and having kids. They didn’t have as much time to go down the pub, or the bookies for that matter, but I wasn’t interested in slowing down. My weekend gambling was what got me through the week. It was all I could think of to get me through the boredom of work and everyday life. But it wasn’t enough. As well as being a regular at the local betting shop, I’d joined a nearby casino. I began playing the Black Jack tables an

  Vice and dice . . . they roll together. And from the beginning, organized crime has had its hand in Las Vegas. Called an “open town,” Las Vegas became a magnet for syndicate bosses from Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland, New York and other eastern cities. Sniffing easy money, the underworld families saw new profit centres in this new city. In the late 1930s, Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel consolidated a bookmakers’ national network in Las Vegas, meaning that betting lines and cash were wired through town. After dabbling in downtown casinos, Siegel set his sights on creating a full-fledged resort. Construction of the Flamingo began in 1946, but cost overruns taxed the patience of his mob financiers. When the casino finally opened and immediately flopped, Siegel was a marked man. Suspected of syphoning money for himself, he was gunned down at his Beverly Hills home, and a Las Vegas legend was born. The mob didn’t skip a beat. Phoenix boss Gus Greenbaum took over the Flamingo, a

 Monte Carlo, located in the Principality of Monaco along the French Riviera, is hailed as one of the most luxurious and exquisite gambling destinations. The small spit of land that is Monte Carlo is home to only a few casinos, but they are world class, nonetheless. Built in 1863 the Casino de Monte Carlo is definitely one of the most ornate and splendid casinos in the entire world. The architect, Charles Gaurnier of Paris Opera House fame, designed the building. Fantastic rooms adorned with almost overdone rococo styling, compared to contemporary tastes, offer varying types of mostly European style gaming. One of the more ornately styled rooms is exclusively reserved for European casino games, the traditional games of Monte Carlo. European and English Roulette, Punta Banco, Chemin de Fer and Banque a Deux Tableaux are typical of the European games offered. The Salle Blanche, the one room compromised for American gaming, houses the very modern state-of-the-art slot machines. The slots

 The Casino de Monte-Carlo is widely-known for its history, its European games and the “resort” to which it belongs, still the most important in the world in terms of prestige and for its wide variety of establishments. The world’s most prestigious casino’s projecting façade was completed in 1890. Designed by French architect Jules Touzet (1850–1914), Officer of the Academy and a graduate of the School of Fine Arts of Paris, the building is enhanced by a wrought-iron awning and two pavilions crowned by domes covered in ceramics which frame the entrance. From 1890 to 1892, the two turrets were adorned with clocks : one giving the time in Monaco, the other in Paris, whence “La Seine” and “La Méditerranée”, two statues by Italian sculptor Fabio Stecchi (born in Urbino in 1855 – died in Nice), a pupil of Pio Fedi (1816–1892) in Florence, then of Paul Dubois (1829–1905) in Paris. Stecchi first settled in Paris in 1879, then moved to Nice where he lived until his death. Two more statues by t

 Pathological gambling, commonly referred to as compulsive gambling, is a progressive behaviour disorder in which a person has a psychologically uncontrollable preoccupation and urge to gamble. This results in excessive gambling, the outcome of which is the loss of time and money. The gambling reaches the point where it compromises, disrupts and destroys the gambler’s personal life, family relationships or vocational pursuits. These problems lead to the intensification of the gambling behaviour. Very often compulsive gambling is referred to as the “hidden illness” because there are no physical or visual symptoms. There is no “telltale” smell on the breath, no stumbling when walking or slurring of speech. Yet, the effects of compulsive gambling can be as devastating as alcohol and drug addiction and can result in both financial and personal destruction. Since 1980, the American Psychological Association has classified pathological, or compulsive gambling, as a mental health disorder of

  The film adaptation of Molly Bloom’s 2014 memoir hit U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, and to promote the project Bloom made her interview rounds. In a chat in November with Ellen DeGeneres, Bloom revealed the biggest poker loss she ever saw first-hand.  “I saw someone lose $100 million in a night,” Bloom told DeGeneres. She added that the player “paid the next day.” Bloom said the buy-in for her most expensive and exclusive games, which ran in L.A. and later New York City, was $250,000.  That was presumably the minimum buy-in. Celebrities in her games, which kicked off around the height of the poker boom in the mid-2000s, included Alex Rodriguez, Dan Bilzerian, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Toby Maguire and Nick Cassavetes, as well as billionaires such as Alec Gores and Andy Beal.

