The Cheating Game

I learned many things about the game of poker from Jim McManus’ excellent history of the game, Cowboys Full. One thing that surprised me was that, in the early days of poker in America, cheating was so rampant that poker was widely known as the “cheating game.”

On Mississippi riverboats and throughout the Old West, unsuspecting people, enticed by the allure of the game, were fleeced by skilled cheaters, who weren’t hesitant to resort to violence if caught. A revealing autobiography, Forty Years a Gambler, by George Devol, one of the most famous riverboat cheaters, can be found at:

https://archive.org/details/fortyyearsgamble00devo

Fortunately, enough honest people were captivated by the skill, intrigue, and social aspects of poker that it survived the cheating scandals and flourished as a major American pastime, played on kitchen tables throughout the country, as well as by presidents and pillars of society. But, let’s face it, when accumulating money is the object, some people are willing to do unethical things to achieve that goal. Poker is pure capitalism and, like in our capitalistic system, some people will break rules and laws when money is involved.

In my last blog, I discussed my experiences with some of the “road gamblers”* when I was first in Las Vegas. These guys were holdovers from a time not that far removed from the “cheating game” era. It was also a time when basic survival was a challenge, and to make it in the gambling world you had to understand cheating, and know how to protect yourself. Were the best players also cheats who crossed the line? I think if you could ask them, they would say that the line was in a different place back then. When I talked about Puggy snatching a chip, or using one of his other moves, for him it was part of the game, and I don’t think he considered himself an outright cheat. I think Doyle once used the term “defensive cheating.” Others of earlier days of poker called it “gamesmanship,” or “taking a little edge.”

Johnny Moss got his start in poker by learning the ways of cheaters, then working as a cheater catcher. According to his peers, as well as being the best player of his time, he was also a cheat, at least according to Doyle, T.J. Cloutier, and probably many others. But, even one skilled in the ways of cheaters isn’t immune to getting cheated. Moss told me a story one time about Gardena in the ’70s. He had a big no-limit lowball game in the works in Vegas, and wanted to learn the game, so he’d go to Gardena to practice there in the small no-limit games. In one hand an opponent had moved all-in on the river. The guy was careless arranging his cards, or at least Johnny thought he was, and flashed a king, which Johnny saw. Johnny could beat a king, so he naturally called. His opponent then spread a wheel, the king nowhere to be found! I sensed Johnny told it with a bit of admiration for the cheater!

Doyle has said that it’s the players themselves who are the first line of defense in policing the games. I remember one time at the World Series of Poker at Binions in the ’80s, when they were spreading a new, 2-7 no-limit game. When the dealer spread the cards, on which the marks were obvious to players with a trained eye, Billy Baxter said, “well, boys, we gonna play with them?” I think Doyle is right in the sense that highly experienced players will sense when something is wrong with a game. But, not all players are highly experienced, and, as in the example with Moss above, even an experienced cheat could get cheated.

Even though I’d seen, playing in the streets as a kid, that cheating was an aspect of the game that couldn’t be ignored, I was naïve enough when I started playing with the big boys in Las Vegas to think the casinos at that time were vigilantly protecting the games. I was wrong.

When Tony Spilotro was the power at the Stardust, cheating was commonplace. Razz teams ganged up on unsuspecting tourists. Cold decks were brought in with regularity. And much more. And it wasn’t just at the Stardust. Rumors abound about cheating in those days, but I won’t name names because rumors aren’t proof.

Another thing in the old days that led to cheating was that some casinos didn’t want to be bothered running the rooms, which had low profit margins, so they turned them over to people like Moss, who ran the Aladdin, and later the Dunes room. With Johnny Moss in charge and no outside oversight, the fox was running the hen house. Looking back, I’m quite sure I was cheated more times than I want to think about.

Which brings us to today. Public poker has matured a lot since I started in the early ’80s. The legalization of stud and hold’em in California led to the opening of huge poker palaces, like the Bicycle and Commerce Club, where poker was the main attraction, not an afterthought, as it is in Vegas. The operations were run very efficiently, and game protection was taken much more seriously. As the game grew in popularity, card rooms came to understand that protecting the games was good for their bottom line. The rooms want the money to keep churning, so the games keep going and the rake keeps dropping. Cheaters taking large chunks of money out of the room defeats that purpose. Also, with the lightning speed that information is spread via the Internet, a card room’s reputation could be easily and swiftly sullied.

Poker has come a really long way since the “cheating game” era. Public awareness, house dealers, increased supervision, and electronic surveillance of games have aided greatly in protection of games. That said, it would be great if cheating was a thing of poker’s past, that everyone who plays poker was honest and ethically pure, and that card rooms were super-vigilant in policing the games. But, it would be naïve to think those thing are the reality.

If you play in the smaller games, I wouldn’t waste too much energy worrying about cheating. If you play in bigger games, you need to be more aware.

Cheating in poker is a touchy subject. Do we want to sweep discussions of it under the rug for fear of scaring people away from the game, or expose it to the light and enlist players to help control it? The days of glamorizing cheaters, such as had been done in TV shows like Maverick, or movies like The Sting, hopefully are over. These are not lovable rogues. Cheaters are criminals who are stealing from innocent players.

Poker personality Mike Caro tried to take on cheaters in the ’80s with his Cheater Monitoring Service, a milieu to expose cheaters, but it didn’t work, because cheaters flooded it with so much misinformation that it was rendered toothless. But, he’s never stopped his quest. I’ll close this with a quote from Mike:

“Don’t tolerate cheating. Don’t look the other way. Don’t just get out of a game and seek safer grounds. Say something, if you’re sure. Scream. Our game is too important not to protect. Poker is all over television. It has crawled out of dank windowless basements and been exposed to the sunlight. Honor our game by not letting anyone cheat. The days when people glamorized and envied poker cheats are long ago, yesteryear, before humans walked upright. Protect me and I’ll protect you.”

*A great book about that era is Ghosts at the Table, by Des Wilson

**Cheating in the Internet poker world is a subject for another blog.