THE UNREADABLE MARKED CARDS

I once worked in Aguacaliente, Mexico, which is near Guadalajara, at the annual St. Marcos festival in a casino that had at least 16 chemin de fer games, two baccarat games, 40 or 50 twenty one games and many other mexican games including cockfighting and bull fighting. My job was to watch the games for my dear friend Alfredo Hernandez. One of the finest gamblers I have ever met. Keeping everyone honest was not an easy task in a casino that lacked sophisticated surveillance equipment, however we managed to do a pretty good job.

I'll never forget being taken to the casino by'the Federales,
who carried machine guns on the front seats of the car we were in.
One day while shopping in the city, I met an American by the
name of Freddie. Freddie and I became pals very quickly as we
both shared the same interests. He said he used to be a dealer in
Hot Springs, Arkansas. He became very candid in his exploits and
soon after a half a bottle of tequila, he recounted how he had
swindled millions of dollars from the casinos in Las Vegas. All
of this happening many years before.

I suspected that Freddie was not the man's real name, and I soon found out that he had disappeared as quickly as he came on the scene. He did however enlighten me to the modus operandi before he departed.
Cards that were going to be used in the baccarat game were obtained from someone working in the casino. The cards were opened at the bottom and the plastic wrapping carefully removed. The cardboard box was then split down the side with an exacto knife and the cards were removed and secretly marked with a specially formulated daub. The daub was very lightly applied and only the most experienced reader could see anything on the backs.

Players were brought in to play as high rollers. Casino credit was applied for and extended. The players did not have any idea how the scam worked. They were only told to follow the signals of a man sitting at the table that was the mastermind. He would signal the players were to wager. They won better than 75 percent of the wagers, and they did not know how the scam worked.

The mastermind would simply look at the exposed card in the window and would determine the value. He would then decide which side, the player or the bank, had the best chance to win. And win they did. Freddie said that more than $1,000,000 in cold cash was won from the game before someone got suspicious and the team broke up.