BULLIED: Hua Shi of Brooklyn says he is haunted by his treatment by the Golden Nugget casino. (Ron Sachs/CNP)
BULLIED: Hua Shi (right) of Brooklyn says he is haunted by his treatment by the Golden Nugget casino (above). (
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This gambling den made it hard to lose.
An embarrassed Atlantic City casino is suing 14 gamblers — including two Big Apple residents — demanding they return the whopping $1.5 million they collectively won after realizing the mini-Baccarat table they were playing at was using unshuffled decks of cards.
The sharp-eyed gamblers racked up a staggering 41 winning bets in a row at the Golden Nugget after seeing cards in the eight-deck shoe coming out in sequence and adjusted their wagers accordingly — as the clueless croupiers kept on dealing.
Such a pattern would have allowed bettors to know in advance which of the two sets of hands in each deal — banker or player — were going to win.
Stunned casino workers swarmed the hot table suspecting the players of cheating — but only later realized that the cards that had been ordered as pre-shuffled from a Missouri company “were not shuffled at all,” a Golden Nugget spokeswoman said yesterday.
“The gamblers unlawfully took advantage of the Golden Nugget when they caught on to the pattern and increased their bets from as little as $10 to $5,000,” the casino said in a written statement.
The suit demands the return of more than $550,000 in cash the casino paid out before ceasing to honor chips held by the players — and also wants the gamblers to return the nearly $1 million in chips they still hold.
The Atlantic County lawsuit also names card vendor Gemaco Inc., and claims the company admitted it had botched the order. A Gemaco spokeswoman did not return calls for comment.
It has been met with a countersuit from three of the bettors, including Queens resident Ping Lin, who allegedly managed to collect $50,000 from the casino, and Brooklyn cook Hua Shi, who allegedly collected $149,000
They claim they should be allowed to cash in chips they won and keep the cash they already managed to collect.
The trio’s lawyer, Benjamin Dash, said the Golden Nugget’s suit is “sending the message from the casino that ‘when we win, we win, and when we lose, we win.’
Shi, 54, claims in his suit that hours after the game he was rousted from his hotel room by four Golden Nugget employees, who “restrained” him and “pinned him to the wall” as they searched his room without permission.
Then Shi was taken to a room elsewhere where he “was confined against his will for more than eight hours,” his suit claims.
“I’m very disappointed with how the casino treated me,” said Hua Shi, 54. “Since the incident I’ve been very scared, haven’t slept very well, and I end up waking up every one to two hours.”
The Golden Nugget called Shi’s allegations “completely false.”
Additional reporting by Chuck Bennett