Impossible? We Stacked the Deck Night After Night Under the Bosses' Stare & the Eye

Episode 4 of the Cheating at Blackjack podcast takes you inside one of the most deceptive moves in casino cheating: stacking the deck at the blackjack table. This is a video podcast, so you won't just hear about it — you'll see exactly how it was done.
As the dealer, I estimate I stacked my agent over 300 winning hands during my time in the 1980s Las Vegas casinos. But here's what most people get wrong about how we did it.
I didn't always stack my agent a blackjack.

Too many blackjacks draw heat — and heat is the one thing you can't afford. So what did we stack instead? A 15. That's right — on the surface, a losing hand. Why would a cheating dealer stack his own agent a 15?
Because I, as the dealer, would bust.
There is nothing more deceptive than that. A player winning with a 15 looks like luck. A player winning with a blackjack looks like a pattern. That distinction kept us invisible for years.
Of course, stacking the deck means nothing if you can't beat the cut. In Episode 4 we show you that too.

For your best experience watch episode 4 on our Youtube Channel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We were down with over 500 different cheating plays at the blackjack table in Las Vegas casinos during the 1980s.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Wow. And we were never caught. This is Cheating at Blackjack. I'm the Kaiser, and this is our host, Dustin Marks.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Well, good afternoon, evening, wherever you're listening from or watching. Hopefully you're watching. Especially this episode. You don't want to watch it. This is listen.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Yeah, this one is a great show to really dig into because the flash was a lot of fun and it gave us our daily bread, but now we want everything in the store.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

We want a whole sandwich.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

We want a whole sandwich, and that's exactly what this is going to do. The flash was ah, that was fun, but this is what gave us the big bucks.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Okay, we'll let you now know what this episode's about, and we won't tease anymore. This is stacking the deck.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

And when done correctly, it's a hundred percent winner.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

So here's what's interesting about stacking the deck. Everyone that I've come in contact has the belief that you cannot stack a deck of cards on a blackjack table because of the strict shuffling procedures. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

The belief is true because there was a procedure and you were supposed to follow it.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

There is, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

But can you stack the deck within those guidelines? Absolutely, yes. And we did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

You see, it is not impossible, no matter what the foreman behind you says, we did it, and it is possible, and it's very, very lucrative.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh, yeah. It's you know, it's in my opinion, it's extremely strong because you win 100% of the time, or virtually 100% of the time, and especially and see if you agree with me in a double deck, it's impossible to tell because there are two Ace of Spades, two Jack of Spades, double cards, yes. Yeah, so they can't they can't possibly prove or prove with 100% it was those two cards because there's two duplicate cards.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

That's right, two of everything, so that makes double the pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

And yeah, and it gave us well, it gave us that out. Uh we were never confronted or not even suspected.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

I mean, we've had bosses breathe it down our back and we pull right up under their noses, literally.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

In fact, what I loved, because I've really had this move down. Well, I'd be doing it. First of all, I didn't have to look at my hands at all, but I'd be looking at the boss saying, burn me, because there's nothing to see.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

So it's very effective, very good. So you ready, or we get some uh advice? Okay, let's dig into this because uh stay close to your your uh computer because this is it. Or stay close to your device.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

This is a standard shuffling procedure in most of the casinos back in the 80s at the blackjack table. It's a riffle, another riffle, then a strip, and finally the last riffle, and then the cards are cut.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

That's pretty standard now, which is interesting because there are the rumors that you cannot beat a Vega shuffle, you can't stack a deck, you can't you can't rig it to win, or any of those other terms they use. So, how are we gonna beat that?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

You want to bet? This is a typical arrangement of cards you'd see at the blackjack table. I'm looking for two key cards that will wind up in my agent's hand after I shuffle the deck. Here's my first key card, an ace, a very good card. Now, my second key card will be based on the number of bets on the table. Three bets, three what I call in-between cards. So here's one, here's two, here's three, now it's my next key card. So after I would shuffle, my agent's gonna get the ace and the jack, which of course is a black jack. So next step is to pick these cards up in order. And right now, what I'm gonna do is screw this up a little. I'm gonna reverse them. And the reason I'm reversing them is because I'm gonna leave the cards face up on top of the deck so you can follow this slug. That's called a slug. These face up cards. So the first shuffle, what I'm actually gonna do is just put a burn card on top. Important thing is no cards got into the slug. The second shuffle, I'm just gonna retain that slug. And again, no cards got in between the slug. Now I'm gonna do a strip shuffle, and what looks like those cards are buried, but the slug is still second from the top. And the final shuffle, after I burn the card or discard the card, then I would deal. I'm doing these face up so you can follow it. And there is the blackjack. So the two key cards now are in my agent's hand.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

That's impressive. That's very impressive.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

That gives you an understanding. Now let's do it with the cards face down. So let me just arrange these again.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

