Maryland Casino Dealer Accused of Baccarat Scam; Imprisoned for 18 Months

Worldwide casinos have regular problems with their staff. Maryland casinos for $1m.

More About Scandals

MGM’s National Harbor casino in Maryland was the place of the first incident. Its ex dealer, Ming Zhang, has been accused of several manipulations while performing his duties. Zhang has been connected with numerous felonies in the baccarat cheating scandal. Only recently, the dealer reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty regarding the stolen casino funds.

Following the accusations, Zhang will spend 18 months in prison with an additional three years under supervision. He is also obliged to cover the entire amount of stolen funds. According to the Department of Justice statement, the whole scam started in September 2017 in the organization of Zhang and his “co-conspirator A“ Chenguang Ni. As part of the cheat, Zhang used to avoid shuffling all the decks of cards that would be later dealt to both parties.

Details of the Scam

Zhang has confirmed to prosecutors that Ni used his phone to take photos of the card decks spread out on the table to convince players that it was a valid deck before being put into the shoe. Following the same action, Ni would sporadically go to the bathroom to check the images while having his seat occupied by other co-conspirators.

From time to time, Ni and other conspirators used to place small wagers and waited for unshuffled cards to appear when they significantly boosted their wagers. The entire scam was discovered when Ni and other players recorded a tremendous result, winning 18 of 21 hands, with 14 straight wins. It is also worth mentioning that everything happens in game with coin-flip odds.

The previous scam caused an $850k loss for the National Harbor property and an additional $200k depletion for an unspecified venue. Following the investigation, Ni was convicted to 13 months in jail, but he will probably be deported after serving the sentence.

More About Baccarat Malversations

It should be noted that baccarat scams happen more often as of recent years. One of them occurred in 2012 when a Macau gang was accused of another manipulation with cards. As part of the same scam, Macau casino used to swap a valid card shoe with one that included a built-in miniature camera. This card would then read the cards as they were shuffled and ed the slo-mo video to conspirators.

During the same timeframe, another shoe scam was recorded at South Korean property, Kangwon Land. Another popular location for baccarat scammers was the Philippine casino where gamblers hid a miniature camera up their sleeves. However, all of them were detected by casino security which used a surveillance system to uncover the malversations.

Source:

“Maryland casino dealer jailed 18 months for baccarat cheat scam“, Peter Amsel, calvinayre.com, January 17, 2020.