South Korea Casino Execs Sentenced for Stealing $3.5M in Crooked Games

• 12 staff members, including CEO and execs, rigged games at Daegu Casino
• Two Chinese gamblers were cheated out of $3.5M in September 2017
• Execs also convicted of embezzlement

 Twelve former staff members at the Golden Crown Daegu Casino in South Korea have been sentenced for defrauding foreign patrons during crooked games.

Among them are the former CEO and two other executives at the casino, which is based in the Hotel Inter-Burgo in the city of Daegu in the southeast of the country.

The defendants weren’t named in local press reports because South Korea’s strict privacy laws discourage the identification even of those who are convicted.

Stacked Decks

The group conspired to con two high-rolling Chinese baccarat players out of $4.5 billion won (US$3.5 million) in September 2017 by using stacked decks and a card-manipulation technique known as “bottom dealing,” according to local reports.

This is where a dishonest dealer pulls a card from the bottom of the deck using sleight of hand to make it appear the card was dealt from the top. Prosecutors described the scam as “highly professional.”

The gang used the same technique to cheat a Japanese visitor out of 54 million won (US$42K) in July 2017, according to the charges.

The defendants were also accused of misusing the casino’s complimentary services to induce dealers to participate in the scheme. This occurred 732 times at a total cost to the casino of around US$160K, which amounted to embezzlement.

The three executives led the fraudulent gambling ring and instructed the remaining defendants, who were subordinates, to participate in the crime, according to prosecutors. These included sales directors, managers, pit bosses, and dealers.

No Remorse

“The crime was carried out very intelligently, with considerably egregious methods, such as employing prearranged card sequences or playing the game using cards that were shuffled to the disadvantage of foreign victims, deceiving them into thinking that they had used normal cards,” said Chief Judge Lee Jong-gil during sentencing. He also noted that the main perpetrators had shown “no remorse.”

The judge imposed prison sentences ranging from a year to three years. Others received probation periods of up to five years or community service sentences ranging from 160 hours to 200 hours.

It was also fined US$8,000 for allowing South Korean nationals to gamble on the premises from September 2011 to March 2012. The only exception is the state-owned Kangwon Land, around 80 miles from the capital, Seoul.