A pair of crooked casino dealers was indicted this week after scamming the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas out of $1.5m.
On Wednesday, Nevada prosecutors dropped a multi-count felony cheating and theft indictment against Mark Branco and James Cooper, along with their two accomplices, Jeffrey Martin and Anthony Granito. The filthy foursome stand accused of dodgy dice dealings at the MGM Resorts property’s craps tables between July 2012 and July 2014.
The scam was fairly pedestrian, but relied on a specific set of circumstances to pull off. Basically, Martin and Granito would place a number of real bets, then mutter something unintelligible under their breath as they tossed their dice, after which either Branco or Cooper would pay out on the ‘hop bet’ regardless of what number the dice were showing.
To avoid suspicion, the scammers focused their attention on low-limit tables, in part because the casino floor person would be paying more attention to tables with steeper action. The scammers also had to avoid tables where too many other gamblers might be playing, and relied on the other table personnel not paying close enough attention to the pair’s verbal wagers.
Eventually, one dealer smelled a rat and alerted casino security. An investigation began, leading to the collection of sufficiently damning evidence and the arrest of the two dealers in July 2014, by which time Granito had left the casino with nearly $700k in unearned winnings, while Martin’s take came to over $800k.
District Judge Jennifer Togliati issued no-bail warrants for three of the accused, while Cooper, who cooperated with the investigation and testified before a grand jury, was released on $1k bail.
The case has revived concerns that casinos have become too focused on reducing labor costs in a bid to improve margins, particularly since the industry took a serious downturn following the 2008 economic crisis. Many casinos have eliminated the boxman position and ask floor people to monitor two dice games at the same time, creating more opportunities for scammers such as these.
