Live poker security with Alexandre Henry

We chat to the owner of the Unibet Deepstack Open series to learn how they ensure no cheating with the cards, chips and the dealers.

Whenever poker players think of security, we think of online cheatin scandals, are we complacent about the same thing in live poker?

Alexandre Henry: No, I don’t think so because there haven’t been any major cheating scandals like online. With our DeepStack tour we use the same dealers for our events in France with Texapoker staff and work with some of the best casinos in Europe. I made these videos to show how we work in the background on tournament security. Some of the venues we worked with didn’t want us to make the videos and give cheaters ideas, but we think it’s good to talk about these things. We think the videos discourages cheating. We explain some of the processes we have to stop cheaters, but we don’t explain them all for obvious reasons. In general players are more afraid of online cheating than live, because we have cameras and security staff.

In general players are more afraid of online cheating than live, because we have cameras and security staff.

There is a trend towards speeding up the game with Shot Clocks and Single Antes. If we have so much emphasis on getting more hands in per hour does that take needed attention away from security?

Alexandre Henry: I see what you mean but we haven’t spotted any cheating problems that might bring. The main problem these things are bringing to tournament directors are the new problems like whether to use a Big Blind or a Button Ante, what to do when a player only has one Ante left. We are adding the Single Ante to our events (probably the Big Blind Ante) but not a shot clock yet because our customers are amateurs, we want to keep the ambience nice in the tournament.

"The poker world is small"

When a tour uses the same staff for all their events that is a good sign to me compared to using the casino’s local staff. How do you make sure you have trustworthy dealers?

Alexandre Henry: We work with all the same dealers for our events in France and we work closely with the Tournament Directors in other places like Malta and Spain to get the right dealers who are all licensed dealers. The problem is poker is a small world, a lot of the time dealers will know the players, especially the regular players on the circuit, we know how it is, after the tournament everybody goes to the bar together. That’s life but it comes to a point where it’s problematic if dealers and players spend too much time together, UDSO and all our partners are very looking into that by any mean if we have any doubt. In the tournament we change the dealers regularly, we have a plan of the order they will deal at each tables and sometimes we break that plan and reverse the order, so there cannot be any preparation of cheating.

I’ve seen your video (below) on the lengths you go to to protect the cards. What do you do to protect chips? To stop people stealing them and using them later.

Alexandre Henry: We had an incident where several 5,000 chips were missing at the end of the tournament so we simply removed all the 5,000 chips, create different, specific design and replaced them with a new set for future events. So the chips that were lost or stolen can never be reused, because we threw them away.

"It's difficult to learn sleight of hand"

It must be expensive to keep switching chips around, but I have been to plenty of card rooms that reuse very old chips that have become faded and dirty.

Alexandre Henry: When we travel for an event like the one in Malta, we take an inventory of the chips to see if we can use them. If there is a problem, like if chips are missing – not the small 25 chips, the big ones which could be problematic – then we use another chip set. We do this way before the tournament, we check a month in advance and bring a new chip set if there is a problem.

Finally, I hear you are also a magician – that must help with spotting cheaters?

Alexandre Henry: I started doing magic 20 years ago, I wrote some books and made some videos, I don’t do shows any more. I haven’t spotted a dealer cheating yet, but if I have doubts I can go into the camera room or stand behind him to see if it looks like he is working with any of the players. Magic is also a very small world, it is very difficult for a guy to teach himself so it would be unlikely I haven’t met anybody who can do sleight of hand. There is an ongoing case from another big Tour in France where a cheat involving dealer and players has been alleged but that case hasn’t been judged yet. When that case happened, I called the Magic Shop in Paris where all the best magicians go, I showed them a picture of one of the guy and he said he had seen him a few times.

Stay tuned to the DeepStack Open YouTube page as they will be releasing more videos on how they approach security in the next few weeks.