The card-swindling technology NYC mafiosos allegedly used to cheat victims out of millions in a years-long poker scheme is readily available for sale online.
A simple Google search for “X-Ray poker table” quickly pulled up numerous companies producing devices that apparently employ the exact technology mobsters used in their sprawling con, which prosecutors unveiled in a federal indictment Thursday.
That included businesses selling tables indistinguishable from regular poker stations, but secretly rigged with LEDs that can see through the felt and read the suit and value of any generic playing card on the sneaky surface.
The tables’ readouts – which look like any old X-ray image – are then broadcast wirelessly to simple cellphones or computer monitors for analysis.
Most tables appear to be made to order, with prices upon request.
But that’s just one of several technologies mobsters from NYC’s four leading mafia families allegedly employed with the help of high-profile former NBA stars to con hapless high-rollers out of millions in the underground poker scheme.
The alleged scam was revealed by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Thursday, with more than 30 people indicted so far.
Other tech described in the indictment included poker chip trays that could read cards lying on poker tables, along with “decoy” cellphones that could do the same.
Those technologies appear to be also widely available, and depend on card decks with barcodes etched into the side that can’t be seen by the human eye – but perfectly visible to specialized and hidden readers.
Several companies offer both the decks and the devices – which are concealed in fake phones, in bogus key fobs, or in the tables themselves and read the deck’s barcodes.
The devices can read how the deck is shuffled based on the arrangement of the barcode, analyze how every hand will be dealt in a game, and then signal that information to an operator.
Some companies even offer real iPhones with barcode scanners and computers built in.
Those devices can be had for around $1,000.
But most readily available are one of the more incredible — and simplest — systems the mobsters allegedly used in their con: contact lenses that can read specially marked cards.
That setup can be had for under $500 — with entire decks bearing infrared markings invisible to the naked eye available, along with contact lenses or glasses that can see the secret markings.
Many of the products are even paired with simple how-to-use videos, some of which even have the word “cheat” in their titles.
The scheme used each of those technologies and more to net millions since at least 2019, prosecutors alleged, with games held across New York City, Long Island, Las Vegas and Miami allegedly using former NBA stars to lure high-rollers in. Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was included in the indictment.
Once at the poker table, the victims were often the only people in the room not in on the scam.
Conmen would use the tech to read hands on the table, which were covertly broadcast to somebody outside of the room, analyzing the situation.
The information would then be sent back to a handler at the table – often involved in the game — who would then signal their cheating cronies so they could play their hands to manipulate the target into betting thousands, prosecutors said.
One victim lost nearly $2 million over just two months of games in 2023.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
