Frequently Asked Questions
What is “Thieving Bastards” about?
Thieving Bastards: True Confessions of the World’s Greatest Cheats contains interviews with a range of professional gambling cheats, and one interview with an investigator who worked for the Nevada Gaming Control Board (GCB) in the enforcement division. The cheats discuss how they entered the criminal underworld, how they learned the tricks of their trade and some of the scores they made. It puts the reader right in the action, whether it’s poker games in smoky clubs, mafia-run clambakes or a crew about to take off a huge score in a casino on the Las Vegas strip.
What kind of cheats are interviewed in “Thieving Bastards”?
Thieving Bastards is the first volume of a series of books. Volume one contains the uncensored stories of a range of card thieves and dice cheaters who worked in poker and craps crews across the West Coast, from Washington State down through Oregon and California and across to Nevada and beyond. It also includes an interview with a notorious casino crossroader who ran major casino scams in Las Vegas, Reno, Mississippi and even on cruise ships that operate casinos. His plays were so devastating that the industry changed its procedures to stop the casinos bleeding money. You’ll meet a hustler who went from scuffling in the Bronx to switching in stacked decks on millionaires at Superbowl parties, and a technical specialist who designed and sold advanced cheating technologies using hidden cameras and spooky chemicals.
There’s also an interview with an investigator from the Gaming Control Board who talks about cheating cases he worked on, and insights from a poker cheat who later became a surveillance “peek” and was considered to be one of the world’s leading experts on poker room scams.
Does “Thieving Bastards” teach any of the methods used by professional cheats?
It’s not intended as a manual but it certainly exposes in great detail methods and systems that have been used to take off games for many decades, and that are still being used in certain venues.
Some of the specific details have never been exposed in print. As one gaming expert noted while copy editing an early draft: “Really fantastic and I learned a lot — no mean feat considering my strong interest in the subject matter for 35+ years.” There is an extensive original glossary of cheating terms and a whole chapter that gives you a “guided tour” of the key methodologies used by professional hustlers to steal your money.
How did you meet the cheats that appear in “Thieving Bastards”?
As a young man I worked as a card magician. I was fortunate enough to meet some people who straddled the line between magic and the gambling underworld. I had developed expertise in cheating moves that made them realize I wasn’t like other magicians. Through those people I was introduced to cheaters on the circuit as well as people who operated underground supply companies that sold marked cards and loaded dice to amateurs and professionals alike. Every contact I made led to a new contact, and so my knowledge grew over time.
Why did these cheats agree to have their stories exposed in print?
Although cheating arises in different forms, many of these guys know that their specific experiences were unique to the era in which they worked. The methods and culture of the Sixties and Seventies, for example, are long gone. They had spent their whole lives operating in the shadows and realized that, once they were gone and due to their code of secrecy, their whole story would simply vanish without trace. These guys wanted to share their adventures with friends and family before it was too late. They often had a strong sense that the things they had done had set them apart from square society and were worth telling — a slice of unique American history akin to the Wild West.
They also had confidence in talking to me that I would protect what needed to be protected. Also, because of my background and my lifelong fascination with cheating, they knew that I wasn’t judging them for anything they had done.
Does the book contain interviews with magicians?
No. The book is STRICTLY focussed on professional cheats, a group of criminals very far removed from the romantic world of magicians. This is a world with a strict criminal code and one that involves serious risk of explosive violence.
However, magicians do use some techniques from the cheating world and in fact some cheats started down the crooked path to becoming thieves after dabbling in magic to find ways to cheat, before moving on. So the book discusses the differences between these two worlds.
If you do have an interest in the stunts I used when I was a professional magician 25 years ago, check out our LECTURE notes page.
Will there be an audio book of “Thieving Bastards”?
It’s possible but it would need to be voiced by actors. While I retain recordings of these interviews, all of the subjects insisted that the audio was never to be shared. That’s because we used fake names to protect the identities of some subjects, such as “Bobby Machines” and “Black Johnny”, and others. Some of the guys are still operating and one or two transitioned to “respectable” careers later in life.
Others used real names but our recorded conversations include information that we agreed to leave out of the finished book. This usually involved details on certain people who got screwed over and for how much — and those guys might be extremely pissed off if they realize they’d been skinned alive at the table.
Does “Thieving Bastards” have any photographs or illustrations?
The book contains photos of some of the people interviewed as well as photos of cheating equipment discussed in each of the chapters. This ranges from crooked dice, to marked cards, and from “holdout machines” to “slick sleeves” to “whip cups” and electronic technology. There are also some pages from vintage gambling catalogues reproduced in the book. Around 60 unique photos in color and black & white.
How many volumes are planned for this series?
At this point, volume two is close to the copy editing and proofing stages. However, we are always on the lookout for new people interested in telling their stories.
The second book contains interviews with people whose career spanned from World War Two to the Nineties, and on to people who are working right now.
Will there be a collector’s edition?
We are designing it now, and it will have a unique feature that will make it very desirable for collectors of gambling memorabilia. To gauge interest, we will soon have a specific mailing list for people interested.
Have you ever cheated for money?
Yes.
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