 Las Vegas’ Red Rock casino is still under fire after refusing to pay out a bad-beat jackpot from July because one of the players accidentally turned over his cards prematurely. A recent hearing featured testimony about the controversial poker hand that occurred in the casino’s 20-table poker room.  The casino had a bad beat progressive jackpot worth $120,000 when 83-year-old Avi Shamir lost with a straight flush to a higher one from a poker player by the name of Len Schreter. Red Rock examined video footage and decided to invalidate the jackpot because Schreter turned exposed his cards after the river card was dealt, but before the final round of betting had been completed. The gambling world can sometimes produce really off-the-wall stories. Every month there are plenty of cases of individuals going to extreme lengths to pay back debts, or of simply bizarre behavior at casino properties around the globe. It can be entertaining and sometimes sad

 According to Scoblete, a man by the name of Barney Vinson told him about the time a roulette wheel seemed to be stuck on 7. While working as a gaming instructor at Caesars Palace on the Strip in 2000, Vinson says he watched Table #211 produce a string of spins the likes of which he’s never seen since. Per Vinson’s account to Scoblete, the ball somehow managed to bounce its way to Red 7 an astounding six times in a row . With 38 possible spaces on the standard double-zero roulette wheel, we can use the equation (38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38) to calculate the odds of such a run in roulette. As it turns out, if Vinson’s report is indeed true, that particular wheel beat odds of 1 in 3 billion. He never left, however, quickly transitioning from the stage to a career as a professional gambler, strategy author, and chronicler of the Las Vegas lifestyle. The author of dozens of books—from Beat the Craps Out of the Casinos to Everything Casino Poker—Scoblete is recognized as one of the industry

  Owning a casino is, by-and-large, an incredibly lucrative investment. Unfortunately, to hold onto your house edge, you need to ensure the casino equipment is up to scratch. There are always going to be eagle-eyed punters willing to meticulously check the equipment themselves, but they probably won’t be too keen on letting you know about it. In 2012,  poker  legend Phil Ivey tried his hand at a high stakes  baccarat  table in Crockford’s casino in London. Being the prodigious gambler he is, he walked away with a whopping £9.1 million. However, the casino contends that Ivey cheated because they could find a faulty shoe (the mechanism that holds the decks of cards). If the cards were dispensed in a particular way from this shoe, Ivey would gain an advantage. The practice is known as edge counting, and experienced gamblers throughout history have sought to find such an advantage. The casino sued Ivey, while Ivey counter-sued for not paying his winnings out. It has got many people wonderi

  The biggest wins are not always the best gambling stories. Money does add a bit of a ’wow’ factor, but some punters have won by some remarkably ridiculous and unconventional means.  A Welsh punter beat the odds of 6,479/1 with a strange novelty bet in 1989. He gambled £30 that in the year 2000, U2 would still be a band, EastEnders and Neighbours would still be on the BBC, and Cliff Richard would be knighted. Ladbrokes paid out £194,400 in one of the biggest novelty bet payouts ever. In 2014, a Norwegian gambling website offered odds of 175-1 that Uruguayan football star, Luis Suarez would bite someone in the World Cup. Given the striker’s penchant for such a thing, 167 punters took the bait. Suarez took the bite and made some very happy Scandinavians

  Sometimes the laws of nature, and probability seem to stand aside for a moment, letting some lucky punter slip through a loophole in the universe. Insanely good fortune can seem quite surreal when it occurs, and for the beneficiary, keeping a hold on reality might become a challenge. In 2009, a Grandmother from New Jersey, USA, left the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City as the most fortunate player in a casino ever. The odds of rolling a pair of dice 154 times at a craps table, without throwing a seven are an astonishing 1 in 1.56 trillion. That’s a figure almost impossible to comprehend. The lucky lady was rolling the dice for four hours and 18 minutes, breaking the world records for the longest craps roll and the most successive dice rolls without hitting a seven. The amount she actually won from the casino was never revealed, but even if you wagered a paper clip, it’d probably be enough to buy a small country or perhaps 1.56 trillion paper clips. On a slightly different tangen

