Home poker cheating - how common is it?

[pfapfap]

Maybe in your games, but in my games, we're fairly aware of a dealer doing that. If someone doesn't want his cards to be seen, he's going to watch how they get put in the muck. It's also rather obvious to pick up a deck and look at the bottom of it. It's not necessary to see the face of any card in order to shuffle properly.

[Fubster]

When I deal, I've noticed that when people muck by tossing their cards into the muck, the forward edge will often tilt up in the air towards the muck (which is obv in front of the dealer). Cards are flashed that way too.

[dismalstudent99]

At my home cash game, I caught one of the girls (a 26-ish, kinda strange but somewhat attractive brunette) sweeping in dollar chips from the pot back into her stack.
What she would do is muck her cards into the pot, then she'd reach back in for them after the hand was over, supposedly to re-check what she had mucked and comment on whether she should have called or not.
As she would pull her mucked cards back towards her, she would use the cards to flick a chip into her pile.
As a cheating technique, the only advantage to the cheater is that if they get caught, they can say it was an accident. Aside from that, it seems that the movement of the chip would attract a lot of attention.

Someone had previously notified me of some funny hand movements she was making with the chips. I had considered her somewhat of a friend and I assumed that he had misinterpreted her actions (possibly from when she made change from the pot.)

But a few weeks later I saw her "sweep" in a chip. It seemed like such a natural movement that I dismissed it at the time (of course, I corrected the pot). It seemed like an accident, one smooth motion.
That night, though, I couldn't sleep -- I kept mentally replaying what I had saw. I wondered why someone would place downward pressure on the cards if they were recovering them from the muck. Natural or unnatural? I'd wonder. I also recalled the "zip"-like sound the cards made as she swept the cards along the vinyl table cloth (sorry, no felt).

A few weeks later, when she was particularly drugged up, I saw her do it again. This time it was super obvious -- I was 100% sure it was deliberate. In fact, it was a little clumsy: rather than a wristy flicking motion, she made a larger scooping/pulling motion.
I didn't announce it in front of the table, though. Instead, I just corrected the pot and watched her like a hawk, always making sure the pot was out of her reach and bets were pushed forward.

She must have been on some sort of drug aside from alcohol, cuz she seemed giddy. She was relentless: She made at least two more attempts to take back folded blinds or recover an orphaned call. When she would lose a hand, I could see her eye the chips in the pot.

She did other things that same night: I saw her shuffle the cards under the table, and when another player walked up behind her, the player noticed a card on the ground -- it was an Ace (of spades, of course!)
Also, she just happened to get caught shorting the pot a least once that night.

Clearly, this girl is just nuts and probably does this stuff for the thrill or ego protection/inflation. And that night she was definitely on some stimulant, also.

I wanted her to get stacked quickly, which she did. I ushered her out the door before she could sucker someone into loaning her money to reload and continue playing.
I feel bad because she could have been "DUI" driving home, and might have hurt herself or someone else. In fact, some of the players were telling me I shouldn't let her drive home.

But I wanted her to leave before someone else caught her in the act and all hell broke loose. As a host, I was ashamed to have let someone like her into my game. More importantly, I had no idea what people would do if they caught her. We're all nice people, so I'm sure violence or even bad language probably wouldn't come out. But it would just be incredibly awkward. It would poison the friendly and trusting atmosphere of the game.

I obviously never invited that girl again, though I never confronted her with what she did.
I never knowingly let her take a chip, but I'm sure must have taken a few.

About a month later, I finally told my players what had happened. I was reluctant, but people were wondering where she went, and I was actually worried that she knew that I saw her cheating and that she was preparing some sort of pre-emptive action against me. (paranoia?)

Also, since the girl is clearly just a pathetic druggie/nutcase and I saw no need to do her more harm. She could actually be a nice person.

By the way, when I was washing my cards later, I noticed an Ace of spades with a scratch mark on the back. And I recalled how this girl would often peer over her own cards (she held them high) and look around the table at other people's cards. It was a particular gesture that other player's noticed, in retrospect.


