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Thread: Major scandal brewing regarding Prime Social Poker Club in Texas

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    Major scandal brewing regarding Prime Social Poker Club in Texas

    Not sure this hasn’t been posted yet but here it is.

    Chicago Joey put out a vlog about a major investigation he’s currently involved with regarding Prime Social Poker Club and that apparently they’ve been possibly rigging the auto shufflers for “more action” akin to the age old accusation that online poker sites are rigging the RNG for action online.

    The evidence so far seems credible but time will tell if this is true if so it could even cause people to distrust any live venue who uses poker autoshufflers at the tables.

    Why would a place do this?? To me it makes no sense for prime social as they don’t collect rake per hand and only seat rental unless they think it increases occupancy rates at a table. A place that actually collects rake though it’s a slam dunk as it could evoke action and add to rake numbers on hands especially if it’s a no flop no drop room in that flops would be seen more often.

    Guess we will have to watch and see where this goes.

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    Diamond Tellafriend's Avatar
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    doug polk made a long twitter post about this yesterday that is worth checking out. sorry no link.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    As usual, PFA (or PFA extended) is ahead of the curve.

    On my Vegascasinotalk site, we discussed these shufflers about 2 years ago. The conclusion? It seemed quite possible these could be (and have been) hacked by bad actors within the casino industry, and sold to or modified for shady casinos/cardrooms trying to cheat.

    This is NOT a concern for large, established casinos, as they would have too much to lose by trying to engage in such a scheme. Large casinos also likely have a strict protocol for obtaining and maintaining these machines.

    But side of the road Indian casinos, or small-medium sized cardrooms? 100% they could do shit like this.

    Why might a Texas cardroom like Prime Social do it? They could rig middle or high stakes games for their friends, and then split the profits later.

    To be clear, the shuffling machines do NOT come with the ability to be programmable to arrange the deck at the casino owner's choosing, but certain models to have the capability to arrange the deck in various pre-programmed fashion (such as low-to-high), and this could be modified by a bad actor to arrange the deck whichever way they want. This could NOT be hacked by an outsider. It would require physical access to the components of the machine.

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    I just spent a few days at TCH (Trip report?). For the life of me I can't figure out why any room in Texas would need to create more action. The most popular game in the room was "$5 bomb pot" Even the standard games had a double board bomb pot at every dealer change. The amount of money changing hands there is nuts. I mean trying to fix the game? Sure I suppose but they aren't needing to create more action.

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    It's worth noting these places all charge time. The best thing that could happen to a room like this is everyone exchange money back and forth slowly and play as long as possible. People breaking each other is bad for their business model.

     
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      FRANKRIZZO: this is true

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    Quote Originally Posted by FNdonkey View Post
    It's worth noting these places all charge time. The best thing that could happen to a room like this is everyone exchange money back and forth slowly and play as long as possible. People breaking each other is bad for their business model.
    Sounds like these guys would get bored with a smaller game and are also willing to reload so I doubt many of them leave after they get stacked

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    Quote Originally Posted by band_user View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by FNdonkey View Post
    It's worth noting these places all charge time. The best thing that could happen to a room like this is everyone exchange money back and forth slowly and play as long as possible. People breaking each other is bad for their business model.
    Sounds like these guys would get bored with a smaller game and are also willing to reload so I doubt many of them leave after they get stacked
    You're thinking short term. I mean I guess who is to say they are only thinking short term also but it doesn't change anything. A guy can only rebuy so many times. People going broke is bad for a card room charging time.

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    Okay, I see lots of speculation, but not much for facts. And that's been one of the problems with this story all along, and I'd be happy to report on this if facts actually came out. For the record, I worked at Prime Social for three weeks in March helping blog their spring series. I saw none of this cheating. I did see Martin Zamani bust out of one event while appearing to be high as fuck, but that's not part of this story.

