Some high-stakes poker players are cheating with an earpiece that's 'so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers' and looks like a 'James Bond movie device'
As someone who was once upon a time enthralled with TV poker in its heyday, it saddens me to see some of the ruin technology's wrought upon the game. Despite joining the online crowd some years ago (and considering myself the best UK-based, 5-foot-11, under-bankrolled, hazel-eyed, bearded, break-even micro-stakes player to ever grace the virtual felts of GG Poker) I never liked how technology—AI in particular—has changed the game, either.
Consider me vexed, then, to find out (via Wired) that high-stakes poker rooms now have to worry about hearing devices «so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers» and cheap DIY mirror contraptions that can seemingly best even specially designed casino shoes. All in the name of earning a few extra bucks… okay, maybe more than a few.
According to Wired, a case in France has shed light on how some of the latest cheats are performed. Essentially, it boils down to smaller or more hidden cameras and smaller or more hidden communication devices.
In the case of a casino in Enghien-les-Bains, France, the cheating players modified smartphone cameras with mirrors so they could lie a phone down flat and still record horizontally, across or around the table.
The camera then captured images of card faces as they were dealt, and these were sent to the other cheater who would communicate back to the seated cheating player to let them know who has what.
This was communicated using a «device is so small that you can’t take it off with your fingers», according to Stéphane Piallat, commissioner of the Central Racing and Gaming Service (SCCJ), who also said, «You need a magnet to pull it off, otherwise you can’t do it. It looks like a typical James Bond movie device.»
In some ways, it doesn't surprise me that poker cheaters are using stuff like this. I used bone induction earphones for some time, and it did cross my mind that one could probably make some pretty ingenious audio transmitters these days for relatively cheap.
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