There’s no doubt about it, gambling means big business. Casinos in the U.S. raked in $62.8 billion in 2011, according to Spectrum Gaming Group, a research and professional services firm.

But with the good comes the bad for the gaming industry — cheating is also a big money maker for those who find ways to deceive the house. Thanks to technology, it’s getting harder to pull off. Casinos have cameras trained on every table and are always on the lookout for anything suspicious. But some people still manage to do it. Casino cheating expert George Joseph of Worldwide Casino Consultingestimates the industry loses tens of millions of dollars a year in scams.

The scams can be pulled off with age-old sleight-of-hand tricks or with the aid of high-tech devices. Either way, they are illegal and could mean time behind bars for those who are caught. However, penalties vary from state to state. In Nevada, for example, someone convicted of cheating faces one to six years in prison, or a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

So what are some of the ways people cheat in casinos? CNBC.com spoke with Joseph, who is author of “The 101 Most Asked Questions About Texas Hold’em and Poker Cheating,” to compile a list. Some are common cheating methods; others are employed less frequently but can result in a big payday.

Click ahead to see 10 ways scammers have been able to trick casinos out of money.

By Michelle FoxPosted 13 June 2012

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This casino cheat needs the participation of the casino’s card dealer to work. The dealer employs a false shuffle, which is meant to look like a regular shuffle but secretly leaves some cards in place. That allows the players involved in the conspiracy, who have been tracking the cards, to know when the unshuffled cards are dealt.

It was a scam used to great effect by the Tran Organization.The gang hit casinos all over the U.S., pocketing up to $7 million in false shuffle mini-baccarat and blackjack games. The organization was ultimately brought down, and more than 40 people pleaded guilty to charges relating to the cheating scheme, including its founders, Phuong Quoc Trongand Van Thu Tran.

Past posting in roulette is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and it’s still plaguing the industry, Joseph said. It’s also quite simple — cheaters place their chips on the winning number after the ball has dropped in the roulette wheel. Usually one player in on the scheme will distract the dealer, and a second player will put his chips, with his conspirator’s different colored chips underneath, on the winning number. If the second player is caught, his chips will be removed, but the first player’s chips will remain.

This move requires a hidden camera up the sleeve of the cheater. When the player cuts the deck of cards, he or she takes the cut card and drags it over the top of the deck, slightly separating the cards from each other. The camera records the cards, and an accomplice watches and relays the information back to the gambler via an earpiece.

It’s most commonly used on baccarat but can also be used in blackjack, Joseph said.

Card switching — or hand mucking, as it is also known in the industry — has been around for years, according to Joseph. However, it has moved from simple sleight-of-hand tricks to using hidden “holdout” devices. Gamblers use the device to hide a card up their sleeve and deposit it on the table, and then remove and hide cards from the table.

The gaming industry has lost millions of dollars because of this scam, Joseph said. Foxwoods Casino Resorts in Connecticut fell victim to it in 2010, when two South Korean nationals— Young Su Gy and Wookyung Kim — stole several hundred thousand dollars by using a holdout device to switch cards in midi-baccarat games. The two were caught, and they ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and theft. Gy was sentenced to 18 months in prison; Kim was sentenced to 12 months behind bars. They were also ordered to pay $870,505 in restitution.

As slot machines have gotten more sophisticated, so have the cheating methods. In the old coin slot machines, cheaters could attach a piece of string to the coin, with a paper clip on the end to prevent it from falling into the hopper.

The newest way to scam slot machines involves a small computer device that tricks the bill validator. The device, usually disguised by a $1 bill, has two prongs that are inserted into the bill validator. Once they hit the contact point below the validator, the slot machine will read any bill that’s inserted as a $100 bill. The most recent devices don’t even need another bill to work — instead they just add credits after hitting the contact point in the slot machine.

However, casinos have caught on and the scam is less common than it once was. Slot machines have now been retrofitted so that the devices won’t work, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board. So the only way for a cheater to use the device is to find a machine that hasn’t been updated.

Players who count cards are considered “advantage players,” people who use an advantage they have to win, rather than cheaters. If they use their mind to keep a tally of the value of cards they’ve seen to determine the ration of high cards to low cards remaining in the deck, it’s legal. However, the act crosses the line into cheating when someone uses a device, such as a card counting computer, Joseph said.

Also considered an advantage play, hole card reading occurs when players in games like blackjack, three card poker and Texas Hold’em try to spot the dealer’s hole-card — the card that’s face down — and use that information while playing the game.

Like card counting, hole card reading crosses the line into cheating once the player uses a device like a small, hand-held mirror or hidden camera to see the card.

Instead of tossing the dice during a craps game, some cheaters have been known to slide dice down the table without changing the number that he or she has selected to face up.

Typically, the cheaters try to control only one die so the bouncing one gets the attention. They can also employ a sleight-of-hand trick to spin the die so that is more stable when it slides, which also adds to the element of deception.

It is not the most frequent scam, but it can mean a big payday for those who pull it off — and a big loss for the casinos. Wynn Las Vegas lost $700,000 to a team of alleged dice sliders in 2011, according to a lawsuit the casino filed against the alleged cheaters in September 2011.

This ruse involves two players. The first player will purchase a certain color of roulette chips for $1 each, and slip some of them into his pocket. He then passes them off to an accomplice, who hides them in his pocket, returns to the same table and buys the same color chips for $25 each. After playing for a while, he cashes in the $1 chips as $25 chips.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board tells CNBC the scam is a big issue right now in the state’s casinos.

There are a number of ways to mark cards — including infrared markings, denting it with a chip, bending the corner, and using a razor to scrape off some ink. The results, however, are the same — once the marked card enters the game, the player uses it to his advantage. The cards can be marked before the game and the cheater slides it in, or it can be marked during the game.

CNBC's American Greed examines the dark side of the American dream. Some people will do anything for money!

• Visit the show page
• How the Tran Organization Stole Millions
• Best Places to Go to Prison

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