In Reply to: Card scam details posted by nomadmac on Tuesday, 21. June 2005 at 11:11 Bali Time:
wow. reading your story was prety amazing for me. same thing happened to me in kuala lumpur in 1988 (the similarities are pretty spooky actually). I was 18 & backpacking with a mate (I think it was the third day of our trip). We were sitting in a market place in KL eating lunch when the young boy next to us started a conversation - about his sister who was about to travel to Australia to work. We were young & naive & all about "meeting the people" & out for adventure etc. to cut a long story short... we jumped in a taxi with this chap, went to his house (sister was out and back soon...), met the "uncle" & neighbor who were casino croupiers & had their own card "system", they arranged a "high roller gambler from Borneo" to front up with his rolls of $US on the understanding we would fleece him (we had nothing beter to do on a hot day in KL so went with the flow to see what would happen - could be a good story to tell our mates back home). We played five hands with a remaining pot of cicra $50k, we placed our card hands in sealed envelopes (& signed the envelopes) with the cash in a locked filing cabinet. We were then escorted to a money changer to raise approx $700 between us. The difference with my story is that we went back to the house to play the game. at this point you would be wondering how anyone could get themselves into such a situation & persist with the game. Its called youthful adventureness/foolishness & the euphoric feeling of being invincible & in total control at this age in a foreign country. We knew at this point that something was amiss although I'm ashamed to say these guys were so good (at acting) that we actually thought there was a big prize waiting if we just front up with the $700. This was because we knew what hand (in the sealed envelope) we were playing against - all we had to do was front up with our cash, turn the cards over & walk away with the loot (we were young & invincible - whats the worst thing that could happen)...
We went back to the house, the Borneo chap was very upset that we had only $700 and kept ranting that something unusual was happening (we thought he was on to us & our clever sting..)but he agreed to turn the cards over, on the condition that whatever happens we play five more hands. the cards were turned, & yes we won the hand and the pot. We had a stack of chips representing approx $50k. At this point (and it was late at night by this stage)things got pretty exciting. Our friends demenour seemed to change, we played a couple of hands & won (the card system is a simple signalling system where the dealer signals the player - us -and we know what the next card on the deck is & also what the other player is holding.This went on and it got down to the last hand - the rule was that we were not allowed to fold (as conveyed by our "partners")we eventually bet our entire pot including our $700, used the dealers house as collateral (gets better & better) to which he signed over with a quasi mortgage tipped into the pot. At this point we thought there was a good chance that we would not survive the night. the cards were turned over - we lost!! (that wasnt supposed to happen). The man from Borneo bolted with the cash & mortgage, our partners screamed blue murder at us & because we lost their house, they would not let us leave until they knew where we were staying and dropped us off at the hotel - after they had arranged a further game in Singapore in a couple of weeks to allow us sufficient time to raise some significant cash from our parents.
We went back to our hotel room - vomited severely, packed our bags & scamperred in the early hours & caught the next train to Penang.
Not proud of this little adventure but it happened.....Took me a while to accept that the whole exercise was a clever scam (these guys were well versed in their roles.