  “Multiple times per week we get high rollers in who win or lose over $1 million. The most I ever saw a person lose was about $9 million in one night. While that may seem like an obscene amount of money to you or I, that’s what he budgeted himself to gamble that trip. He came knowing he may lose $9 million.   Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t happy, but he didn’t lose his mind, or freak out or anything like that.” Each time a patron hits the Spin or the Deal button, which can be as frequently as 900 to 1,200 times an hour, the casino registers the data. Even gamblers who choose to forgo loyalty cards do not necessarily escape the casino’s watchful eye

  “I worked in a large casino NOT in America. We had a lot of Asian clientele in our VIP room. Once had a guy betting $600k PER HAND on Baccarat. He ended up a few million and was sharing it around the group of women/escorts around him. The most I’ve seen lost is ten million in three weeks.   He had the room booked for a month so he made his bag man fly back to Thailand to get more money. Nothing was transferred. All cash.” On AskReddit, someone asked the question, “Casino dealers of reddit, what’s the most money you’ve seen someone lose and what was the aftermath? Here we have eleven of their stories describing the worst casino losses of all time .

For this less authenticated story, Scoblete cites fellow gambling industry author Michael Konik and his book The Man With the $100,000 Breasts and Other Gambling Stories (1999). According to Konik’s account, an 80-something year old jockey turned craps player took to the tables starting with a mere $100. But through a combination of sheer luck, bold bet increases, and no hesitation to back exotic bets offering the biggest payout, “Fast Eddie” wound up walking away with $250,000 in chips.

  Another roulette recounted by Scoblete concerns a game in Atlantic City in the mid-‘90s. As the story goes, Scoblete ordered a Cabernet Sauvignon and his server told him that red was hot at a nearby table. After a bit of inquiry, Scoblete claims that the croupier on hand confirmed that red had been the winner on 21 straight spins. Using the same calculation mentioned earlier—in this case, 2 to the 21st power—we can deduce that the odds of this occurring stand at slightly more than 1 in 2 million. One afternoon, he neglected to pick his children up at school and his wife became angry and confronted him on his whereabouts. She accused him of cheating and when she found out that he was gambling, she was somewhat relieved. He then told her about the total amount of money lost and the time spent

  Scoblete doesn’t provide much in the way of proof, but he asserts than an unidentified player at Harvey’s Resort Casino in Lake Tahoe was down to just the change in his pocket. Armed with nothing but four nickels, the slot fanatic took his meager 20 cents to the Nickel Deluxe machine. A few spins later, he supposedly walked away with $1,655,998 in his newly stuffed pockets. And during his decades in the game, Scoblete has heard his fair share of war stories from players, dealers, and passersby. Below, you’ll find 10 of Scoblete’s most interesting and incredible tall tales* from a life spent strolling the casino floor. These stories have been published by various print and online outlets during Scoblete’s career, but only he can vouch for their accuracy.

  The first legend takes us back to the year 1891 and a con artist named Charles Deville Wells. Wells had recently scammed investors in a new invention of his (or so he claimed) called the musical jump rope.  In reality, there was no jump rope. He took the £400 they invested and took a trip to Monte Carlo. Wells headed over to the roulette table. In around 11 hours at the table, he parlayed the £400 into 1 million French Francs (just over US$500,000 in today’s currency). He wound up taking every chip on the table, a practice known as breaking the bank. Due to this exploit and other gambling feats, Wells became famous all around the world. While he had amazing luck for those 11 hours, that luck would run out. He would wind up losing all of his winnings. Upon returning to England, he was arrested and spent the rest of his life in and out of prison for his con games. He died a debtor.

  Another famous tale involves Australian Billionaire Kerry Packer. In 1999, Packer was in London and dropped into Crockford’s Casino. He started playing blackjack. His luck that day would all bad. In the few hours that Packer played, he managed to lose $28 million. At the time, this was considered to be the biggest single casino gambling loss in the history of the United Kingdom. Interestingly enough, the loss didn’t stop Packer from gambling. He is said to have once one $33 million from the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. There’s another tale of Packer’s panache when it comes to gambling. Once a Texas oilman tried to goad him into a game of poker by saying “I’m worth $60 million.” Packer’s response was “head or tails” offering to flip a coin for the oil man’s net worth. They usually involve someone walking into a casino, walking up to a slot machine, and winning a huge payout. They could also involve someone who played the lottery for 20 years and finally hit the numbers to claim the

