J4 Gate, The Hustler Poker Cheating Scandal investigation and how Hacking helped me do it

Presented at DEF CON 31 (2023), Aug. 12, 2023, 9:30 a.m. (45 minutes).

On September 29th, 2022, one of the most controversial poker hand was played, winning an all-in $240K cash pot on the Hustler Casino Live poker stream (HCL) by newcomer Robbi Jade Lew. The controversy and accusations of cheating took the poker and media world by storm! Conspiracy theories emerged immediately within the media, podcasts and the internet sleuths, including crossover theories from the Chess cheating scandal, accusations of collusion with HCL employees, and advanced technology being used. This is the wild tale of my investigation into cheating live stream poker if it was done and what are all the ways I would do it. I will also show how I utilized my experience from attending hacking conferences such as Defcon for over 26 years, the competitions and how I tapped into a broad range of resources throughout the years of making friends in the hacking community, reaching out to discord groups and doing that which isn’t covered in the academic world. This is why I am here; this is why you are here. This war story contains treachery, wild technology theories, drama and current criminals on the run. But you, the audience must all decide. Is Robbi innocent or guilty? Was something missing? How would you have cheated? REFERENCES: * Hancke, G. P. (n.d.). Practical Eavesdropping and Skimming Attacks on High-Frequency RFID Tokens. Retrieved from http://www.rfidblog.org.uk/Hancke-JoCSSpecialRFIDJune2010.pdf * https://wa5vjb.com/ * How to Build a Low-Cost, Extended-Range RFID Skimmer https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec06/tech/full_papers/kirschenbaum/kirschenbaum_html/index.html * DEF CON 17 - Christine Paget - RFID Myth busting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMm4g5yhDoY * DEF CON 18 - Christine Paget - Extreme-Range RFID Tracking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9_8F_BKeto * PokerGFX Software - https://videopokertable.net

Presenters:

  • Scott "Duckie" Melnick - Principal Security Research and Development at Bulletproof International
    Duckie, aka “Scott Melnick,” started his shenanigans War Dialing on his Apple ][+ at an early age and has been attending Defcon and other hacking conferences for over 26 years. Scott currently heads the Security R&D team for Bulletproof, a part of Gaming Laboratories International. Specializing in casino gaming security, he spends his time hacking and reverse engineering electronic gaming devices such as slot machines, sneaking around casinos, getting kicked out of casinos, and speaking at gaming security and regulation events. Over the years, he has worked on many gaming fraud and security breach cases. Before joining Bulletproof, he served as the Vice President of Systems Software Development for a slot and table game maker and held various positions in the slot industry, leading mechanical and electrical engineering projects, overseeing security, and managing IT gaming operations, among other things. He is excited to be delivering his first Defcon presentation this year and contributing back to the hacker community.

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