Gambler who swindled £30 million from casinos around the world reveals how he did it
A casino cheat who swindled a whopping £30 million from high-end establishments across the globe has laid his cards on the table about his legendary scam.
Those who fancy a flutter every now and again might have already heard a few of Richard Marcus' tricks of the trade, as he is renowned as something of a shark on the gambling scene.
But over 20 years ago, he completed quite the drastic 180 and started using his knowledge for good to become a casino protection consultant.
However, the former high roller is still happy to spill the beans on the winning formula which scored him millions of dollars in his heyday.
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Among his other clever claims to fame on the casino cheating circuit, Marcus is the mastermind behind the infamous 'Savannah' move - something which he humbly considers to be the 'best cheating strategy ever'.
But you can hardly blame the man for blowing his own trumpet about the trick these days, because he wasn't able to bask in the glory of his genius at the time while staying under the radar of both the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the FBI.
Quite comically, according to Marcus, 'nobody had a clue' how he had been swindling casinos out of a small fortune for two decades until he penned his 2005 book, The Great Casino Heist.
Speaking to LADbible, he explained that he was pretty surprised someone hadn't cottoned onto his scheme after all those years he spent rinsing roulette tables as the Savannah was so simple.
"The industry reacted like, ‘Wow, how could we have been so stupid?’ But that's the point," Marcus said.
"The less complicated these moves are, that’s why they work...because nobody could ever think something so stupid could succeed."
Starting young
Despite Marcus' scam relying heavily on the fact it was so ridiculous no one would suspect it, you obviously still need a high degree of intelligence to repeatedly pull it off.
But being bitten by the betting bug early on did Marcus some favours too.
He was having a punt as soon as he got pocket money and quickly ended up realising that playing dirty can pay off a lot more than sticking to the rules.
It all started when Marcus clocked onto the the fact two of his pals were having him over when trading baseball cards - and as these were like a 'currency' to kids in the New York neighbourhood he grew up in, it was quite the betrayal.
"They succeeded into ripping off my whole collection," he told LADbible via OLBG Casino Sites.
"I realised it wasn't in my best interests to say or do anything to them at that point, but now that I knew, it propelled me to come up with a scam so that I could get money from them."
As you can imagine, Marcus later enacted his sweet, sweet revenge on the pair and took them to the cleaners while putting money on which car which would come around the corner.
Child's play, perhaps - but even as a young buck, this bloke was clever enough to rig his own wager by getting his pals to do laps in certain vehicles to guarantee him a victory.
Needless to say, Marcus spent his teen years perfecting his betting and bluffing skills by executing other small-time cons, which is experience that came in very handy later down the line.
The author looks back on all of his shenanigans from an almost Robin Hood-like perspective though, insisting he only ever 'took advantage of somebody else's greed' rather than innocent people.
"I am not a thief," Marcus continued. "I did my kiddie scams for revenge and all that. But in my adult life, I never stole anything from anybody…except millions of dollars from casinos.
"I don't consider that thievery. I consider that artwork."
Soon, it wasn't his childhood friends he was fleecing, but rather renowned casinos with burly security guards keeping an eye on his every move.
Raising the stakes
To cut a long - but completely fascinating - life story short, Marcus ended up in Las Vegas to see how long he could ride out a streak of luck after he won big on the horses at the age of 17.
He had to pay a randomer a small slice of his $20,000 (£15,776) windfall to collect his jackpot because of his age, but this still didn't put him off heading straight to Sin City to try his luck.
Marcus explained he had some connections there who could grease a few palms to let him gamble - and in a week, he'd won $100,000 (£78,885) and lost it all again.
So, what do you do when you are skint and sleeping on the streets of Nevada after losing all your dosh on dodgy bets? You get a job on the other side of the table, of course.
After blagging his way into a casino dealer school, Marcus went on to secure a job at a place downtown before he had a chance encounter with a notorious player called Joe Classon one night.
The fella introduced himself as a 'professional casino cheat' who was looking for a fourth person to join his team - and Marcus jumped at the chance.
"We became a four man casino cheating team. We were like a rock 'n' roll band," Marcus said.
He flew to pretty much every corner of the world to rip off casinos with his ragtag gang who were all well versed in the art of deception, before later taking on the role of head honcho after Classon decided to retire from his position.
"In total, I spent 25 years professionally cheating casinos," Marcus continued. "It was a lot of fun.
"At first it was all about the money, but then it was adrenaline rushes, ego…the fact that I was able to do all this. I'm the only high level known casino cheat that never got caught.