And this time I'm gonna pretend like uh uh it's ready for is it the end of the shuffle? I mean, at the end of the deck, it's time to shuffle.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, and an important key point here is we had some latitude when we could shuffle. So if I didn't see the combination on this round, I could probably deal one more round, depending on how many cards are left. So I'm gonna pick the cards up, these go on top, into the discard tray, and here. So the first shuffle, I'm adding a burn card. Second shuffle, I'm just keeping those on top. Now, here comes the strip. Finally, the fourth shuffle. We'll not talk about the cut right now.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Because normally you would hand that off to a player to pick up.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

The cut, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

But let's keep it skipped after now.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah, I'll burn the card and I will do his face up just so you see him. And my agent gets the blackjack, so you can see how deceptive this shuffle is.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Yes, very nice. That's a that's an easy way to stack up a deck. It's already it's in a sense, it's already stacked for you. You just gotta control the slife.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Exactly. And the main thing is again, not getting any other cards in between. Very, very important.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

What sounds very complicated is in reality very easy for someone of your skill level.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah. Um, especially when I was dealing it, I could look immediately. Right now, I know it's these two cards. Yes, you know. Uh now, the one important thing is when I start to pick up the cards, if somebody bets two hands or doesn't bet the lay stack won't work. It won't work. Uh that didn't happen too often, but it could, and that would be something that would ruin the lay stack. If you have something, so I'm going to turn these cards over and I'm gonna pay. So I see my first key card. Got three here, three in between, and there's the ace of spades. I pay this bet. I pick the cards up in order. These cards go here, put them on top. So that slug is on top now. Now we do it again. I'll add a burn card. Now, in the old days, a lot of times I would look and see that burn card just to make sure. Then as I discarded it, I'd have it, and I'll show you in a minute, where I would spot it in. Exactly. Very good. Second shuffle, now comes a strip. It looks like I'm stripping a lot of cards. I'm not stripping that many. And then the final shuffle. And then next time we'll go over the cut. So let's just say I spotted the nine of spades is what should be the burn card. So now I'm positive everything's good. And we'll just deal them face down this time. And sure enough, he gets the blackjack. Here's my key cards. So I'm gonna use this layout to stack the deck. If it didn't work, let's say we're in this position, that's an 18. That's not very strong.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So let me ask you why we're here. Now you say, what if the the cards are out of position? Would you, for instance, put the eight back on top here? So now here's the situation. It does not play out. Now, would you slide that ace above the eight and put it underneath there like this? No.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

That's a tell. Why would you not do that?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

That's a tell. You're supposed to pick up the cards in order. Any kind of moving the cards around, that's a definite tell.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yes, that is why we always played whatever's on. That's why it's called a lay stack. It's not called lay shuffle around stack.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah. However, that giveaway. Some astute viewers might realize I could use the eight as the burn card. So now I wouldn't add a burn card during the shuffle, and we still have one or two perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

So, but yeah, in this situation, the eight could be a burn card. You still have the three in between, and the jack of spades would be that's that's a very good point. So there are ways around it, but it's so the bottom line, do not reshuffle the board.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

And we can go into other things too. We'll get into more detail. Well, let's go about beating the cut. Now we'll go over how to beat the cut.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Beating the cut is very important.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Well, yeah. Without beating the cut, you're wasting your time.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

It's all for not.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

So we have three bets. So our IBM numbers three, key card, one, two, three, key card. So I pick the cards up in order. I'm doing a bunch of stuff here, but basically, that stack is on top.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Still there.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

And I have the plastic cut card, which is gonna be instrumental in stacking and beating the cut. I just added a burn card. I'm gonna keep my stack on top. Now I do a strip shuffle. Stack is back on top, and now I'm gonna bury it. This is probably kind of hard to see, but bury the top card, and I was just dealing face up. Blackjack. That's the entire play. Let's go over exactly how he cut, where how he knew where to cut. And we'll just use the ace of spades and the queen of diamonds will be the burn card, and let's say the ace of clubs. So they're on top. This is here. This will be the last shuffle. Here now, there's a big slug here, and here's my stack slug. I move this top card over. This is greatly exaggerated, but you get the idea. Let's just do it like this so they really see.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Oh, there's there's the card I need to cut to. That would be the ace, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Okay, now the the actual cut is legit.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