  In what can only be described as an amazing display of endurance and charity, Phil Laak's Guinness World Record attempt for continuous Poker play finally came to an end 115 hours after it began. Playing for the record and for the charitable organization Camp Sunshine, Laak originally intended to stay at the Bellagio poker room table for 80 hours. Almost a day and a half after hitting the 80-hour mark, the "Unabomber," with his girlfriend Jennifer Tilly at his side, decided to cash in his chips. Amazingly, Laak pulled off the poker marathon with absolutely no stimulants of any kind. He consumed no coffee, no caffeine, or anything illegal. He credits his fitness for this challenge to his nutritionist, who kept the "Unabomber" fed, healthy and alert throughout the challenge. Laak remained remarkably fit and alert during the World Record try, and at one point he dropped to the ground to perform 30 push-ups in exchange for a $1000 donation to Camp Sunshine. With on

  If you don’t believe that it’s possible to bet on nearly anything in Britain, you probably haven’t heard of Harry Wilson. When Wilson was just 18 months old, William Hill gave his grandfather Peter Edwards 2,500 to 1 odds that the lad would eventually play for the Wales national football team. In the Autumn of 2013 at the age of 16, Harry became the youngest player to take the field for the team. While that certainly made Wilson the pride of Wales, his grandad won £125,000 for putting his faith in a football-loving toddler and was able to retire early. Harry enjoyed 10 years in the Liverpool Youth Squad but is yet to make his Anfield debut. While there are countless novels, films, and programmes that weave various forms of gambling into their storylines, sometimes real life is far more compelling. Throughout the course of history, gambling has spawned more than its share of interesting tales and anecdotes. Whether we’re dealing with sketchy characters at shady Las Vegas casinos, memb

  Britain’s most famous gambling scandal might seem tame by today’s standards, but it’s noteworthy because it involved the Prince of Wales, who would later become King Edward VII. In September 1890, while at a party hosted by Sir Arthur Williams at Yorkshire’s Tranby Croft, Edward was playing baccarat against his friend British lieutenant-colonel Sir William Gordon-Cumming. To make a long story short, Sir William Gordon-Cumming was accused of cheating. In order to prevent the prince from being associated with any sort of scandalous behaviour, the alleged cheater agreed to sign a statement agreeing he would never play cards again. In return, everybody in attendance agreed never to mention the episode. Naturally, the public found out about the incident and Gordon-Cumming demanded an official retraction, which he did not receive. He eventually sued and lost the high-profile case, which was filled with theatrics. Gordon-Cumming was not only expelled from high society, but the cheater was t

 In order to compile our list of the top 10 online casinos for UK players, we put each online casino through a series of fair and unbiased tests to determine which casinos were actually the best, and which merely claimed to be great but failed to deliver. One of the most important factors in judging an online casino is its software. The best online casinos feature simple and easy-to-use, yet attractive, software, which can either be downloaded or accessed directly from a web browser. Nowadays, no casino can consider itself a real player in the industry if it does not offer a mobile casino, so we made sure to always check the functionality of the mobile software as well. No matter how good an online casino might be, it is worthless if it does not offer the casino games that you actually want to play. Therefore, the number, variety, and quality of the casino games offered make up a large portion of our reviews. The best UK online casinos all offer hundreds of games, including video slots

  In recent years, online gambling has become a mainstream part of life in the United Kingdom. In addition to   traditional online casinos , virtual poker rooms are entering their third decade of popularity, online sports betting is enjoying massive appeal, and online bingo sites are introducing a totally different demographic to the idea of online gaming. More and more, online casinos, bookmakers, poker rooms, and bingo sites are offering more gambling products in an effort to capture their share of the lucrative UK online gambling market. The result of all of this is that there are more sites and opportunities for the British public to play online casino games than ever before. With literally hundreds of online casinos out there, it can be incredibly difficult to determine which are the best UK online casinos on your own. Here are VegasMaster, we make choosing easy by doing all the work for you and presenting you with the true royalty amongst UK online casinos.

