The Las Vegas police are investigating a robbery at the Bellagio Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. According to a police spokeswoman an unidentified suspect entered the casino about 3:50am local time, wearing a full-faced motorcycle helmet. The man walked directly to the craps table, flashed a gun and proceeded to take $1.5-2 million in casino chips. The suspect ran back to his motorcycle and fled off westbound on Flamingo Boulevard.
Witnesses describe the suspect as a white male, about 6’ and 220lbs.
The suspect is similar to the suspect who pulled off the same type of heist at the Suncoast casino December 9.
Stealing from a casino can get you fucked up (remember Casino, the hammer to the hand scene) the thing is, with new technology, stealing casino chips is highly risky and far from a lucrative proposition. Once the criminals have the chips, they’ll need to cash them, which mean’s returning to the scene of the crime.
Unless they’re looking to make an appearance on the World’s Dumbest Criminals, they won’t do it themselves. The thief will need several criminal cohorts to take varying amounts of the stolen chips back to the casino to either play them on the tables or take them directly to the cashier’s cage.
Both propositions are risky considering many casinos now use an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags in casino chips.
It’s not publicly available but it’s safe to assume that the Bellagio has some sort of chip identification technology in place.
The RFID technology works like DNA, each chip has its own identifier that enables the casino to mark the chip as stolen if such a situation occurs.
Whoever attempts to cash the chips will be spending some time in a Las Vegas Jail.
If the thief is aware of the technology, the Bellagio’s stolen chips are destined to be sold on the streets through a network of fencers preying on unsuspecting gamblers looking for a discount.
The fencers would approach gamblers offering to sell them some casino chips at a discount. The scammer says something like, “I was kicked out and I can’t go back in,” The scammer will offer to sell his stolen chips for a 10-20% discount. The purchaser will find out the hard way, that no good deed goes unpunished.
It’s a risky proposition to steal from a casino, the chances of you getting rich are low and the chances of an arrest are very high. Remember the house always wins.
