Many of the highly popular Hollywood movies are based on real life events and filmed at real land-based casinos. From 21 Blackjack to Ocean’s Eleven, many screen writers look to modern day casino robberies for script inspiration. Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Trilogy, in particular, popularised the idea of the casino heist, presenting its plucky band of thieves as the pinnacle of cool. However, history in many cases outstrips the fiction.
Read our list on the 10 most daring casino robberies in history:
10) Plundering Treasure Island
Casino: Treasure Island, Las Vegas
Year: 2000
- Mar 16, 2013 Crown Casino located in Melbourne, Australia is the country's largest gaming venue, playing host each year to the Aussie Millions.According to a report from the Herald Sun, the casino recently alerted the authorities that a foreign high roller had hacked into the security surveillance system and made away with over $30 million.
- Last week, a $33 million heist was reported from Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, home of the Aussie Millions and 2013 World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific. This week, while the PokerNews Live.
Mar 15, 2013 An Ocean’s Eleven-style heist has left Australia’s largest casino $32 million Australian dollars (about $33.2 million) out of pocket. A foreign high stakes gambler at the Crown Casino in Melbourne is said to have fraudulently won the money over.
Score: $30,000
This Las Vegas casino was actually subject to multiple robberies at the turn of millennium, though only one was successful.
In October, 2000, Reginald Johnson burst into the Treasure Island Casino wielding a gun, making off with $30,000. This followed two previous hits on the establishment, during which Johnson failed to nab any dough and wounded a security guard.
Johnson’s general incompetence and habit of returning to the scene of the crime meant he was eventually apprehended in January 2001. This psychopathic klutz was eventually sentenced to 130 years behind bars.
9) Third time’s the charm?
Casino: Bellagio, Las Vegas
Year: 1998
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Score: (nearly) $160,000
Jose Vigoa, Luis Suarez, and Oscar Sanchez made several attempts to fleece the Bellagio Casino in the late ‘90s. Despite getting their mitts on a substantial take, the would-be thieves bungled the endgame.
Vigoa’s face was caught on camera, giving the authorities a clear lead. Realising the jig was up; Sanchez confessed all, stabbing his colleagues in the back for a lighter sentence. Both of his accomplices received life in prison.
8) Casino Royale
Casino: multiple across London
Year: 2000
Score: £200,000
Perhaps taking inspiration from the Bond franchise, three Londoners armed themselves with state-of-the-art spy equipment and hit six casinos across Britain’s capital.
One of the bandits used a miniature camera hidden in his sleeve to film cards as they were dealt, feeding images to an accomplice in a van outside. The footage was reviewed in slow motion and wagering instructions were fed to the inside man via a small ear piece.
Its all about trying to find the right casino AND the right equipment to carry out such an extraordinary event. Having said this, all three of these shady gentlemen were arrested for their crimes.
7) Severance pay
Casino: Stardust, Las Vegas
Year: 1992
Score: $500,000
This was not so much a heist as a really badass way to hand in your notice. A sportsbook cashier at The Stardust, Bill Brennan, decided one day that the casino game wasn’t for him and made off with half a million dollars in chips and cash.
Brennan vanished without a trace after lifting the money, leading some to speculate that he might’ve been killed by a greedy accomplice. 22 years later, it’s likely that we will never know.
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6) Laser swag
Casino: Ritz, London
Year: 2004
Score: £1.3 million
The Ritz made an involuntary pay-out of £1.3 million to three cheaters in 2004, who used lasers in their mobile phones to measure the speed of roulette wheels and predict the outcome of spins.
Incredibly, although all three men were arrested, the judge presiding over their trial determined that no crime had been committed and the accused were let off scot-free. Bet they got a lifetime ban, though.
5) Brute force
Casino: Soboba Casino, Las Vegas
Year: 2005
Score: $1.5 million
Eschewing fancy gadgets, Eric Alan Aguilera and Roland Luda Ramos relied on tried-and-true techniques when robbing the Soboba. They burst in, bound and gagged three employees and held seven more at gunpoint before making off with a pile of ill-gotten gains.
After quitting the casino and hitting the road, the bandits attempted to outrun a fleet of pursuing squad cars. They didn’t get far.
4) Bonnie and Clyde
Casino: Circus Circus
Year: 1993
Score: $2.5 million
They say love takes us to strange places. Heather Tallchief and Roberto Solis took this truism to new extremes in 1993, embarking on a couple’s tour of casino robbery and making off with two and a half million in an armoured truck.
There’s no honour among thieves, even when they’re intimately involved, and Solis soon skipped town with the cash, leaving Tallchief and her son only $1,000. Ouch.
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3) Riches of the sole
Casino: multiple across California
Year: 1970s
Score: nothing
Although the heist failed pretty spectacularly, it makes it into the top three for its sheer chutzpah. In the 1970s a couple of enterprising University of California students developed miniature computers with the ability to read the movements of a roulette wheel.
