Poker Muck - a famous method of cheating

The term itself

There are a lot of Casino Cheating Methods . Actually Mucking has several different meanings in the world of casinos and card games. Mucking refers to the act of folding cards and it also refers to the pile of the discarded cards which are placed near the dealer. In poker, once the cards have been discarded they cannot be used again in the hand except for very rare cases.

The discarded cards are considered to be dead and cannot be re-used. The dealer at the game has to collect all of these cards and keep them separately. This pile of dead cards is generally known as the muck. It consists of cards which have been thrown away, dead cards and foul hands. These cards must be kept face down in front of or next to the box close to the dealer. It is a player`s responsibility to ensure they do not enter the play during a hand.

Common rules

In any situation, when the live cards enter or even if the touch the much they would be declared as a foul. Thus it becomes very necessary to keep these cards separately. For example in case when a player has a very strong hand and there are full chances of him winning the hand, but accidentally he has been fouled because of the muck, he would lose. Mostly this will happen when the player is not careful while showing his hands at show down, this can happen.

In most casinos and poker rooms, a hand would not be considered valid at a show down if all the cards are not placed on the table face up in a way that all players at the table can see them. If the player turns over his cards not according to the rules or even if he or the cards touch the muck accidently it would be declared as a foul.

Muck as a cheating

However, muck also has another important meaning, one which is relevant to casino cheating . The dealer is responsible to ensure that once the cards enter the muck they would not be coming out. However, dealers don't always do a good job at this. Several players cheat at casino games by sneakily taking out a card from the muck which can be helpful to them during the hand. Players peek at the muck pile cards to see which are useful and then attempt to remove them from the pile for using them.

There are also several other ways in which a player might cheat using cards from the muck pile. A player might conceal and hide a card sneakily which have been declared dead and should ideally be in the muck pile. He might insert it back at a later stage with his hand to make a stronger hand. In blackjack, for example, a player might take an Ace from the table sneakily to make a blackjack later in the game.