How hacked card shuffling tools allegedly enabled the mob-fueled poker scam that rocked the NBA

“If there’s a camera that knows the cards, there’s always some sort of underlying threat. Customers will basically be at the mercy of the person setting up the machine,” poker player and card house owner Doug Polk previously told WIRED. “If you were showing up to a special game and there was a bum, I would say you should run for the hills.”

The Deckmate 2 hack, according to prosecutors, was just one of many cheating tactics the gangsters allegedly used, albeit the one described in the greatest detail in the indictment. The charging document also claims they used cards with invisible markings, electronic poker chip trays, phones that could secretly read card markings, and even specially designed glasses and contact lenses.

Although the details of these schemes have not been spelled out by prosecutors, they are all well-known in the world of casino security, says Sal Piacenti, a professional fraud consultant and president of Universal Game Protection. Cards, for example, can have barcodes hidden on their edges — printed invisibly, like infrared ink — that can be decoded by a reader hidden in a chip tray or in a phone box placed on a table. In other cases, the cards are similarly marked on the back with ink that can only be seen using special glasses or contact lenses.

“This type of equipment is used more than you think,” Piacenti says. “When you go to a private game, there is no regulation, no commission, no rules. Anything goes.”