Shoe used to rob casinos

[SoCalDem]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12534638-38200,00.html



March 14, 2005
From:

A BATTERED shoe worn by a Hungarian tourist in Sydney has sparked an investigation into a syndicate cheating top casinos across Europe.

Two Belgian police officers will fly to Sydney later this month to study the shoe design which they suspect could be behind the multi-million dollar European fraud. Four years ago, Sydney detectives arrested Hungarian tourist Laszlo Sendor Kovacs after he won large bets at a Star City casino roulette wheel.

Casino security personnel became suspicious of the then 59-year-old gambler constantly tapping his right foot under a roulette table. Police found a Maxwell Smart-style microcomputer hidden in the heel and sole of his scuffed elevated dress shoe. With a tap of a toe, a microcomputer in the shoe transmitted a voice-synthesised message to a wireless micro-earpiece telling the user of roulette wheel's speed. This could help calculate the next number that would appear. Police found $74,184 in cash and chips on Kovacs' body including $10,000 in his underpants.

snip.....

The Sydney shoe is the only one of its kind found so far. Kovacs, a professional gambler, was deported from Australia in 2001 before he could be sentenced over "using a device" to defraud the Star City Casino. A warrant for his arrest is now in place should he return to Australia.

snip....

Kovacs, who visited every casino along the east coast, had won more than $120,000 at Star City before his arrest, although police suspect he won twice that amount. Evidence show he used the Pyrmont Post Office to wire a large amount of money in $10,000 lots, to an overseas account.

snip

[Lucky Luciano]

1. And people say physics is not worht studying!

:)

One of my heroes is Ed Thorpe a Physics PhD from UCLA - where I got my PhD in math:

1) Inventor of Card counting.
2) Hedge funds! Yes, the same way Soros got rich.
3) He also invented the first such computer to beat roulette as well with his understanding of physics.


The idea is that from his understanding of mechanics, a computer could easily be made (HE made his 35+ years ago!) that could say with a very high probability which 6 numbers the ball would land on - naturally, this increases your expected returns very significantly! :)

The most successful gambler in history I would say is Thorpe.

[NYC]

2. Modern science.

Creative.