Sports // Chuck Blount

Cheating the game, cheating the town

My biggest problem with poker cheats is the missed potential that could have been directed toward more meaningful pursuits.

There have been some genius attempts at scoring a free buck over the years that could probably cure cancer if the cheats were medical scientists.

Take this 1895 scheme, for instance, that was originally reported in the Fort Wayne (Indiana) News, and later told in the 2008 Allan Kronzek book “52 Ways to Cheat at Poker.”

The group of cheaters made Fort Wayne the home base for a scheme that spread throughout nearby states — Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and West Virginia.

They had no interest in finding ways to cheat individuals in games. The goal was to cheat the entire game — and town — by greasing them all with decks of marked cards.

The ruse worked in stages.

Initially, a member of the group pretending to be affiliated with a playing card company would enter the town selling packs to vendors that were marked well below the market rate. If they had to buy up all the cards in order to provide more, they sometimes did it.

There was no internet and no way to get any news outside of the local newspaper, so the only way store operators made business decisions was based on simple economics.

If somebody offered to provide a product for lower rates, you carried it in your store. And every joint that sold cards was visited by the cheat, who would not leave until a deal was in place and the product was on the shelves.

Once the deals were done, it was a simple waiting process to make sure the decks were spread throughout the area.

Then the rest of the team would come in and methodically scoop up all of the local gambling money.

It’s a process called “papering the town,” and it’s probably the most evil and comprehensive cheat in poker. Once the marked decks are spread, the games could be skimmed for weeks.

Sometimes the process was executed in a more immediate manner.

Kronzek tells a tale of a situation in Las Vegas, where a small-timer named Jimmy Altman took the legendary Bugsy Siegel for almost $1 million in a marked-deck scheme. Altman planted associates to buy all the decks in the gift shop. He made sure that another man followed who conveniently had more decks to sell and replace the inventory.

Once the game was a go with Siegel, Altman made a point to complain about the quality of the cards, demanding they be replaced. Siegel obliged and the marked gift-shop cards entered the game. There are various theories how the cards were marked, but the popular version was there were noticeable differences in the queens, kings and aces.

Is it possible to “paper the town” nowadays? It would be almost impossible to heist an entire city, but individual properties could be subjected to the Altman ruse.

If there is a party in the game that seems overly eager to swap out a deck, it should at least be noticed. Vigilance is also warranted if those who have a business interest in the games double as players.

Twitter: @chuck_blount