    Moving on. About a week ago I texted Landon Tice, because he knew I'd been there. He told me he believed the cheating was taking place in a smaller room that functions as a high-limit cash-game room. For those of you who don't know, Prime is in a converted Brazilian steak house, and it had a large main dining area and a smaller, semi-private room that was a natural fit to become the high-limit room, though in practice a lot of the big games just ran on the main floor as well.

    Very little of the recent tourney action in the spring series was in the high-roller room; it was used as an overflow area when needed when there was a large event or several events running. All the seating and such was done through a central computer, linked to a server in the back room. Multiple computers could be attached it to it, and we had one for the bloggers area as well. (It runs the new Poker Atlas software and at the moment, that kicks Bravo's ass.)

    Now, a lot of people may not realize that all the tourney staff for major series was in essence part time. Justin Hammer brought in a team of very highly regarded TDs. They had participation inside the cage during the series, too. However, Justin's team had nothing to do with the cash-game side of the operation that ran simultaneously during the series. There were always multiple people who had access to the computer and could access the seating, certainly including the owner who's been chatted about as likely having been part of this. Everyone just took turns at the computer; I was even on it a handful of times, especially early in the series when I needed pointers on how the software worked.

    What's been bothersome is to see the aspersions being cast Hammer's way, here and there, as in some chat comments on streams like "Hammer's not there any more," insinuating that he must have been part of it. No way; this alleged cheating was being done parallel to Hammer's tourney work, and I'd bet my eye teeth he was utterly and completely uninvolved. He's been very open in discussing this and I know he chatted with Matt Berkey a couple of days back. I'm not sure if that's been published or is even planned to be; I'm at the series and have been way too busy to look.

    Moving on to the shuffler. A lot of people don't really understand how an automated shuffler could be used to aid cheating in a game. The Prime Social cheating is alleged to have been done with the use of a DeckMate 2 shuffler, which has the ability to sort cards into various preset patterns. It's useful for re-making decks, which previously all had to be done by hand. I do not know the exact technical specs inside the machine, but it identifies each card through the use of a camera or sensor that compares multiple cards and allows them to be switched around through multiple sortings. But it's that camera or sensor that can be used illicitly as well, since it can record a stream of the cards in the order as they're presented to the dealer. That stream, according to the accounts that I've heard, can then be transmitted to a cheater, most likely an accomplice who is somewhere nearby the game.

    So, say a dealer gets a deck freshly shuffled from the machine. It doesn't matter if he cuts the deck or not. Once the first up card appears -- usually the window card on the board -- then the order of the entire deck is known. That stream of cards can be calculated backwards and forwards; the cheater(s) will know their opponents' hole cards as well as know what cards are coming off the deck. The cheater can then know if what he holds will win the hand outright when the full board is out, or if not, which player or players he might have to bet out of the hand or bluff or whatever.

    People might wonder if this sort of system could have been what was used in the alleged Postle cheating, too. To be honest, I don't see why not, but that's just conjecture. It circumvents the idea that Postle somehow had access to whatever the table sensors were picking up, which was likely a separate arrangement mocked up for the live streams, However, that Postle's alleged cheating occurred only in the live streamed games is another factor to be considered.

    And there's another factor to be considered regarding the Prime Social situation as well. Prime also live streams games, multiple times a week when I was there, and they did a few of the spring series' final tables as well. But the stage for that was on one end of the main room, or the old main dining hall, as it was. That table is separate from the private room where the alleged cheating occurred.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    As usual, PFA (or PFA extended) is ahead of the curve.

    On my Vegascasinotalk site, we discussed these shufflers about 2 years ago. The conclusion? It seemed quite possible these could be (and have been) hacked by bad actors within the casino industry, and sold to or modified for shady casinos/cardrooms trying to cheat.

    This is NOT a concern for large, established casinos, as they would have too much to lose by trying to engage in such a scheme. Large casinos also likely have a strict protocol for obtaining and maintaining these machines.

