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- May 20, 2006
Posting this as a warning since these people are going from city to city scaming people for potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. They are currently in Beaumont, TX and St.Paul, MN. I almost don't even wanna snitch on these people. I admire the sheer genius of this operation, that and the fact it is more than likely tied to organized crime. My boy lost $400 early, would've been more but he spent all his cash. Let me set the stage for you. (TL;DR? See the bullet points for the scam breakdown, cliffs don't do it justice)
Me and my boy are going to a liquidation event, the kind you hear advertised on TV or radio. Car audio, flat screens, electronics, clothing, all at liquidation prices only open for 2-3 weeks. Usually held at convention centers or vacant big box stores around the country. This one was at a vacant circuit city building in a strip mall. Pretty sure most people are familiar with these events.
We get there and pay an unadvertised $5 entry fee.
Walk in and this place is nothing but junk, old *** computers/laptops and TVs. Everything looked like it fell off the back of a truck. Not only was it junk but it was expensive junk. Not a deal in sight. They were selling refurbished tablets for retail. 
There's one booth in the back with stacks and stacks of brand new 50-60 inch flat screens, Xbox and Playstations on display. This was the definitely the centerpiece of this traveling show, the main attraction. And it's a essentially a carnival type booth where you pay to draw ping pong balls out of a bin for a chance to win the prize of your choice.
I walk up and dude explains the game. You pay $5 for a try at scooping a ball out of the bin, the number on the ball corresponds to a number on a chart on the counter, the chart tells you how many points that ball is worth. You draw balls at $5 each until you get 100 points or more and you get to choose a prize, the best one was a 60 inch samsung LED. You use a 5 foot pole with a small basket on the end to scoop balls out of this bin about 3-4 feet behind the counter. The bin has an air blower mixing the balls around, like an open air lottery ball machine.
Some of the balls you draw earn points, anywhere from 1 point to 75 points. Some of them make you loose a turn, some make you loose 5-10 points, some of them give you a free turn. Some are instant winners; cheap toasters, blenders, tool sets, crock pots and the like. Then there are the bonus balls which I didn't find out about til later. You get a bonus ball and the price to draw a ball doubles. The prize also doubles. So the next ball will cost $10 but you can win 2 TVs or prizes if you end up winning. Draw another bonus ball and then it's $20 per ball and 4 TV's. Then $40 and 4 and so on all the way up to $320 per ball.
Soon as he gets through his speedy presentation he offers me a free turn. I get a ball worth 30 points. Now i'm thinking, even if this is legit I only have about ten bucks cash which would probably not be enough to get to 100 points, so I keep it movin. I go look at the rest of the junk in the place, come back and my boy is about $120 in currently paying $40 a ball on this damn carnival game :x He has like 80 points bout to win multiple flat screens. All he keeps thinking is about how he can flip the tv's and make some money blah blah blah. Ends up spending the entire $400 in his pocket and they offer him a voucher to keep his 96 points at $80 per ball and like 8 TV payout until he goes to get more cash.
He leaves, not feeling played, but feeling like he is going to go back and make a come up off all those damn TVs.
So, obvious scam is obvious right? I go home and do some research and not only is this illegal gambling, but it is rigged illegal gambling. One would assume the odds are much worse than they may seem or something like that. But no, there are no odds, you never win, it's impossible to win. The game is rigged. Nobody will walk out with a single TV let alone 8
From what I can tell this scam is originally a variation of an illegal carnival game. It became well known for scamming tourists in unregulated casinos in DR and the Caribbean. It's known there as Superkeno or Super Rainbow Jackpot. From what I can gather it hasn't been a scam used in the US for quite some time. I can only find a few instances of this scam in the US and they are all recent and occurred in the same Emergency Liquidation Center event I went to.
Heres some bullet points on the elements of the scheme I was able to piece together from recollection and research after the fact.
- The setting: Liquidation event in a low income area. People with little cash looking for deals on electronics. You come in and it's all crap except for all this new expensive stuff at the gambling booth. I guarantee it was the only booth of interest to anyone there and everyone there at least stopped and looked. Most folks there wouldn't or couldn't afford to play long enough to figure out you can never win. Plus it's not some street corner 3 card monty where you will expect illegal rigging. I really think the entire event is a front for this one booth, gives them cover to even be able to set this up anywhere.
