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Cheating in poker is more common than most people care to believe. Although most cheating occurs in private games that do not follow strict gaming procedures, it is also very common in regulated card rooms and casinos. Cheating can be done either by means of collusion, sleight-of-hand (such as bottom dealing, stacking the deck, switching cards etc), or the use of cheating gaffs (such as marked cards , holdout devices, glims etc).
Cheating is as common in friendly games as it is in high-stakes games. A card cheat may operate alone, but most of them operate in pairs or small groups. The groups are often composed of one card mechanic who is in charge of manipulating the cards, one or several shills who pose as regular players, and a muscle who acts as a bodyguard. Street gangs also often employ a wall man who acts as a lookout, however this approach is more common with three card monte mobs, and back-alley dice gangs.
Following is a list of terms used to categorize specific card cheats:
The easiest method for a cheat, hard or soft, requires no ability of manipulation, but rather the profound nerve to blatantly cheat. Such methods include miscalling of hands, shorting the pot, and peeking at cards. Such cheating should not be tolerated. However, it is very difficult to prove because when confronted the cheat often calls the cheating an honest mistake.
A simple and fair way to go about preventing this kind of cheating is to simply follow the rules. For example, " Cards speak" is the common expression for the rule that no matter what the player says, it is the cards that determine who wins the pot. While it's barely legal to call a bad hand a full house in the hopes that people will give up, the players should want to see this hand: they paid to look at it. Should such honest "mistakes" occur, it is best to ask the player to leave for that evening. If it was an honest mistake, he is in no condition to play poker (put aside your greed on this one - he will come back). If he did mean to cheat, he can't do it from outside the game and is unlikely to come back.
The minimal skill methods of cheating occur far more often than one might suspect. It is common for a player who has folded to appoint himself tender of the pot, stacking chips, counting them, and delivering them to the winning player, just so he doesn't have to get up. Nobody seems to notice the chip palmed in the hand of this helpful player. This is called check-chopping. This happens a lot. Once again, the answer is to follow the rules. Only at the showdown should a player touch the pot. In fact, it is a considerate player who obeys the rule concerning placing chips in the pot; the player does not throw the chips in the pot (splashing) but places them in a easily counted stack in the center of the table.
Cheating can happen even when the cheat does not have the deal. In draw poker, a player can discard two cards, throwing these two in the pile of discards so as to avoid counting (or if there is no pile, throw them on top of another player's discards), while calling for three. Not only does the cheat get the one card advantage in this hand, but before the showdown, he can ditch this extra card in his lap or vest, and thereby retain this one card advantage throughout the game. In this case, it is the dealer's job to regulate the discards, and to ensure the fairness of the process. In a way, this is the most fair. In exchange for the huge positional advantage the dealer has, he has responsibilities to occupy his time.
The most known method of cheating is using marked cards. The cards are printed or altered such that the cheat can know their value while only looking at the back. The ways of marking are FAR too numerous to mention, but certain broad types can be mentioned. A common way of marking cards involves marks on a round design on the card so as to be read like a clock (an ace is marked at one o' clock and so on until the king which is not marked). Shading a card by putting it in the sun or scratching the surface with a razor are ways to mark an already printed deck.
Much talk and advertisement has been about concerning "colored readers", that is, marked cards that can only be read with the use of color filtered glasses or contact lenses. While such decks are available, they are painfully obvious to the observant poker player. Many cheating authorities mention the idea that while wearing contact lenses they always slip off-kilter to the pupil, therefore a red (the most common color) cresent will be visible on the sclera around the iris.
"Juice" is a substance used to mark cards in a subtle way so as to avoid detection. Apparently one has to be "taught" to read juice patterns, but once taught, one can read (hence the term for marked cards "readers") them from across the table. An easy way to protect yourself from marked decks is to as the cheats say "go to the movies". The idea is to flip through the cards rapidly, treating the deck much like a movie flip-book. If there is any difference in the cards, they should become rapidly apparent. Decks can also be marked while playing. A cheat can hold his hand in such a way that it will bend or bulge in a position that the cheat can read from across the table (called a crimp). In this case one should remember it is stipulated in the rules that any player may at any time request a new deck.
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