Each student slipped a computer into one of their shoes, one a receiver and the other an emitter. Between them, the students hoped to measure and predict the outcome of roulette spins. Unfortunately, the computers short circuited, electrocuting the aspiring sharks and setting their socks on fire.
2) All-seeing eye
Casino: Crown, Perth
Year: 2013
Score: $33 million (AUS)
An ingenious uber-nerd nabbed a hefty sum by remotely hacking into the surveillance system at the Crown Casino in Perth, Australia. By manipulating the casino’s camera array and sneaking peaks at dealers’ plays, he was able to feed winning strategies to an inside man via an earpiece, pocketing the lion’s share of the take.
The Crown was cagey about the exact nature of the scam, but has allegedly captured the inside man, though the hacker remains at large.
1) The MIT blackjack whizz-kids
Casino: various worldwide
Year: 1979-1993
Score: multi-millions
The big one. The exploits of the MIT Blackjack team have become so infamous they were adapted into an (awesome) book, Bringing Down the House in 2003 and a (rubbish) Kevin Spacey flick in 2008.
For 14 years, this notorious team of student maths geniuses ran the most prolific card-counting ring in history under the auspices of Harvard MBA Graduate, Bill Kaplan (Mr. M). Over the course of their long career, the MIT crew nabbed millions at high-stakes blackjack tables.
Despite ostensibly dissolving in 1993, various splinter groups, imitators and adventurous newcomers carry on the MIT team’s legacy.
CASINO GAME RULES
Casinos being a prime and open place to make money have been a subject of heist and break-ins. However, there have been many people who thought one-step ahead of what a regular robber would think of. These masterminds’ succeeded in scamming some of the topmost casinos of the world, and even so, they remained successful to avoid arrest for quite sometime.
Let’s move ahead and see the top 7 recent casino scams.
Ritz Casino Scam
It was the year 2004, when three super genius gamblers were able to get a whopping £1.3 million from London’s most famous Ritz Club Casino. The trio made use of the laser technology to calculate the winning numbers for the roulette. The scanner was supposedly connected to a computer with software that could figure out the landing number for the roulette ball. The trio was arrested, however no charges were applied. Apparently, the “sector targeting” theory is not considered cheating.
Cutter Gang
2011 was the year when police was actively looking for “cutter gang”. The team worked impeccably to take away millions of dollars from the baccarat table. This time also technology was apparently their big time helper. A player wore a very small camera, which was fitted inside the cufflink. The camera was to record the card values, which were then meticulously used by another player to cut the deck. Authorities had to let them go after no solid evidence was found after their arrest in Cosmopolitan Casino, Las Vegas.
Crown Casino Scam
The most famous casino of Melbourne, Australia, Crown Casino was robbed off $33 million AUD in 2013. The case is still open because the unknown subject(s) could not be traced back. Apparently the unknown person successfully hacked the surveillance system to carry out the heist. The scam seems to be carried out by more than 2 people. The details of the scam have not been shared by the casino officially, however they are determined to get back all of their money.
Contact Lens Scam
Year 2011, Cannes – 64,000 Euros were conned from a well known Cannes Casino, Les Princes Casino. The players, a Frenchman and 3 Italians used invisible ink marking and high-tech contact lenses to carry out the scam. During the game session of stud poker, the Frenchman used invisible ink to make a line for ace and cross for king on the cards. The Italians used their special contact lenses to see these symbols on the card. Unfortunately, their winning seemed fishy and police was called upon. They were arrested and are going to be in prison for long time.
1 Minute ATM Casino Scam
14 people were arrested for the theft of more than $1 million in 2012, using their Citibank debit card. Headed by Ara Keshishyan, the team opened multiple checking accounts with Citibank. The team then used the debit card all over the Las Vegas and Southern California casino ATMs to withdraw 10 times the original deposited money. There was a 1 minute withdrawal window that allowed them to carry out many unrecorded withdrawals. The withdrawn money was then split for gambling. Ara Keshishyan was arrested for million dollar bank fraud.
Roulette Ring Scam, New York
A group of almost 70 people was charged with the Roulette Ring Scam, New York in 2012. The group consisted of many players who would place extremely low bets per chip for the game. While few players were busy distracting the dealer, the others played on with colored chips. These chips were basically used to cash out high value on other tables - $1000-$2000 per cheat. Although only 4 people were arrested (who also pled guilty) for the scam, there’s a speculation that the group was much bigger.
The Roselli Brothers Scam
A group of con artists made $37 million during a 5 year span from 1995 to 2000. These artists called themselves “The Roselli Brothers”, who raked the casinos of Nevada, New Jersey and Puerto Rico using the identity theft scheme. The brothers were accompanied by a computer hacker who was able to find people with remarkable credits. Using their identity, the brothers opened bank accounts with an investment of $50,000 and in return they got access to the credit lines of all the major casinos. While the scamming was going on for almost 5 years, it was in the year 2000, when the FBI managed to figure out about the heist, only to find out that the real Roselli brothers were dead.
Considering the fact that most of the scams go unaccounted or unsolved due to the lack of evidence, these genius casino scams made it to the list that took place in the recent years.
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