Poker Writer
Swiss Casino Zurich was honored in Las Vegas with an Excellence in Surveillance Award for detecting a baccarat scammer group known as the Chinese Eleven. The Swiss casino took down the scammers in March 2024 after the scheme raked in an estimated $175,000.
A German-language documentary told the story that led to the award given to the Swiss casino. The scam became the largest in Switzerland’s casino history.
The scam originated in Macau and became known as the “baccarat cut-card scam.” Many of these scammers spread from Macau to other parts of the world, including Zurich.
What is the Baccarat Cut Card Scam?
The baccarat cut card scam, which spread across the globe, is a sophisticated cheating system designed to manipulate baccarat. The scam has had several variations over the years and has become more involved in more modern iterations.
A baccarat player who volunteered to cut the cards had a camera up their sleeve, connected to a video storage device. The dealer was in on the scam and turned the cards 90 degrees toward the player. A player then scraped a fingernail across the corner of the cards to reveal the indices in the sequence of cards to the camera in the sleeve. The player would then have to leave the table after the cut, review the video, and relay the sequence to the players at the table.
In another variation, the player left and returned after viewing the deck order. The other players would then copy that player’s bets. They’d press higher stakes with an edge and then drop after their edge was gone. According to reports, the scammers bet more than $6,000 per hand when they had an edge. They picked up with around $175,000 profit.
How the Swiss Casino Zurich Caught the Chinese Eleven
The staff of the Swiss Casino Zurich became suspicious of the 11 men perpetrating the scam. They reviewed footage of the team winning significant sums of money in short spans of time.
Eventually, they discovered some of the team had been scouting the casino for days or weeks. The scammers assessed the security camera locations and carefully planned their moves.
Despite the careful planning, the Chinese Eleven got a little too confident as they returned to the same location only two days after winning big. The police were waiting for them. The scammers were subsequently arrested.
