{"id":9235,"date":"2015-11-25T00:28:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T00:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2015\/11\/25\/as-a-professional-casino-cheat-john-vaccaro-set-the-bar-high\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T00:28:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T00:28:19","slug":"as-a-professional-casino-cheat-john-vaccaro-set-the-bar-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2015\/11\/25\/as-a-professional-casino-cheat-john-vaccaro-set-the-bar-high\/","title":{"rendered":"As a 'professional' casino cheat, John Vaccaro set the bar high"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tThe Nevada Gaming Control Board\u2018s Excluded Person List — also known as the "Black Book" — shows information on John Vacarro Jr. For more information, see http:\/\/gaming.nv.gov\/index.aspx?page=72<\/a> Courtesy, Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/span><\/p>\n

\tBy John L. Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/p>\n

\tJohn Vaccaro was sure he had something big working.<\/p>\n

\tBut in the world of the professional casino cheat, good help can be hard to find. It\u2019s not all \u201cOcean\u2019s 11\u201d reruns, baby. Putting together a competent crew isn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

\tVaccaro picked up a phone at a Las Vegas sports bar and complained to an associate down South, \u201cThey want to argue with people that\u2019s been doin\u2019 it all their lives. See?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe later summarized his opinion of Nevada\u2019s gaming industry, \u201cWell (expletive deleted) the casinos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThat was John Vaccaro.<\/p>\n

\tEventually, Vaccaro\u2019s criminal associates in the takeoff of the President Casino in Biloxi, Miss., in 1993 focused on their work long enough to relieve the gambling hall\u2019s blackjack tables of $500,000 before the scheme unraveled and resulted in a federal criminal indictment. Some took a plea, others took flight. Nothing if not dedicated to his trade, Vaccaro took another fall.<\/p>\n

\tJohn Joseph Vaccaro Jr., a military veteran, roofing contractor and longtime member of Nevada\u2019s casino \u201cBlack Book,\u201d died Nov. 16 after a brief illness. He was 75.<\/p>\n

\tIt would be easy to vilify Vaccaro for all the trouble he caused casinos, and the challenging times he put his family through, but I have to give him credit for one thing: No one can accuse him of failing to dream big.<\/p>\n

\tBorn in New Orleans, Vaccaro was on friendly terms with members and associates of the Marcello crime family much of his life, and law enforcement authorities linked him as a member of the Southern California La Cosa Nostra family headed by Peter Milano.<\/p>\n

\tThat membership and $5 will buy you breakfast at Denny\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\tBut unlike most in Milano\u2019s motley circle, Vaccaro was a genuine schemer not content with picking up nickels and dimes from careworn street rackets.<\/p>\n

\tIn a prior life, he was a U.S. Air Force veteran who worked for many years in the casino industry. Then, you might say he started to take shortcuts.<\/p>\n

\tAlthough his criminal record stretched back to 1971, he landed high on the government\u2019s radar in 1983 as the leader of what was then the biggest slot machine-rigging caper in Nevada history. In all, eight people manipulated more than 100 slot jackpots at casinos throughout Nevada and racked up more than $8 million before being caught. One jackpot at Harrah\u2019s Tahoe alone paid $1.7 million. The first MGM Grand in Reno lost more than $1 million. The crew also scored at the Castaways, Barbary Coast, Bingo Palace (now Palace Station) and Holiday Casino in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\tA conviction in that case sent Vaccaro to prison and also ensnared his devoted wife, Sandra, in the mess. The Vaccaros were placed on Nevada\u2019s \u201cList of Excluded Persons\u201d in June 1986.<\/p>\n

\tBut talk about being true to your school. The Vaccaros somehow survived all that trouble and tumult and remained married 48 years.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe was probably one of the wittiest and most charming guys I\u2019ve ever met in my life,\u201d Vaccaro\u2019s former defense attorney Dominic Gentile says. \u201cThe guy was a laugh a minute, but he could be as serious as a heart attack. He had both sides to him. But he never lost his sense of humor. And he did a lot of time. He did a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBy the time of the Biloxi casino caper, a marked-card scheme, Vaccaro was well known in law enforcement circles. Where it once might have been relatively simple for Vaccaro and his associates to move from one casino to the next, improved surveillance, security and information sharing made pulling off a lengthy score virtually impossible. Those \u201cOcean\u2019s 11\u201d days were always more movie fantasy, anyway.<\/p>\n

\tBut even an appeals court appeared to appreciate the colorful lineup of defendants it was entertaining.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe jury was presented with a large cast, including characters with varying levels of responsibility in the casino and others with ties to organized crime,\u201d members of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals observed in 1997.<\/p>\n

\tVaccaro paid for his crimes with stays in the penitentiary of varying lengths. He paid for his associations, too.<\/p>\n

\tBut he wasn\u2019t lying that day on the phone at the sports bar.<\/p>\n

\tWhen it came to cheating a casino, he knew what he was doing and had been doing it all his life.<\/p>\n

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Replies:<\/h3>\n

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The Nevada Gaming Control Board\u2018s Excluded Person List — also known as the "Black Book" — shows information on John Vacarro Jr. For more information, see http:\/\/gaming.nv.gov\/index.aspx?page=72 Courtesy, Nevada Gaming Control Board By John L. Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal John…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}