South Point Casino in Las Vegas has changed the way cards are dealt in its poker room, adopting slide dealing so dealers slide cards to players instead of pitching them. The aim is to reduce the chance that other players can see exposed cards.
CardPlayer reported that poker room manager Jason Sanborn said the move was prompted by growing anxiety about game protection, including discussion online of AI and Meta Glasses, cameras and hearing devices. He said those developments made him think about what operators could do to protect the game as well as possible.
Sanborn said he did not think it was reasonable to ban electronics at the table. He said shifting to the slide pitch offered the best protection against exposed cards that operators could currently provide, and South Point chose that option over a broader crackdown on cell phone use.
The decision also reflects the wider unease that has followed a series of cheating scandals involving technology. Authorities arrested suspected “casino gangsters” in 2024 who allegedly used cell phones to secretly film cards as dealers dealt them at casinos across Europe. French authorities also said suspects used a phone on the table during blackjack and poker games to take low-angle photos of card faces, while another phone was taped to a stomach to record images through tiny holes in a shirt.
Police said the men used microscopic earpieces that could only be removed with a magnet, while cohorts away from the casino received the images and told players which cards were being dealt. Investigators said the scheme was used at several European casinos and allegedly brought in €200,000 from one French casino after several visits.
Supporters of slide dealing said it was a simple way to curb that kind of cheating. Andy Bloch said some of the best dealers can pitch cards high enough for players to make out a card, and that sliding helps avoid flashing cards. Bart Hanson said similar cheating methods had been reported in some US casinos, including cardrooms in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, though he said it is hard to bring the issue to light unless a cheater is caught red-handed. He also said it is very hard to persuade the general public, including casino management, based only on play or statistics.
Opponents said sliding the cards slows the action at the table. Supporters, by contrast, believed the European-style method was an easy way to address cheating that had appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. South Point’s management said the slide method would spread to other parts of the country.
