Avoided jail time
Former poker dealer Jason Saliba is a lucky man. Saliba, who was caught stealing money from cash game pots, pleaded guilty to nine gambling law charges and will avoid any time behind bars.
The saga dates back to September 6, 2024, when a poker player in one of the low-stakes cash games Saliba was dealing at JACK Cleveland Casino’s popular poker room believed he saw him swiping chips from the pot.
The player told casino employees, who then reviewed security footage and found out the player was absolutely correct. The issue was then reported to the Ohio Casino Control Commission, which conducted an investigation.
Upon deeper review, investigators found that Jason Saliba stole chips 14 different times during a one-month time frame. The total amount he stole was less than $1,000, which is a very fortunate total for Saliba. That is because by keeping it under $1,000, the theft is only considered a misdemeanor in Ohio. If it was more than that, what he did would have been a felony.
That said, his 14 separate gambling law violations constituted a felony, though just fifth degree. The theft charge was a misdemeanor. In the end, several of the gambling charges were dropped, as was the felony charge.
Saliba faced as much as a year and a half in prison, but as part of his guilty plea, he avoided incarceration. He has been banned from JACK Casino, may not contact his former employer, and is required to pay small fines for his actions. He originally pleaded not guilty but changed it to guilty on Tuesday after several months of discussing a plea deal.
Dealers have the opportunity
Dealers committing crimes related to their position are rare, but they do happen. After all, it can be quite tempting to try to pull something off when constantly handling money. The more common schemes in recent memory, though, have been collusion with gamblers.
In May of last year, a dealer at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas colluded with a player – both of whose Facebook statuses said they were “in a relationship” with the other – in the “I Luv Suits Poker” table game. Without getting into all the details of the game, the player’s goal is to make a flush with as many of the seven cards they are dealt as possible. Like many table games, the dealer must have a flush of a minimum strength to qualify.
The dealer paid out the player’s losing hands 17 times. In each instance, the player, likely directed beforehand by her dealer friend, concealed a card amongst the others that would have invalidated her supposed flush.
In another case from April 2023, a baccarat dealer at the Mohegan Sun arranged the deck to favor a specific player. After a hand, the dealer would “wash” the deck in such a way so as to arrange a few of the cards in a certain order (they had been turned face up) and then place them on top of the shuffled deck. The dealer would then do a false shuffle and deal their accomplice favorable cards.
The player won over $124,000 in games with that dealer, but was eventually cleared of charges. The dealer, on the other hand, was charged with two counts of first-degree larceny, four counts of second-degree larceny, and one count of third-degree larceny.
Image credit: Erik Drost via Flickr
