12 People Who Played Casinos And Robbed Them Blind

With people spending $37.34 billion on gambling in commercial casinos in 2012, it's easy to see why so many are quick to warn us that the house always wins. Yet that big figure also tells us just how many people aren't able to heed that warning.

In the past, we've talked about how casinos keep people coming back with more than just the allure of big jackpots, but the success the gaming industry enjoys can be described as a double-edged sword.  

Even putting aside the sad reality of gambling addiction, the problem with the big money that comes from these even bigger promises is that it can attract the wrong kind of attention.

Whether by force or by clever schemes, some folks will stop at nothing to get their hands on a piece of the gaming industry's massive money stores. And some have managed to outplay casino security for some massive hauls. However, it's worth remembering that these huge windfalls often came at a high price.

And so let's go through these 12 tales of people who passed over the bank and tried to break the casino.

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1. Australia's Crown Casino lost $33.2 million to a clever hacker.

This person was able to access the casino's security cameras and spy on players' and dealers' cards. This allowed a gambler to know telling him exactly how he should bet, presumably through wireless signals.

He was able to do this for weeks and rack up multi-million payouts before he was finally caught. However, authorities believe the hackers involved could still be at large.

2. An employee at Soboba Casino hogtied his co-workers and rushed the vault.

Rolando Luda Ramos held several workers at gunpoint, some of whom recognized him, and locked them in the vault after making off with $1.5 million. Nobody was seriously harmed because the gun wasn't real, but Romas apparently used pepper spray on one of his captives.

Within two years of the crime, Ramos and his getaway driver would be convicted of robbery, false imprisonment, and unlawful use of tear gas. 

3. A cashier at the Stardust simply walked out with $500,000 in his backpack.

It seemed like Bill Brennan was just leaving for his lunch break, so security staff saw no reason to cause a fuss. And by the time they discovered what he had taken, he was long gone.

It's been almost 25 years since the incident, but Brennan's whereabouts are still unknown. 

4. The "Biker Bandit" made a daring raid on the Bellagio.

Back in 2010, Anthony Carleo pulled up to the casino on his motorcycle and walked in brandishing a gun. He escaped after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips, but the problem was that a lot of the chips he stole were valued at $25,000. 

He was able to blow through his lower-valued chips in a month, but he wasn't able to get rid of the cranberry-colored $25,000 chips without getting caught so he tried to sell them online. This failed and he ended up getting caught and sentenced to at least nine years in prison.  

It seems like the Bellagio is one unlucky place because this wasn't the first dramatic robbery that happened there.

5. Jose Manuel Vigoa put on body armor and jumped over the Bellagio's cashier cage.

He and an accomplice made the jump before stealing $160,000 in cash and chips and firing a shot at pursuing security guards. Fortunately, nobody was injured and Vigoa and his cohorts were caught within months of the incident.

MGM Resort installed bars around their cashier cages after this happened, and Vigoa ended up with four life sentences because he had killed two armored truck drivers in the past. 

6. Akingide Cole allegedly stole $1.6 million in chips right from under the Venetian staff's noses.

Using burglary tools, Cole was able to enter a restricted area of the casino and walk out with the chips before anyone noticed he was there. Unfortunately for him, many of the chips he stole were valued at $1,000 or more, and highly valued chips tend to be scrutinized when they come from an unfamiliar source.

Despite his slick getaway, Cole was caught less than a month after the burglary.

7. Roberto Solis convinced an armored truck driver to leave her co-workers behind at Circus Circus.

Heather Tallchief was supposed to supply casinos across Las Vegas with cash for their ATMs, but after the couriers made their first stop at Circus Circus, she and the truck were nowhere to be found. They initially feared that she had been kidnapped, but when security footage showed that she drove off alone, they realized she had driven off with the truck's payload of $3 million.

Tallchief had entered a romantic relationship with Solis,  but he ended up with the lion's share of the money and Tallchief surrendered to police 12 years later. 

8. Three players got away with using laser scanners to take $1.6 million from London's Ritz Casino.

The scanners were linked up to a computer, which measured the speed of roulette wheels and told them the most likely numbers to turn up. Although the trio was arrested, police eventually decided they hadn't committed any crime and allowed them to keep their winnings.

Of course, we couldn't talk about clever ways around casino rules without bringing up the most famous group to beat the odds.

9. The MIT Blackjack Team made millions over several years by counting cards.

There's nothing new about counting cards in Vegas, but most people who do it tend to give themselves away by working alone and suddenly upping their bets. This team, however, planted players who played small bets but signaled the count to the high-rollers in the group, who would come in and place big bets immediately.

This method made the counters hard to spot, but the team ended up running into trouble after some of the greedier members ratted them out to an organization called the Griffin Agency who tracks big winners.

10. Keith Taft spent over a decade inventing wearable computers to help him win at gambling.

Even more impressively, he started doing this in the 1970s when his creations would have caused a bulge in his clothing and spilled battery acid on him. With the help of experienced gambler Ken Uston, Taft developed a better model and won $130,000 in 22 days. Although his device was discovered and sent to the FBI, they ended up deciding that he wasn't breaking the law.

Taft went on to develop more sophisticated tech like an early digital camera that fed information to his friends in a truck outside. However, he quit gambling soon after the truck was raided during a bomb threat to the building and his friends were arrested.

11. Reginald Johnson got 130 years for robbing Treasure Island and didn't care at all.

Johnson robbed the casino three times and fired his gun at security guards each time he did it. On his third and final attempt, he shot and injured a guard in the back.

When police showed Johnson video of his crimes, he asked for popcorn and laughed at the part where he shot the guard. When faced with the maximum sentence, Johnson simply said, "Bring it on."

12. Sometimes, the casino is only part of the robbery plan.

Hackers siphoned $81 million from Bangladesh Bank and reportedly used casinos in the Philippines to launder the funds. After a court order, one of the casinos who received the stolen money returned about $15 million to the afflicted bank.

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