Questions for you all:
1- Should I have confronted the cheater immediately? In front of all the players?
2- Is a host obligated to inform his players that there has been a cheater? Keep in mind all the possibly social dynamics that could exist.


On the bright side, I'm sure there's much less cheating than the 40% indicated by the poll -- this thread obviously attracts a disproportionate number of people who have witnessed cheating. If someone started a thread called "PLO homegame" I'm sure a poll would suggest the world is full of Euro-type Omaha addicts.

[luckyluckyjoe]

The only cheating I have personally seen at a home game was a card mechanic. We suspected that he we cheating a few games before we caught him because he was very good at it. It was a very friendly game and players did not insist on a cut by a player other than the dealer. His main mistake was winning on his deal far more than was statistically possible. He was winning over 80 percent of his deals. We had to watch him very closely to see he was dealing himself from the bottom.

[xSCWx]

I think in high school and maybe college games cheating is a lot more popular than it is in the older crowd.

I can't recall any games in high school where there weren't any people cheating at all. I can think of maybe 20 people I have played with that I have known cheated and all are either in high school or stopped some time after graduating. The only exception I can think of was someone colluding online for a living (he was a college graduate).

It could just be a maturity thing.

It is very possible that the older crowd just tends to be better at it. Most of the high school crowd I've caught has tried to shuffle with the deck face up. That [censored] doesn't fly with people who have some balls and half a brain.

It is pretty easy to rig the deck while shuffling it so that you don't have to deal from the bottom and almost undetectably. The cards on top being shuffled shield the bottom card being pulled from underneath from being seen. I won't add more details for obvious reasons. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[PyramidScheme]

I really do not think there is too much cheating in home games, I\'m a new player to the net and in general, the majority of my play has been \'home\' games and I have never encountered it, I consider myself fairly observant. Perhaps mainly because gettign caught cheating by your own friends is just so devestating.

[dsteff]

I started cheating by stacking the deck in a home game when I was 12. I started playing with a partner when I was 14. I quit cheating due to ethical reasons when I was 17.

At least half of the people in any home poker game you sit in probably have the skills to cheat one way or another. The best way to avoid it is to play with people you trust. Just because people simply have the ability to cheat doesn't mean they will cheat.

[gwhiz_612]

Some cheating I've noticed and suspected in our home game:
Player watching the deck while it's being shuffeled and following the cards. I have a bad habit of shuffling the cards where you can still see them. We use a cut card on the bottom of the deck so I'll cut two or three times more and sometimes add an extra riffle before I deal.
Someone was bringing chips to the game. This was causing our pot to be a couple hundred short at the end of the night. It was always an even number, so the host got suspicious and mentioned it to the players. This hasn't happened again since it was brought up.

I noticed one kid putting his blinds up real close to his stack instead of out in the middle of the table. As the pot would start to build he would simply pick up his blind and put it back into his stack. I confonted him in front of the table about this after I observed him do it a second time. He said it was an accident, of course, but the confrontation slowed him down.
Had a player, when he was dealing, peeking at the cards to come while the players in the hand were acting. One problem with this is that he would do it while his wife was in the hand.

[TrvChBoy]

[ QUOTE ]
Had a player, when he was dealing, peeking at the cards to come while the players in the hand were acting.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have seen this myself more than once in a home game.

[bacats32]

wow people have to watch who they hang with I guess. I run a home game every week and sometime more than that one day. I know over half of the people that come and they are regulars. I get over 20 people every week. The ones who win alot are myself, my wife, and a buddy or 2. And seeing as though I know my wife just doesn't know how to cheat, I know I don't, my buddy doesn't either. I know my game is good. Although I am trying to recruit a couple people to go into this bar game that is good structure and $40 and gets almost 50 people every time 3 times a week. Want to more work to gether than cheat. So I am more on the lookout for 5 total players that are good enough to go in with. Granted we might chip pass, and stay out of each others way. But never at a home game. That is shady.