    But side of the road Indian casinos, or small-medium sized cardrooms? 100% they could do shit like this.

    Why might a Texas cardroom like Prime Social do it? They could rig middle or high stakes games for their friends, and then split the profits later.

    To be clear, the shuffling machines do NOT come with the ability to be programmable to arrange the deck at the casino owner's choosing, but certain models to have the capability to arrange the deck in various pre-programmed fashion (such as low-to-high), and this could be modified by a bad actor to arrange the deck whichever way they want. This could NOT be hacked by an outsider. It would require physical access to the components of the machine.

     
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    I’m not following the story but I saw HaleyH and knew there would be great writing and an interesting read.

    Wasn’t disappointed. Had to give props

    Wow, shuffler wizardry. That’s so interesting

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sanlmar View Post
    I’m not following the story but I saw HaleyH and knew there would be great writing and an interesting read.

    Wasn’t disappointed. Had to give props

    Wow, shuffler wizardry. That’s so interesting
    She’s always good.

    I had no idea there were shufflers that had the ability to reconfigure the deck in the manner described. I generally trust a bunch of advanced players when they feel something is off. She’s a journalist, so I get her needing proof, but when have a bunch of pros saying something feels off, ever been wrong? I think back though a dozen instances of things similar and can’t recall when it didn’t end up being correct that something was off.

    From all description, seems way more likely to be someone doing it to give advantage to a small group of players. Not any orchestrated event to create more action from the house side. That makes no sense.

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    People going broke and possible cheating allegations are not good for the house, I agree.
    But it is good for the employee or two who make a shitload of cash by transmitting cards and outcomes to their friends in high stakes games. This isn’t Prime Social trying to generate more action. It’s very possibly an employee or two trying to make a quick score, w zero concern for how it would affect the room. In the long term

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    Quote Originally Posted by haleylh View Post
    Okay, I see lots of speculation, but not much for facts. And that's been one of the problems with this story all along, and I'd be happy to report on this if facts actually came out. For the record, I worked at Prime Social for three weeks in March helping blog their spring series. I saw none of this cheating. I did see Martin Zamani bust out of one event while appearing to be high as fuck, but that's not part of this story.

    Moving on. About a week ago I texted Landon Tice, because he knew I'd been there. He told me he believed the cheating was taking place in a smaller room that functions as a high-limit cash-game room. For those of you who don't know, Prime is in a converted Brazilian steak house, and it had a large main dining area and a smaller, semi-private room that was a natural fit to become the high-limit room, though in practice a lot of the big games just ran on the main floor as well.

    Very little of the recent tourney action in the spring series was in the high-roller room; it was used as an overflow area when needed when there was a large event or several events running. All the seating and such was done through a central computer, linked to a server in the back room. Multiple computers could be attached it to it, and we had one for the bloggers area as well. (It runs the new Poker Atlas software and at the moment, that kicks Bravo's ass.)

    Now, a lot of people may not realize that all the tourney staff for major series was in essence part time. Justin Hammer brought in a team of very highly regarded TDs. They had participation inside the cage during the series, too. However, Justin's team had nothing to do with the cash-game side of the operation that ran simultaneously during the series. There were always multiple people who had access to the computer and could access the seating, certainly including the owner who's been chatted about as likely having been part of this. Everyone just took turns at the computer; I was even on it a handful of times, especially early in the series when I needed pointers on how the software worked.

    What's been bothersome is to see the aspersions being cast Hammer's way, here and there, as in some chat comments on streams like "Hammer's not there any more," insinuating that he must have been part of it. No way; this alleged cheating was being done parallel to Hammer's tourney work, and I'd bet my eye teeth he was utterly and completely uninvolved. He's been very open in discussing this and I know he chatted with Matt Berkey a couple of days back. I'm not sure if that's been published or is even planned to be; I'm at the series and have been way too busy to look.

