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Hacking a Deckmate 2 Shuffler (1 Viewer)

Poker Zombie said:
I gave some thought to the smart watch. The cheat here is reading an entire deck. I'm sure some speed-reading memory-champion may be able to scan their watch for every card and remember it, but those people will be very few.

No protection will be 100% safe. The goal is to make the challenge greater than the reward.

No electronic devices while in a hand isn't unenforceable. It used to be the way, but they bent the rule for the instagram crowd. Bend it back - just a little. You can read your phone, check your electronic GTO charts, take stack pics, text your buddy at the other end of the table, whatever. Just not in a hand.
Click to expand...
Hypothetical scenario where this hack could be used in a high stakes game.
  • Shuffler gets compromised so that the camera data can be leaked
  • Data is sent wirelessly to a computer or device in the hand of Accomplice
  • Data is run through a program that automatically lists the ordered cards and requests the contents of the flop
  • Player is wearing a hidden camera, allowing Accomplice to view the flop, and Accomplice enters that into the program
  • Program determines which player will win the hand at the river and informs Accomplice
  • Accomplice informs the Player if they will be the winner at the end of the hand either via a device or by informing a Middle Man that signals the Player
  • Player strategically plays only hands they will win to the river (or maybe lose a few hands at showdown for the minimum to divert suspicion)
 
buzzmonkey said:
Hypothetical scenario where this hack could be used in a high stakes game.
  • Shuffler gets compromised so that the camera data can be leaked
  • Data is sent wirelessly to a computer or device in the hand of Accomplice
  • Data is run through a program that automatically lists the ordered cards and requests the contents of the flop
  • Player is wearing a hidden camera, allowing Accomplice to view the flop, and Accomplice enters that into the program
  • Program determines which player will win the hand at the river and informs Accomplice
  • Accomplice informs the Player if they will be the winner at the end of the hand either via a device or by informing a Middle Man that signals the Player
  • Player strategically plays only hands they will win to the river (or maybe lose a few hands at showdown for the minimum to divert suspicion)
Click to expand...
@dpeks13 already beat you to that punch.

All the same, a hack requiring multiple people is more complex. As I said, no system is 100%. A dealer dealt game could be just as foul with good deck manipulation. It would just be difficult.

Any time you sit down to gamble, you are taking risks. Is the game fair? Will I get mugged walking back to the car? Purses have been stolen from poker rooms. Players have stood up and walked out with their chips after losing an all-in bet.

As @eightyWon points out, this was discovered as a vulnerability. Let the manufacturers and casinos be aware and take steps to correct.

Personally, I was more shocked to learn that there even is a camera reading the card faces in a deckmate.
 
Poker Zombie said:
[...]
Personally, I was more shocked to learn that there even is a camera reading the card faces in a deckmate.
Click to expand...
All casino shufflers has this to tell which card is missing or the deck is faulty (i.e. 2 x 7c).

The cheat doesn't even need an accomplice, you just run a program on your laptop which is in the backpack next to you. You enter one of your hole cards and number of players and you can just scroll through the other player's card, or even get it to tell you what you'll end up having on the river.

Now, doing a lot of fidgeting on your watch in the middle of every hand or every big hand, will obviously set off some alarms, but a simple notification telling you which seat the winner is, 2nd, 3rd etc will do miracles.
 
Say the dealer always does a quick cut / shuffle / cut (with one of the cuts being a “Scarne” cut) after the Deckmate.

Techie cheaters might still be able to guess at future cards to come or opponents’ holdings... if the dealer is totally consistent in his cuts, and shuffles perfectly every time.

But card predictions would then be tough to make with precision, and could sometimes result in errors which actually cost their accomplice money. The slight advantages gained might no longer be worth the effort and risk… No?

Adds time, but we’re talking just seconds per hand.
 
BarrieJ3 said:
Even if you know for 99% certainty that your straight flush over straight flush was clean and everyone’s a “great guy”, I wonder if folks playing in games that big don’t pause for a second with large 6 figure amounts changing hands.
Click to expand...
That's not really what's happening here, no one is hacking the order of the shuffle, but the camera inside the machine that is used for counting the cards and making sure all are in play, could be hacked to give the deck order out of the well.

