A recent episode of Solve4Why's 'Only Friends' podcast has created a stir within the high-stakes poker world, with the show's host exploring how one or more cheating rings have allegedly exploited the latest developments in miniaturized camera technology to steal millions of dollars from other players in both cash games and tournaments.
The timely discussion by show hosts Matt Berkey, Conrad Simpson, and 'Guapo' was spurred by the recent arrest of two gamblers at France's Enghien-les-Bains casino, north of Paris, where the gamblers, assisted by an accomplice, used concealed pinhole cameras positioned at low angles to capture images of the cards that dealers were pitching to all the players at the tables.
The cheating in France took place at both poker and hand-pitched blackjack tables and involved cards not dealt from a shoe, as some media outlets reported. The pair was up €200,000 in a single night's action at Enghien-les-Bains before being detained and searched, with the cheating devices then being discovered. Authorities believe the two men, who have not been named publicly, had cheated in a similar manner in numerous casinos and clubs across Europe. According to Berkey, the two men are also believed to be members of an international ring that has allegedly utilized the technology to cheat in high-stakes poker games around the globe.
Improved technology translates into increased live-poker threat
The increased miniaturization of pinhole camera technology and the ability to couple it with streamed transmission of the video, all within a small and seemingly innocuous device or item, have triggered what the Only Friends hosts agreed was an increased cheating presence in high-stakes action. Berkey took some effort to detail that at this point in time, the threat is largely confined only to higher-stakes cash games and tourneys, with nosebleed home games (if not specified as such) possible the most risky place to play. Given the overhead involved, an entry-level game likely doesn't involve enough potential profit for an organized group of cheaters to exploit.
In whatever setting, the hosts agreed that the cheaters portraying themselves as gamble-it-up whales was part of the scheme. However, despite splashing around on a given hand's early streets, the ultimate tipoff was that the cheaters almost never lost a river showdown, proof over the long run that something was amiss. Berkey recounted his own outing of a cheater who had pilfered his game over multiple sessions, which has seemingly given him extra incentive in documenting similar situations as they occur.
Berkey shared that he first became aware of the situation after the WSOP Bahamas festival, and that the alleged proliferation of the cheating has caused him to rethink other scandals, such as Landon Tice allegedly being cheated at Houston's Prime Social and, of course, the celebrated episode involving the Hustler Casino Live! streamed game and the infamous J-4 hand between Robbi Jade Lew and Garrett Adelstein.
Berkey also shared, anecdotally, how widespread the alleged cheating has become. Besides the WSOP Paradise episode, another at the WSOP in 2024, and the game in which he caught a cheater himself, he offered a lengthy list of venues and festivals where he'd heard similar cheating had occurred. "I heard that the high-stakes game in Parx (Pennsylvania) got hit most recently," he began. "I heard a bunch of games at Commerce were being targeted."
A short while later, Berkey detailed the many locations where pinhole-cam cheating had allegedly occurred, and where players had been banned from games. "We heard from the Bahamas. We heard from Texas. L.A., Pennsylvania now, in Philly, obviously, the WSOP – there was an instance in the $50K event. There was an instance in pretty much every major room [in Las Vegas] this summer. Triton, WPT, private cash games, Cyprus, Norway, Korea, Florida, Montenegro... all of these are on the list."
"So, everywhere," Guapo chimed in.
The Only Friends hosts also offered some conjecture as to the size of the cheating operations, though they chose not to name any alleged participants. Simpson opined that the largest of the alleged cheating rings might involve 30 or 40 participants and accomplices. That ring supposedly involves many players with Uzbek, Russian, or Korean connections, and is believed to be the largest of the known cheating operations.
'Euro pitch' pitched as partial solution
Another part of the discussion centered on the best ways to focus on combatting the spread of tech-based cheating. Berkey favored the high-stakes poker world implementing a solution now seen in some Australian and European venues, including the EPT, involving the use of a blackjack-style shoe from which cards are pulled from the front face-down and are slid along the table to each player. Berkey termed it a 'Euro pitch', even though it may have appeared first in Australian casinos.
Keeping the cards face-down and touching the felt neutralizes the low-angle view the hidden cameras utilize, which exploits dealers who spin the cards through the air toward each seat. The downside is that training dealers to use a shoe will take some training, and the method has to be some degree slower than just shuffling and pitching the most widespread method.
The other possibility, which also invokes the discussion involving the use of RTA (real-time assistance) on smart devices at or near the tables, is a full ban on those smart devices at the tables, especially those that are positioned on the rail or felt in such a way as to possibly spying on cards being dealt.
That seemed not to be a preferred solution for the Only Friends hosts, however, who acknowledged that technology is here to stay and a device ban would largely impact non-cheaters' enjoyment at the tables as well. The entire debate remains ongoing, though in the wake of other recent developments such as the controversy over Jonathan Tamayo's WSOP Main Event win, sea changes in how live poker is conducted seem inevitable.
The Only Friends hosts also bemoaned the fact that in most cases, little happens to the cheaters even when they've been caught; the arrests at the France casino are an exception to the rule. The group agreed that gaming regulators cared little about cheating where one player victimizes another, with Simpson emphatically noting that it's only when it's the casino itself being cheated that regulators and other authorities tend to get involved. Though Berkey noted that live poker is "still alive and well", the episode as a whole made clear that as cheating threats and methods evolve, so too must the poker world evolve and continue to deal with those threats.
[This article has been edited from the original to correct an error from the Only Friends podcast, in which Matt Berkey said the first time he became aware of the situation was the 2023 PCA. This should have been the 2023 WSOP Paradise festival.]
