A Live Casino Authorized Guide

Card Mechanics in Casinos

At an individual level, cheating goes on. High finance may have taken over the casino business, but there is still plenty of room in the small private games around the country for skilled, and semi-skilled, manipulators to ply their trade.

You aren't likely to meet a card mechanic in Las Vegas unless it's in a game you get into in somebody's hotel room. New Jersey casinos don't offer casino poker, and a mechanic wouldn't last ten minutes as a blackjack dealer.

All the same, forewarned is forearmed, and anyone entering a card game of any kind ought to know that there is a basketful of ways a sleight-of-hand artist can deal dishonestly with the cards.

Mechanics tend to hold the cards with a distinctive grip, fingers curved under the deck to support it, and the thumb laid diagonally across the face of the first card in the deck.

The all-important index finger comes up from under the deck to touch the outside top corner of the card - and to be ready to play its part in various misdeal techniques.

When you see a dealer hold the cards this way, it's not time to call the cops yet, but it's time to put your glasses on and keep watching.

In the bottom deal, the mechanic reaches for the top card as usual, pushing it forward with their thumb so that the advancing right hand can grip it easily. As the mechanic moves the right hand into place, however, the fingers under the deck are at work, pushing the bottom card out, just a little behind the top card.

At the last moment, the mechanic grabs the bottom card, flashing it down to the table and quickly moving the top card back into line with the other cards.

All this happens with lightning speed. Needless to say, the cheater knows what the bottom card is, maybe even the bottom few cards, and they deploy them where they'll do them the most good and the rest of the players the most harm.

In the second deal, another version of the misdeal, the second card in the deck is dealt instead of the top one. If the deck has been carefully examined before the deal, this can be done with a number of cards.

Here, the top card is slid out by the thumb as before, but the mechanic's hand comes farther forward than usual, reaching for a card directly from the front deck instead of at the upper outside corner.

Since the top card has been slid out of the way at this point, it's easy for a well-practiced manipulator to snatch the second card instead of the first.

The first card, as before, is quickly moved back into place under the cover of the dealer's other hand.

If the mechanic keeps their eye on the top card, they may manage to deal thenselves an unbeatable hand just by throwing out an unknown second card to other players, and saving choice bits from the top for themselves.

More than likely, they'll just manage to tip the odds in their favor - enough of an advantage for a good poker player to walk away with almost every pot.