Poker cheats are using modified smartphone cameras as the ace up their sleeve

Have you ever used your smartphone to cheat? Maybe you stole a quick glance at Wikipedia during a round of bar trivia? Were you extra clever and managed to squeeze a whole sheet of crib notes onto your tiny smartwatch screen? Powerful portable technology can be used for good just as easily as nefarious purposes, and this week we’re learning about a very clever and also very immoral way to use smartphone hardware to win at poker.

There are a lot of different ways to cheat at poker, but the vast majority of them come down to a question of knowledge: Who knows the most about what cards everyone’s holding? And while in the past, attempts to surreptitiously gain that knowledge might have involved the use of marked cards, a modern approach highlighted in a new report from Wired involves a clever smartphone-based hack.

Poker experts have been spotting some suspicious patterns of play, where people who are consistently winning at a rate far out of balance with their skill level had some kind of small, inconspicuous object sitting on the card table as they played — something like a bottle of medication, a battery charger, or even just a regular-looking smartphone in its case. While there initially wasn’t any direct evidence of cheating, a bust in France this summer finally managed to shine a light on how some of these players are managing to steal an edge.

The cheaters are reportedly modifying smartphone cameras with tiny mirrors that allow them to look out across the card table, even when a phone is placed flat down — think of it like a clandestine version of the periscope cameras some phones use for high-performance zoom.

While the shoes that dealers pull cards out of are designed to prevent exactly this sort of thing, apparently these cameras are low enough down to still get a tiny sliver of a peek, and that’s all cheaters need to make this system work. An accomplice monitors that camera remotely, and then can communicate with his confederate at the table through an earpiece so tiny that it can only be taken out with the help of a magnet.

So what’s the solution? Apparently casinos are looking into the idea of retraining dealers, specifically to avoid presenting this opening in the first place by handling cards in a way that further limits anyone’s chance of getting a peek. That could involve changing where the card shoe is placed relative to the players, and maybe putting it out in the center of the table. No matter what mitigation is taken, though, you can sure make one safe bet: It won’t be long before cheaters dream up an even more elaborate way to get any advantage they can.