-The set up: The angles of the counter, the pole and the bin don't allow you to reach to the very bottom of the bin. The air is circulating the balls on top but there are balls at the bottom not being circulated and that are unreachable.
-The balls: The numbers on the balls are spaced very far apart, instead of reading 112 it reads 1 1 2. They guy working the counter covers one of these numbers with their thumb. So the number 12 could really be 112 or any number between 120-129. I suspect that every 3 digit ball is a loser and that they are all 3 digit balls. They only way you ever win points or prizes is when the counter guy lets you by covering a digit, showing a winning 2 digit number on the 3 digit ball. This technique is known as "fair-banking" in carnival talk. This way if anyone ever catches them they can stop and the person still won't win. I also think it's rigged in multiple ways for the same reason. Like magnets or weighted balls. You catch em doing one thing and they can stop but still make sure you don't win. It's going to cost you more and more to keep playing to see if they were really rigging it. Plus you think you can win now since they stopped doing what you thought was preventing you from winning. If they depend solely on the skill of the counter guy to know all the balls and combinations they present as well as what all values are worth in points they will eventually make a mistake and they will end up owing someone 5 TVs which I am sure they don't even have. Just empty boxes.
-Misdirection: In hindsight, I rarely got a good look at any of the balls my boy was pulling. The length of the pole kept the ball a good distance away from us. He would call the number out and briefly show it while directing our attention to the chart so we could see what that ball was worth. By the time you look up from the chart he is already throwing the ball back in the bin with the rest. You can't immediately question if he's cheating cause you don't immediately know if the ball is good or bad for you. You're more eager to see what the ball is worth than what the ball actually is. We were like trained dogs, briefly looking at the ball and then following his finger as he pointed to the chart. I imagine either the set up of the numbers on the balls or a magnet that can be turned on/off allows them to keep cheating you if you happen to catch them covering a number and start asking to see the full ball.
-The odds: No odds are posted, since it's rigged there are really no odds, you don't know how many of each numbers are in the bin. Like I said, I think the only way you score points is when the counter guy lets you. By covering numbers they can get you up to 70-80 points pretty quickly giving a false impression of the odds. If I can score 70-80 points in 10 minutes it must not be too hard to score points. They give a false sense of the odds even though they are not explicitly told. Every scam story online is the same, the person gets to 90 points very quickly but can never get those last few points no matter how long they keep playing.
-The cop: Uniformed, off-duty cop was hired to do security. In the carnival variation they always talk about the local cop or security guy being in on it, they escort people who figure out the scam off the premises. Not saying the cop was corrupt but it would have been easy to game him and get him in the right frame of mind. Just tell him they always get a lot of sore losers and people who get angry when they loose a lot of money and that they are hiring him to remove anyone who becomes disruptive or makes a scene. The cop is not gonna believe some low income guy saying the game is rigged over a seemingly legit vendor that is probably paying him pretty well for being there especially if they already prepped him to expect to deal with some sore losers. A similar game which you could never win was busted in New Orleans not too long ago. The undercover investigators in that case remarked on the first day of surveillance that for this to be going on out in the open, there had to be cops involved. Cops were eventually indicted in that case.
-Receipts: There are none of course, no credit accepted either. They do give you a voucher that states your point total and how much you are paying for balls if you want to walk away from the table and come back later. Nowhere on the voucher does it say how much you paid to reach that point total. There is no record whatsoever of how much you are paying these people. Even if you could prove fraud, which I don't even see how you could, there is no way at all to prove how much you were scammed for.
At this point, after thinking on it a couple days, I see no way this crime can be proven. I'd like to find a way to get my boys money back but I doubt that's possible especially since he can't prove how much it was. I know if they catch some heat they will close up shop and just do it in another city with no consequences. I suppose it's good enough just to get em out of my city so no more poor folks get scammed but it'd be nice if these people could be stopped for good. Hope this awares some NTers and their family members.
Cliffs:
-went to Emergency Liquidation Center clearance event for electronics, all they had was junk and a booth where you could illegally gamble for expensive, brand new 60 inches and gaming consoles.