  Nobody is safe from the “hungry beast” gambling addicts aptly use  to describe gambling addiction. The addiction story of Aaron Traynor is not one of the worst you will probably hear, but it’s also an important example of how even people who “have it all” can be easily seduced by the promise of gambling. Often, it’s not about money, but some visceral ill-comprehended thrill. Traynor’s gambling addiction developed in his early teens,  when he was 14 or even 13 . He would bet on horses, greyhounds, and football competitions, and things eventually escalated when he started university and began getting college loans. Apart from getting loans, he also took up jobs to be able to fuel his gambling addiction further. Aware of his problem, he tried to wean himself off, but nothing proved a reliable enough solution. He signed himself up for Gamblers Anonymous and started going to counsel,  but his urge to gamble was unquenchable . “I just wanted to gamble money every single day,” Traynor said,

  Viktor Gjonaj wasn’t doing too badly in his personal life. Yet, gambling addiction caught up to him. Gjonaj, the founder of Title Plus Title Services and a smart financier himself, had no reason to end up the way he did. Yet, his story is one of the worst in financial sense, as he   defrauded investors out of $19 million to fuel his addiction . And, his drug of choice – the Michigan Lottery. Gjonaj was purchasing as much as  $1 million worth of Lottery Daily 3 and Daily 4 tickets , desperately pursuing a win that never came. U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider showed no pity on the defendant either who Schneider argued had caused financial harm to many innocent people. Yet, his lawyer, Steve Fishman, has been arguing his case, describing what happened as one of the worst gambling addiction stories and insisting that his client should get help. Gjonaj story begins in 2010 when he thought he had  discovered a sure-fire way to win from the lottery , but by 2017, his  losses were running in

  Sharon has struggled with gambling addiction since 1992. Pokies have played a core role in her addiction. She became a victim of circumstances with video poker machines introduced to her local pub and even though she found them boring and even “stupid” at first. One night she came back home and had an argument with her husband about something she wasn’t really sure she remembered. And so,  she returned to the pokies bar  to sort of “brush it off,” as it was the only place where it was socially acceptable to go on your own anyway. After a short session,  she won $190 off pokies , and Sharon was amazed that the games would actually allow you to win money. This is how most gambling addiction stories begin, with a simple win. From there on in, Sharon decided to make pokies her full-time job, and she’d spent the next five weeks after that faithful argument playing, trying to  maybe avoid work  because pokies were there as a substitute. By 1995-1996,  Sharon did start hearing about people

My story takes place in the city of Tbilisi (Georgia), where I lived for three years with my father. We used to go to the casino in the city often, but I’ll never forget this one night because the next day we had to catch a plane to Italy to attend my sister’s wedding. After several hours of gambling, my father noticed that he had played all the money we had, including the money intended for my sister! We only had 100$ left! My father took the remaining $100 and played video poker games, making 10 to 100 credit bets. After 3 or 4 games, my father held the A, Q & J of hearts in his hand and discarded the other two cards. Next thing we knew, we were hearing jingles and the machines siren lit up. My dad had been dealt the K and 10 of hearts, scoring a Royal Flush. We won 5,000$! I still have the photo from that casino session, a day I’ll never forget. We were able to give my sister a more beautiful gift.

A couple of years ago, my mom and I were playing some old video poker machine . You could try to double your winnings in the game by picking the high or low card. An elderly couple was sitting next to us and the man noticed how conservative my mom was with her playing, and kept encouraging her to go for it. He definitely made it more exciting by getting us to take more chances, and we were all having a lot of fun. An hour or two later, when he and his wife got up to leave, he wanted to give me their two buckets of quarters. I tried to decline several times, but they both insisted, saying that I had made their night. Later, mom and I counted the quarters and found out that there was almost $400 in those buckets!   Have you heard any crazy casino stories lately? We certainly have and we’ve decided to share them with you. A while back, VegasMaster held a contest asking our global readers to provide us with their best gambling stories. In response, we received some of the most bizarre, fun

  The human brain is over-confident by default. For instance, the illusion of knowledge can give people the false sense of security concerning the daily choices they make, because the brain refuses to admit that they don’t know what’s obvious or are unable to make a clear-cut educated guess.  This confidence is furthered by the illusion of control that wagering games offer players or the belief that you can use skill to influence the outcome that’s strictly based on chance. As such, it could take higher risks, and thus gamble at high stakes casino slots.  Also, the expectation of sudden luck can provoke a gambler to place a single high bet. All in all, individuals oftentimes gamble more if they trust they’ve got some control over the result of a game. Psychologists reveal 2 key contributors to the gambler’s illusion of control: personal choice and near misses. The illusion of control is influenced by the concept of personal choice. In circumstances where the gambler is let to actively