It is a legit cut.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Queen of Diamonds, I said that's gonna be the burn card, and there's this ace. Now let's do it again, but now this time we'll do it like we were fire. Yeah, under fire. So my stack's here or slug, my slug is here, and I'm going to riffle all these cards on top. As I come over with my index finger, I'm moving that card. Now I bevel this at the top of the deck. So even like this, you can barely see it. But the plastic cut card hides everything. Yeah, I got it. Now you're gonna see how deceptive beating the cut really is. Key card, key card, I pick the cards up, and I signal my agent by the sniff that I'm going for a stack. That's why he doesn't have a bet out here, just in case the stack doesn't work. So I'm gonna show you that's gonna be the burn card. Now, in the old days I could see that, but right now I can't. So shuffle, shuffle, and I'm gonna do a strip. And the final shuffle, and you'll see how deceptive this really is. We're good. The rule is if I don't do a thing, he bets big. If I do anything, say, hey Bob, how you doing today? He knows the uh stack got screwed up. Now ideal on the square. Yeah, and what do you know? A blackjack. But did you see how little of a brief or make it let me turn it face up so you can see it? How little here, I actually gotta kind of do it. Sorry. I move that over, it's just barely visible. This goes on top and it's beveled, so nobody can really see where that car is sticking out. And again, my hands here blocking any kind of view from the pit. And there it is right there. That's the real work on beating the cut. I think we should recap. Good idea. Okay. The stack, first of all, what we were doing is a casino procedure shuffle, which was shuffle, shuffle, strip, shuffle.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Which is interesting because I always heard you can't beat that shuffle. You know, you can't stack a deck on the fly, you can't do this, or you can't do that. I guess we proved that wrong, didn't we?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Big time.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Big myth out the door.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Then we showed them the key cards, very cards that the agent was gonna get after the deck was shuffled.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

And more importantly, we showed you the key cards and how to figure out which are the key cards or what cards to look for in the right positions, which are your key cards, depending on the number of players. Very important.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

And we went through the shuffle, showed how it was we were controlling the cards. It wasn't a false shuffle.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

No, it was a true shuffle, but we were keeping a slug out. So uh, you know, half tomatoes, half tomatoes. It's kind of a controlled shuffle, I think. The ways you put it on the code. I think that's the best way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

And then finally, we showed them how we beat the cut.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Beat the cut. You can't beat beat the cut, man. No, and that's the snag on just about everything. That's what the cut is for, is to give a little more fairness to everyone involved, the players and the casinos, knowing the cards are not in the order. We just cut them out of any kind of order they were in.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

That's a brilliant point.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

So it everyone's at ease. It's under control, kinda.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah. Well, we found our control. We found a great way to beat the cut. Yes, as you saw.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

You know, it's interesting. We went back and reviewed before we got here, and uh we both were stunned how it looked from the above. I think that's the first time I've seen it from a close angle from above. Uh, I was flabbergasted and I said, damn, 165 years later, I still can't see it. It's indetectable. And we're old farts. I mean, yeah, we were a lot better back in the day. A lot better. And I was I was stunned. It's it's invisible, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

So we felt very comfortable still.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

It is now time for Shorty Time.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Ah, yeah, one of our favorite segments.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

As it is with Shorty Time, we pull stories from our past of moments in our time together, and there are some of them just absolutely absurd funny because you don't expect it to happen. So, what do you got?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I got one. He doesn't know what's coming, but you'll you'll know. Oh my. But this is uh funny, and yet uh, gee, what were you guys thinking? Okay. So we're on one of our road trips, and we're gonna do the two-card drop.

unknown 17:31

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

The two-card or the infamous two-card drop, please tell.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Which is a I'm gonna go real quick over this because we'll show it in a later episode, but it's a way to know the top card of the deck. Dealer's not down with it, and you do that by cutting. I would be at first base, I would cut and I would expose the top two cards so the Kaiser would see what the top card of the deck was after the dealer cut. If it was a high card, he'd give me a signal and I bet high. If I didn't know signal, I bet low. Well, that sounds all good, and well, work great in practice, but here's what happened: you cut the deck kind of weird. Well, we were both cutting the deck the same way, and we're pretending not to know each other. And the dealer goes, Do you two know each other? You know, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

We denied, he says, but you guys cut the exact same way, which it's really bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

So sometimes even the littlest things can kind of trip you up.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

You will be amazed at how much someone who just does their job, a dealer does the thing, same thing eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, those little nuances she busted it on. We were cutting the cards exactly, and it's not just cutting the cards, it was the way we cut the yeah. It's a weird type of it's a weird we had to lift up, drop two cards, and then cut it over. One person doing it kind of looks funny, yeah. But when you got two people doing it for uh an hour, uh she drew a that was hysterical, yeah. And we find out no, we don't know each other.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Gosh, and I think we kept playing because we stopped doing crap for obvious reasons, yeah. But that's one of the old stories where things didn't go like we thought on paper it looked great, in reality.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

We got busted, and uh you know, nothing hardcore bust, but they noticed something strange about us, which is not unusual, right? You know, because we do strange things until then.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

What should they do?

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Make it easy on yourself, subscribe, then you always are notified when the next episode and hit that notification button because that way you'll and you got here and you go rush over here to see this video because you'll want to.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

And like we always say, don't be a square, share.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

We'll see you next week. Take care of the