Part IV: Financial Fraud · Internal Collusion & Employee Fraud · #8.2
Paying Losing Bets / Pushing Losses (The “Soft Drop”)
How it works
The most brazen form of dealer collusion occurs when a dealer pays an accomplice on a losing hand or pushes a loss instead of collecting the bet. For example, in blackjack, a player with 18 against the dealer’s 19 would normally lose, but the dealer either pays the bet as if it won or pushes it. In a single session, just one such overpay can negate hours of house edge. If a dealer turns one losing hand into a win every 200 hands (roughly two hours of play), that shifts about 1% of the money bet to the player, more than the roughly 0.5% house edge a basic-strategy blackjack player faces. The dealer uses misdirection techniques: paying during busy moments, while other players are distracted, or by combining the accomplice’s payout with other players’ legitimate wins.
Where it appears
Blackjack primarily, but applicable to baccarat, casino war, and other head-to-head games
On the record
In 1997, Roger McElfresh, an executive overseeing construction of the Venetian on the former Sands site, and dealer Laura Hernandez were arrested and charged; prosecutors alleged she exposed cards to him while he played blackjack at the Orleans. Gaming control officers identified 113 possible criminal incidents.
Detection & preventionADVISORY
The paid halfHow a monitoring room catches paying losing bets / pushing losses (the “soft drop”), and what stops it recurring, written for the desk, not the reader.
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Published as a detection reference for surveillance, compliance and gaming-operations professionals. Thresholds and tuning are set by the property. Nothing here is instruction: the method is described so it can be recognised.