Training to get ahead of casino-related crimes

‘Casino academy’ agents learn to spot, thwart crimes as they prepare for the opening of the state’s first casino in Plainville

 

 

Kayana Szymczak/Boston Globe

Agents looked on as Jason Elison of BMM Testlabs explained the slot machines during a course on how to detect crimes at casinos.

 

By Sean P. Murphy Globe Staff May 26, 2015

 

 

A man feeds money into a slot machine but cashes out without playing. A woman arrives in a parka in summertime. Someone drops a few bills on the floor and keeps walking.

 

These are some of the unusual behaviors on a casino floor that might signal a crime is being committed. Patrons all around might be oblivious, busy playing electronic poker, sipping drinks, or listening to music. But as lucrative cash businesses, casinos are also magnets for schemers, scammers, and rogues of every stripe.

 

 

“I’m always worried when we are not catching someone because it doesn’t mean the bad guys have gone away,” said Bruce Band, a longtime New Jersey state casino regulator. “It only means we’re missing something.”

 

Band hammered home his points on a recent morning as part of an eight-week “casino academy” for three dozen men and women poring over thick binders of instructions in a windowless room of a high-rise building in downtown Boston.

 

The agents and officers asked questions and scribbled notes on how to spot cheaters, con artists, wiseguys, money-launderers, thieves out to snatch a couple of unguarded pocketbooks, and conspirators convinced they can outsmart the casino.

 

“Sometimes, my head is spinning,” said Arthur Somerville, a State Police officer in the class. “There is a lot to take in, but at least I’m getting in on the ground floor.”

 

The ground floor is the casino industry, a multibillion-dollar worldwide business that opens its doors for the first time in Massachusetts on June 24, when thousands of patrons are expected to swarm the 1,500 video blackjack and slot machines at the Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville.

 

Casinos have proven to be extraordinary sources of revenue for state coffers, good for hundreds of millions of dollars every year in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Massachusetts casino law passed in 2011 is essentially a demand by the state to be cut in for a share of the action. To help protect patrons who are being encouraged to willingly gamble away a portion of their earnings or savings, the state law tasked the state Gaming Commission with making sure casinos are safe and fair.

 

Band, now Massachusetts’ chief regulatory agent, is preparing a team of a dozen agents to be the commission’s eyes and ears. At least two agents in plainclothes will circulate on the Plainridge casino floor at all times.

 

Dozens of additional agents will come on board at salaries ranging up to $60,000 when resort casinos open in Springfield and Everett in the next two to three years. Unlike Plainridge, those casinos will come with live table games such as blackjack, roulette, and baccarat, which are particularly susceptible to cheating and fraud because, unlike machine games, they are operated by humans up to their elbows in cards, betting chips, and other accoutrements of gambling.

 

Others preparing for Plainridge at the “casino academy” are State Police officers, local police, and Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission agents.

 

Kayana Szymczak/Boston Globe

Gaming Commission agent Eric Cantell looked inside a slot machine during a course in which agents learned to spot suspicious behavior at casinos.

The possibilities of nefarious conduct are myriad, Band said.

 

A money-launderer might load a slot machine with a pile of cash, print the cash-balance ticket from the machine without playing, then take it to the cashier’s window for cash, Band said. The cash fed into the machine might have come from a drug deal, but the paper receipt the patron walks away with shows cash won legitimately at a casino, he said.

 

A thief might come to a casino overdressed to hide under a baggy coat the pocketbooks and bags grabbed off chairs, he said. And a con artist might drop money to distract a player and set up a rip-off.

 

Agents will be responsible not only for detecting crimes on the floor but also for ensuring casino operators are not robbing patrons in their own way.

 

A slot machine is really software running on a computer stowed deep inside a flashing, singing steel-frame box. As a matter of technology, casino operators can program the software to deliver any level of profit they desire.

 

To ensure that players have a decent chance at hitting jackpots, Massachusetts and other states set what is called a “return to player” rate. In Nevada, for example, the law requires that over the long run, slot machines return at least 75 percent of the money played and that the operator take no more than 25 percent.

 

Massachusetts is even more protective of gamblers. State law mandates that the operator take no more than 20 percent of the money wagered.

 

To ensure that casinos pay out the required rate of wins, agents and officers during a recent class learned to reach into the electronic core of a slot machine to check the program setting and the meter that records every play on the machine.

 

“It’s all about keeping everybody honest,” Band said.

Behaviors that may be innocent — or may mean a criminal is at work

►A money-launderer might load a slot machine with cash, print the cash-balance ticket without playing, then take it to the cashier’s window for cash. The cash fed into the machine might have come from a drug deal, but the receipt shows cash won legitimately.

►A thief might come to a casino overdressed, perhaps in a baggy coat, to hide the pocketbooks and bags grabbed off chairs. 

► A con artist might drop money to distract a player and set up a rip-off.

Sean P. Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @spmurphyboston.

 

 

 

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/25/casino-academy-prepping-agents-keep-state-first-casino-safe-and-level/wj3ryE29UwdSmMsEMQNyrJ/story.html