    Moving on to the shuffler. A lot of people don't really understand how an automated shuffler could be used to aid cheating in a game. The Prime Social cheating is alleged to have been done with the use of a DeckMate 2 shuffler, which has the ability to sort cards into various preset patterns. It's useful for re-making decks, which previously all had to be done by hand. I do not know the exact technical specs inside the machine, but it identifies each card through the use of a camera or sensor that compares multiple cards and allows them to be switched around through multiple sortings. But it's that camera or sensor that can be used illicitly as well, since it can record a stream of the cards in the order as they're presented to the dealer. That stream, according to the accounts that I've heard, can then be transmitted to a cheater, most likely an accomplice who is somewhere nearby the game.

    So, say a dealer gets a deck freshly shuffled from the machine. It doesn't matter if he cuts the deck or not. Once the first up card appears -- usually the window card on the board -- then the order of the entire deck is known. That stream of cards can be calculated backwards and forwards; the cheater(s) will know their opponents' hole cards as well as know what cards are coming off the deck. The cheater can then know if what he holds will win the hand outright when the full board is out, or if not, which player or players he might have to bet out of the hand or bluff or whatever.

    People might wonder if this sort of system could have been what was used in the alleged Postle cheating, too. To be honest, I don't see why not, but that's just conjecture. It circumvents the idea that Postle somehow had access to whatever the table sensors were picking up, which was likely a separate arrangement mocked up for the live streams, However, that Postle's alleged cheating occurred only in the live streamed games is another factor to be considered.

    And there's another factor to be considered regarding the Prime Social situation as well. Prime also live streams games, multiple times a week when I was there, and they did a few of the spring series' final tables as well. But the stage for that was on one end of the main room, or the old main dining hall, as it was. That table is separate from the private room where the alleged cheating occurred.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    As usual, PFA (or PFA extended) is ahead of the curve.

    On my Vegascasinotalk site, we discussed these shufflers about 2 years ago. The conclusion? It seemed quite possible these could be (and have been) hacked by bad actors within the casino industry, and sold to or modified for shady casinos/cardrooms trying to cheat.

    This is NOT a concern for large, established casinos, as they would have too much to lose by trying to engage in such a scheme. Large casinos also likely have a strict protocol for obtaining and maintaining these machines.

    But side of the road Indian casinos, or small-medium sized cardrooms? 100% they could do shit like this.

    Why might a Texas cardroom like Prime Social do it? They could rig middle or high stakes games for their friends, and then split the profits later.

    To be clear, the shuffling machines do NOT come with the ability to be programmable to arrange the deck at the casino owner's choosing, but certain models to have the capability to arrange the deck in various pre-programmed fashion (such as low-to-high), and this could be modified by a bad actor to arrange the deck whichever way they want. This could NOT be hacked by an outsider. It would require physical access to the components of the machine.
    Fantastic post, Haley.

    This may be naive, but it seems to me that the exact order of an entire 52 card deck is a LOT of information to transmit and synthesize in the couple of minutes it takes to play a hand... Unless I'm missing something, there would definitely have to be at least one accomplice not on the game communicating constantly with the alleged cheater in real time. I suppose it could be done, but that's quite a sophisticated operation requiring multiple insiders to be involved.

    In the Postle case, specific hole card info was allegedly being transmitted using either the RFID chips in the cards themselves, or hole card cameras. (I can't remember which.) This adds another layer of complexity here.

    And are we even sure that the DeckMate 2 has the ability to transmit the info in real time to somewhere other than its own hard drive in the first place?

    Also IIRC, the original charge levied here was NOT that the game was being rigged to favor certain players, but rather to create more general action in the game. (set over set, etc.) That comes with its own set of problems. For one, players sitting out would somehow have to be accounted for. In other words, even that would require the full-time participation of an accomplice.

    I feel like I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure what. If people have more evidence than what is out there so far, it's time to produce it.
    Last edited by go_buccos; 06-04-2022 at 06:21 AM.

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