-the gambling game was rigged so no one would ever win. this same game is well known in the Caribbean for scamming tourists at unregulated casinos. a multi-million dollar operation run by the mafia there.
-a cop was in on it
-my boy lost $400
-i'm trying to figure out how I can prove this scam before they flee town.
Me and my boy are going to a liquidation event, the kind you hear advertised on TV or radio. Car audio, flat screens, electronics, clothing, all at liquidation prices only open for 2-3 weeks. Usually held at convention centers or vacant big box stores around the country. This one was at a vacant circuit city building in a strip mall. Pretty sure most people are familiar with these events.
We get there and pay an unadvertised $5 entry fee.
Walk in and this place is nothing but junk, old *** computers/laptops and TVs. Everything looked like it fell off the back of a truck. Not only was it junk but it was expensive junk. Not a deal in sight. They were selling refurbished tablets for retail. There's one booth in the back with stacks and stacks of brand new 50-60 inch flat screens, Xbox and Playstations on display. This was the definitely the centerpiece of this traveling show, the main attraction. And it's a essentially a carnival type booth where you pay to draw ping pong balls out of a bin for a chance to win the prize of your choice. I walk up and dude explains the game. You pay $5 for a try at scooping a ball out of the bin, the number on the ball corresponds to a number on a chart on the counter, the chart tells you how many points that ball is worth. You draw balls at $5 each until you get 100 points or more and you get to choose a prize, the best one was a 60 inch samsung LED. You use a 5 foot pole with a small basket on the end to scoop balls out of this bin about 3-4 feet behind the counter. The bin has an air blower mixing the balls around, like an open air lottery ball machine.
Some of the balls you draw earn points, anywhere from 1 point to 75 points. Some of them make you loose a turn, some make you loose 5-10 points, some of them give you a free turn. Some are instant winners; cheap toasters, blenders, tool sets, crock pots and the like. Then there are the bonus balls which I didn't find out about til later. You get a bonus ball and the price to draw a ball doubles. The prize also doubles. So the next ball will cost $10 but you can win 2 TVs or prizes if you end up winning. Draw another bonus ball and then it's $20 per ball and 4 TV's. Then $40 and 4 and so on all the way up to $320 per ball.
Soon as he gets through his speedy presentation he offers me a free turn. I get a ball worth 30 points. Now i'm thinking, even if this is legit I only have about ten bucks cash which would probably not be enough to get to 100 points, so I keep it movin. I go look at the rest of the junk in the place, come back and my boy is about $120 in currently paying $40 a ball on this damn carnival game :x He has like 80 points bout to win multiple flat screens. All he keeps thinking is about how he can flip the tv's and make some money blah blah blah. Ends up spending the entire $400 in his pocket and they offer him a voucher to keep his 96 points at $80 per ball and like 8 TV payout until he goes to get more cash.
He leaves, not feeling played, but feeling like he is going to go back and make a come up off all those damn TVs. So, obvious scam is obvious right? I go home and do some research and not only is this illegal gambling, but it is rigged illegal gambling. One would assume the odds are much worse than they may seem or something like that. But no, there are no odds, you never win, it's impossible to win. The game is rigged. Nobody will walk out with a single TV let alone 8
From what I can tell this scam is originally a variation of an illegal carnival game. It became well known for scamming tourists in unregulated casinos in DR and the Caribbean. It's known there as Superkeno or Super Rainbow Jackpot. From what I can gather it hasn't been a scam used in the US for quite some time. I can only find a few instances of this scam in the US and they are all recent and occurred in the same Emergency Liquidation Center event I went to.Heres some bullet points on the elements of the scheme I was able to piece together from recollection and research after the fact.
- The setting: Liquidation event in a low income area. People with little cash looking for deals on electronics. You come in and it's all crap except for all this new expensive stuff at the gambling booth. I guarantee it was the only booth of interest to anyone there and everyone there at least stopped and looked. Most folks there wouldn't or couldn't afford to play long enough to figure out you can never win. Plus it's not some street corner 3 card monty where you will expect illegal rigging. I really think the entire event is a front for this one booth, gives them cover to even be able to set this up anywhere.
-The set up: The angles of the counter, the pole and the bin don't allow you to reach to the very bottom of the bin. The air is circulating the balls on top but there are balls at the bottom not being circulated and that are unreachable.
