MCYSEKA-Maritime Cyber Security Knowledge Archive

The Department of Justice has indicted thirty-one people over the high-tech rigging of high-stakes poker games.

In a typical legitimate poker game, a dealer uses a shuffling machine to shuffle the cards randomly before dealing them to all the players in a particular order. As set forth in the indictment, the rigged games used altered shuffling machines that contained hidden technology allowing the machines to read all the cards in the deck. Because the cards were always dealt in a particular order to the players at the table, the machines could determine which player would have the winning hand. This information was transmitted to an off-site member of the conspiracy, who then transmitted that information via cellphone back to a member of the conspiracy who was playing at the table, referred to as the “Quarterback” or “Driver.” The Quarterback then secretly signaled this information (usually by prearranged signals like touching certain chips or other items on the table) to other co-conspirators playing at the table, who were also participants in the scheme. Collectively, the Quarterback and other players in on the scheme (i.e., the cheating team) used this information to win poker games against unwitting victims, who sometimes lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. The defendants used other cheating technology as well, such as a chip tray analyzer (essentially, a poker chip tray that also secretly read all cards using hidden cameras), an x-ray table that could read cards face down on the table, and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards. …