"Everybody knew I was cheating in the casino, but nobody could catch me. Nobody could identify how I was doing it. Everybody else who's known as a casino cheat, the only reason they're known is because they got caught.
"That's the difference between me and everybody else."
The Savannah
Now you've got an idea of his CV, we can neatly move onto Marcus' killer move which managed to bamboozle countless roulette dealers all over the world.
The Savannah - which is named after a stripper - really is quite simple when he outlines it in layman's terms, which makes it even more of a kick in the balls for casino bosses.
When placing his chips down on the roulette table, Marcus would sneak a high value one, for example, $5,000, under a low value one, such as a mere $5.
He would do this with perfect precision, ensuring that they overlapped just enough so that it appeared to the dealer as though he simply hadn't fancied betting big and was only chancing two $5 chips on the spin of the wheel.
Marcus told LADbible: "Even if they tilted their heads, I knew they couldn't see it. The only way they could see it would be by stepping out of their dealing position, leaning forward and really looking at what the chip on the bottom was.
"I've seen 20,000, maybe 30,000 dealers in my life. I've never seen one dealer, whether they're brand new or whether they've been dealing for 30 years, step out of the box.
"And now, I train casinos to do that. To stop people like me"
When the ball landed, the next phase of the scheme would start - if his number came in, Marcus would then hoot and holler like he'd just hit the jackpot, because he had.
He'd be ready to argue the toss with the dealer who would likely point out that they hadn't registered his large bet of $5,005, before Marcus encouraged casino staff to check the cameras to clarify if it was legit.
Because like Marcus says, he was 'only cheating when he lost, not when he won'.
This surveillance footage would put him in the clear and he'd walk away a few thousand richer - but what happened when his bet didn't come in?
On these occasions, Marcus' objective was to get that $5,000 chip off of the table with the mere few seconds he bought by getting an accomplice to cause a distraction.
"I can't let them take that chip," he went on. "If I let them take that chip, we're just gambling like everybody else, and we're going to lose in the long run, so I have to take it off."
The author would swap it out for another $5 chip when the dealer wasn't paying attention, while hoping they didn't pick up on his subtle movement.
However, he had an ace up his sleeve in case they did spot him tampering with his bet - launching into a well rehearsed 'drunk routine' and insisting it was a mere mistake.
"As soon as security arrives, I just keep continuing like a slobbering drunk," Marcus said. "And because I put it back, there was no reason for anybody to come and call surveillance."
His ability to find the vulnerabilities in the behaviour of the dealers meant he was able to get away scot-free ready to find another casino to fleece.
"All the other moves, I was able to create by psychologically manipulating the personnel on the floor, convincing them that I was a legitimate high roller," Marcus added.
"But the Savannah was not a psychological manoeuvre."
Take a look at him demonstrate it here:
Switching sides
Scamming casinos on every continent is obviously going to raise some red flags somewhere along the line, and Marcus had marked his card in pretty much every place going.
He claims he realised it was time to call it a day after noticing he was being tailed by the FBI due to him p*ssing off the Nevada Gaming Control Board, big time, for the best part of two decades.
"You could hear people in the surveillance industry, people that were charged with trying to put me out of business, saying that they had never saw any kind of cheating like this," Marcus said.
"There was a 24-hour surveillance on me for months. They knew where I lived, they followed me to the grocery store. They followed me to the barbershop to get a haircut.
"They were taking roulette wheels apart in casinos, looking for some kind of digital equipment or transmitter.
"They had all kinds of crazy theories, but it was just a simple trick."
Regardless of how uncomplicated it was, it was still very much illegal - so he quit while he was ahead, after reportedly pocketing millions.
But a few years later when he released The Great Casino Heist in 2005 which detailed his legendary scam, gambling bigwigs also ended up pouring over the contents of it.
"When they read what I was talking about, they realised the vast knowledge that they thought they had was...nothing," Marcus said.
"They had an idea about the basic scams, but none about a real professional casino cheating team that uses communication, that uses psychology.
"Had I known how little casinos knew at the time, I would have made double. I had some restraint."
Now, Marcus is a game protection trainer and consultant, who travels the world teaching casinos and gambling gurus how to protect themselves from scammers.
He quipped: "I always say, you know what? I really have pulled the biggest con of all time.
"For 25 years, I risked my ass week, week in, week out, to get the money.
"Now I come to these casinos and they just give me the money - I don't have to do any scams!"
And that might just be his biggest win of all.
Topics: Crime, Gambling, Money, US News, World News, Originals
Olivia Burke