It’s easy to detect cheating methods like hand mucking, bottom dealing and counting cards. Google researcher reveals a gadget that functions and looks like a phone, but contains hardware and software specifically designed to cheat in card games. The device reads markings on each card with a hidden camera and can analyse them to determine a card’s suit and value.
The app is relatively simple, despite being sophisticated. The device’s secret cam is visible on the main screen. The bottom half shows various bits of data, including the game type (in this case “1016”), the number of players, whether or not a haptic feedback device is connected and the current result.
The camera can be activated with a button on the side of the device and can also be hidden inside an external lens such as a lighter or car key poker scanner. It can even be integrated with a concealed earpiece, so it can be used without drawing any attention from other players.
The device can identify the winner in each game within 0.03 seconds. This is mainly due to the scanning and analysis process, which works in the background. The device can scan barcode marked cards and then send them to a analyzer. This analyzer then calculates all of the data and predicts which card will win in each hand. All of this is done in a quiet and private manner, so that no one but the cheater knows what’s going on.