The night before his luck ran out in Bethlehem, one of Nevada’s most wanted casino cheats allegedly managed to swindle nearly $1,000 out of Bensalem’s Parx casino.
Pennsylvania State Police in the Trevose section of Bensalem have issued an arrest warrant for 40-year-old Las Vegas resident Jubreal Chahine, aka Alexander Allen, Gabriel Allen, Allen Allen and two other aliases, charging him with two counts of felony theft by deception and criminal attempted theft, and misdemeanor unlawful take/claim.
Chahine is locked up in a Lehigh County prison in lieu of $150,000 bail charged with being a fugitive from justice. He has multiple detainers from Nevada and other states.
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| Jubreal Chahine |
Pennsylvania State Police arrested him Saturday morning on the floor of the Sands Casino in Bethlehem after he applied for a player’s card there using his correct name and birth date, according to authorities.
On Friday night, an observant table dealer caught Chahine surreptitiously changing his wager from $100 to $575 after he won in an attempt to increase his winnings, a cheating technique known as pinch-pressing, according to court documents.
The dealer refused to pay the difference. Chahine then denied changing his bet, and said he was seeking change, according to the probable cause affidavit. Chahine then cashed out and left the casino shortly before 11:30 p.m., before state police were informed.
Parx surveillance reviewed video of other tables where Chahine played earlier in the evening and saw that twice before he successfully changed his bet from $100 to $575, resulting in an extra $475 payout, according to the affidavit.
Chahine managed to cheat by exchanging one of four green chips, worth $25 apiece, with a purple chip, valued at $500, after a win, court documents said.
“It is clearly visible in the video surveillance that the defendant changed his bet,” state police said.
As a result, Chahine left Parx with $950 more than he actually won, the affidavit shows.
Parx was able to identify Chahine using biometric facial recognition software, which compared photos of him allegedly cheating at Parx with pictures the casino had on file, the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which lists him as one of its most wanted cheaters, and the mug shot photo taken Saturday after he was busted at the Sands, court records said.
Chahine has “multiple” warrants from “multiple” states for similar alleged cheating incidents, state police said.
Nevada’s gaming regulators consider Chahine one of the most notorious cheaters in the state with 14 arrests for casino-cheating crimes since 1999 in Las Vegas and Reno. He has five previous convictions for those crimes, said Karl Bennison, the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s chief of enforcement.
He was sentenced to 19 to 48 months in prison on a cheating conviction in late 2003, according to Clark County court records.
Currently, Chahine has seven outstanding arrest warrants in Nevada for alleged casino cheating, and at least six are for charges filed after his most recent arrest last August, Bennison said. He also has multiple bench warrants for not showing up for court appearances in the state, he said.
In Vegas and Reno, Chahine is known for two cheating methods, Bennison said. He changes the amount of his wager to increase his winnings, particularly on Blackjack and Baccarat tables, or he past-posts, which is when a gambler attempts to make a bet after the roulette wheel is spinning or the die are thrown on the craps table.
“He’s probably been eighty-sixed from most of the (Vegas) Strip casinos, (and) that is probably why he does travel,” Bennison added. “He gets caught a lot, but you don’t know what you don’t know. How many times has he has gotten away with it?”
Chahine will face the Pennsylvania charges first. The other states looking for him might get him before he returns to his hometown, Bennison said. If convicted in Nevada alone, he could face more than a year in prison for each crime.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
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