-The balls: The numbers on the balls are spaced very far apart, instead of reading 112 it reads 1 1 2. They guy working the counter covers one of these numbers with their thumb. So the number 12 could really be 112 or any number between 120-129. I suspect that every 3 digit ball is a loser and that they are all 3 digit balls. They only way you ever win points or prizes is when the counter guy lets you by covering a digit, showing a winning 2 digit number on the 3 digit ball. This technique is known as "fair-banking" in carnival talk. This way if anyone ever catches them they can stop and the person still won't win. I also think it's rigged in multiple ways for the same reason. Like magnets or weighted balls. You catch em doing one thing and they can stop but still make sure you don't win. It's going to cost you more and more to keep playing to see if they were really rigging it. Plus you think you can win now since they stopped doing what you thought was preventing you from winning. If they depend solely on the skill of the counter guy to know all the balls and combinations they present as well as what all values are worth in points they will eventually make a mistake and they will end up owing someone 5 TVs which I am sure they don't even have. Just empty boxes.
-Misdirection: In hindsight, I rarely got a good look at any of the balls my boy was pulling. The length of the pole kept the ball a good distance away from us. He would call the number out and briefly show it while directing our attention to the chart so we could see what that ball was worth. By the time you look up from the chart he is already throwing the ball back in the bin with the rest. You can't immediately question if he's cheating cause you don't immediately know if the ball is good or bad for you. You're more eager to see what the ball is worth than what the ball actually is. We were like trained dogs, briefly looking at the ball and then following his finger as he pointed to the chart. I imagine either the set up of the numbers on the balls or a magnet that can be turned on/off allows them to keep cheating you if you happen to catch them covering a number and start asking to see the full ball.
-The odds: No odds are posted, since it's rigged there are really no odds, you don't know how many of each numbers are in the bin. Like I said, I think the only way you score points is when the counter guy lets you. By covering numbers they can get you up to 70-80 points pretty quickly giving a false impression of the odds. If I can score 70-80 points in 10 minutes it must not be too hard to score points. They give a false sense of the odds even though they are not explicitly told. Every scam story online is the same, the person gets to 90 points very quickly but can never get those last few points no matter how long they keep playing.
-The cop: Uniformed, off-duty cop was hired to do security. In the carnival variation they always talk about the local cop or security guy being in on it, they escort people who figure out the scam off the premises. Not saying the cop was corrupt but it would have been easy to game him and get him in the right frame of mind. Just tell him they always get a lot of sore losers and people who get angry when they loose a lot of money and that they are hiring him to remove anyone who becomes disruptive or makes a scene. The cop is not gonna believe some low income guy saying the game is rigged over a seemingly legit vendor that is probably paying him pretty well for being there especially if they already prepped him to expect to deal with some sore losers. A similar game which you could never win was busted in New Orleans not too long ago. The undercover investigators in that case remarked on the first day of surveillance that for this to be going on out in the open, there had to be cops involved. Cops were eventually indicted in that case.
-Receipts: There are none of course, no credit accepted either. They do give you a voucher that states your point total and how much you are paying for balls if you want to walk away from the table and come back later. Nowhere on the voucher does it say how much you paid to reach that point total. There is no record whatsoever of how much you are paying these people. Even if you could prove fraud, which I don't even see how you could, there is no way at all to prove how much you were scammed for.
At this point, after thinking on it a couple days, I see no way this crime can be proven. I'd like to find a way to get my boys money back but I doubt that's possible especially since he can't prove how much it was. I know if they catch some heat they will close up shop and just do it in another city with no consequences. I suppose it's good enough just to get em out of my city so no more poor folks get scammed but it'd be nice if these people could be stopped for good. Hope this awares some NTers and their family members.
Cliffs:
-went to Emergency Liquidation Center clearance event for electronics, all they had was junk and a booth where you could illegally gamble for expensive, brand new 60 inches and gaming consoles.
-the gambling game was rigged so no one would ever win. this same game is well known in the Caribbean for scamming tourists at unregulated casinos. a multi-million dollar operation run by the mafia there.
-a cop was in on it
-my boy lost $400
-i'm trying to figure out how I can prove this scam before they flee town.
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