WIRED magazine writer Andy Greenberg hosts “Hacklab,” a show where they expose the “strange and subversive” side of technology. In a recent episode, Greenberg teamed with researcher and consultant Joseph Tartaro of IOActive to hack into the popular Deckmate 2 automatic shuffler, exposing its vulnerabilities.
Greenberg first looked into the automatic shufflers in 2023 following Hustler Casino Live’s investigation into the controversial hand between Garrett Adelstein and Robbie Jade Lew. HCL officials claimed “The Deckmate shuffling machine is secure and cannot be compromised.” Tartaro heard those words and took it as a challenge.
The Initial Investigation
Tartaro and his team successfully compromised the machine and sent their findings to Deckmate’s parent company, Light & Wonder. The company responded that their machines have never been compromised on the casino floor.
Greenberg followed up this year to see if Light & Wonder fixed the vulnerabilities. In an email to Greenberg, they claimed they “updated all our Deckmate shufflers.” But the machines aren’t connected online. Thus, a technician would need to physically update each machine.
Then, at the Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas last August, Greenberg and Tartaro teamed up again. They aimed to use the popular shuffler to “take full control over a poker game for perfect, undetectable cheating in a casino environment.”
USB Port Makes For An Easy Hack
Tartaro and Greenberg open up the machine to show its inner workings. He could easily compromise the shuffler through the machine’s USB connection with a circuit board smaller than a playing card.
Tartaro revealed multiple ways he could cheat with the compromised machine.
First, he could set every hand however he wanted. He called this the “Casino Royale,” where several players are dealt very strong hands. Then, he demonstrated a script where no matter where the deck was cut, a specific position at the table would always get dealt the winning hand.
Lastly, he hacked the camera inside the machine and actively monitored the card distribution to know whether he had the winning or losing hand.
The duo put their methods to the test in a Las Vegas dealing academy with gaming integrity expert Sal Piacente.
Piacente said he never saw a shuffler compromised in a casino. However, he also said “If there’s money involved, someone is staying up late at night to figure out how to steal that money.”
Piacente showed off a few classic cheating tools. But the most frightening was an earpiece a third of the size of a kernel of corn, and must be removed with a magnet. This technology was used last year during a high-stakes cheating scandal in France.
The original Deckmate was released in 2002 by SHFL Entertainment. Bally Technology acquired the machine in 2013 before selling to Light & Wonder a year later. SHFL Entertainment released the Deckmate 2 in 2012 and is the most widely used automatic shuffler in the poker industry.
The Experiment
Greenberg and Tartaro successfully pulled off their cheating hacks in a four-handed simulated game with two unsuspecting players. Piacente was blown away by Tartaro’s demonstration and called him “a dangerous individual.”
Over the last few years, there were several high-profile poker cheating scandals. Earlier this year, three Texas men were caught switching in their own RFID decks and had a card reader on the table. Also, Mike Postle was accused of cheating on a Sacramento poker room’s live stream. It was widely believed he had help from a third-party with access to the hole cards.
