Second Dealing - a Method of Casino Cheating

Second dealing has been a very popular method among all casino cheating methods cheating in card games and even in magic card tricks. Any player who is a specialist in cards manipulating is known as a card mechanic and the one who is good at second dealing is known as a second dealer.

The idea of the second dealing

Second dealing usually takes place when the player knows the value of the card located on the top of a deck. The cheater can deal with the second from the top card to the opponent so that he can have the top card from the deck. This method is generally used along with another cheating methods like card marking.

The probable conditions

Usually second dealing holds when the deck is dealt by hand, but it can also may take place in case of using dealing shoe which is very common at casino games. In case a dealing shoe deal the cards, the dealer would push the top cards upwards and then strike the second card which would be exposed partially. An expert would be able to master this trick perfectly.

Burn cards

Casinos and card rooms developed a method of burn card to prevent players from cheating using this method. When these burn cards are used, the top card is always discarded and the second one would be then dealt. This ensures that the person dealing the card would not know about the cards being dealt. However, even with burn cards players can still cheat by using the same method as second dealing.

The design printed on the back of the cards can sometimes help players and in other cases they can also hinder their efforts. A deck which has just a solid color on the back would make it very difficult for others to detect second dealing. The ones which have only a logo or a uniform pattern are not so difficult to detect. The cards which have strong border design in white are the easiest of all to manage.

How to perform the trick

The trick can be performed using one or even both hands. When the dealing hand is used in a way that it blocks the view and hides what the dealer is doing, it is known as using shade. There are many different ways in which second dealing can be detected. For example, the pace with which the cards are being dealt will change when the second is made, the noise would be different when the second one is dealt, the finger movements would be odd and the movement of the deck would also be different. Even odd grips signify that cheating methods are being used by the player.