Poker Zombie said:
I gave some thought to the smart watch. The cheat here is reading an entire deck. I'm sure some speed-reading memory-champion may be able to scan their watch for every card and remember it, but those people will be very few.

No protection will be 100% safe. The goal is to make the challenge greater than the reward.

No electronic devices while in a hand isn't unenforceable. It used to be the way, but they bent the rule for the instagram crowd. Bend it back - just a little. You can read your phone, check your electronic GTO charts, take stack pics, text your buddy at the other end of the table, whatever. Just not in a hand.
Click to expand...
I think knowing the deck order from the camera would be pretty exploitable with an app. Even with the dealer cutting after taking the deck from the well. If you can input your own two cards and give the program your position and the number of players, it's pretty easy for a program to tell you what everyone else holds and what the five board cards will be, even after a standard single cut.

Taghkanic said:
Say the dealer always does a quick cut / shuffle / cut (with one of the cuts being a “Scarne” cut) after the Deckmate.

Techie cheaters might still be able to guess at future cards to come or opponents’ holdings... if the dealer is totally consistent in his cuts, and shuffles perfectly every time.

But card predictions would then be tough to make with precision, and could sometimes result in errors which actually cost their accomplice money. The slight advantages gained might no longer be worth the effort and risk… No?
Click to expand...

Changing the method of the cut after pulling the deck from the well seems to be the best way to defeat this. Anything more than a single cut would put more doubt into the predictions after the player inputs their own cards.
 
JustinInMN said:
Changing the method of the cut after pulling the deck from the well seems to be the best way to defeat this. Anything more than a single cut would put more doubt into the predictions after the player inputs their own cards.
Click to expand...
Unless the dealer cuts during the hand deal, the hacker would know everyone else's hole cards. Doesn't guarantee a win, but it's a huge advantage.
 
improviseallday said:
Unless the dealer cuts during the hand deal, the hacker would know everyone else's hole cards. Doesn't guarantee a win, but it's a huge advantage.
Click to expand...
Well knowing the exact outcome of every hand pretty much guarantees profit. Easy to stay out of bad second place situations, easy to see when to bluff, easy to see when you will catch the miracle.

But the point I was trying to make was about dealer technique. Right now the single cut out of the well is standard, but that's easily beaten with a cheat knowing his hole cards. I was suggesting (as I believe @Taghkanic is as well) is changing the standard out of the well would defeat this. Do two cuts and assemble the 3 parts of the deck randomly for example. Or do one riffle out of the well and a final cut. That would at least put some doubt in the card order even if the order out of the well has been captured by camera.
 
JustinInMN said:
Or do one riffle out of the well and a final cut. That would at least put some doubt in the card order even if the order out of the well has been captured by camera.
Click to expand...
That was my thought too. But as logical as it seems, there's something pretty absurd about taking a shuffled deck out of a $10k auto-shuffler and shuffling it.
 
upNdown said:
That was my thought too. But as logical as it seems, there's something pretty absurd about taking a shuffled deck out of a $10k auto-shuffler and shuffling it.
Click to expand...
Honestly, it's probably easier to rig a mechanical alarm to the USB port that can only be disabled by a key.

LATE EDIT: That probably is the answer in the end. Just put the USB port behind a locked panel with a key only managers can handle when doing firmware updates.
 
Last edited:
PLOdonk said:
Words getting out

Click to expand...
He had me until "It's well known that all video poker games are rigged to pay out jackpots at certain intervals".

Knowing that something can be foul is not the same as the games are rigged. F*cking conspiracy theorists are one more reason why gambling/poker is banned in so many places.
 
Schmendr1ck said:
A group of people also believe that Earth is flat.
Click to expand...
a lot of people believe a lot of stupid things. Those things are proven wrong in every possible way, and yet, they still believe. (mainly because there is a YouTube video about it, and how the hell can that be wrong !!!)

I don't care what people believe, or don't believe, as long as you leave me out of it.
 

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