Cheaters never prosper, or do they? A 37-year-old Iranian man has found out the hard way that they don’t as he’s about to be sentenced in England for cheating at a game of American roulette. He’s also facing fraud charges to go along with the cheating ones.
It seems that Iranian-born Bahram Sahami has been visiting local casinos to cheat at the roulette table by removing or adding betting chips from the table and even by stealing other player’s chips after the roulette ball had been dropped to start the game.
Sahami, who lives in the north-eastern English city of Middlesbrough, pleaded to three charges of fraud, two of theft and three of cheating at gambling on Oct. 6th at Southwark Crown Court. This is only the third time somebody has been prosecuted for cheating at gambling since the Gambling Act 2005 was put into effect in the United Kingdom back in 2007.
Sahami had been banned across the nation by all of the major casinos for his cheating ways, but according to Scotland Yard, he still gained access to some of them in the capital city of London by using four fake identities between March and July in 2009.
All of Sahami’s fake identities were supported by forms of legal identification such as British drivers’ licences and membership cards. However, Sahami definitely couldn’t be accused of being the brightest cheater in the world as he was only stealing about £25 to £130 each time he cheated.
He was finally caught at a casino belonging to the Gala Coral group as he was spotted on a closed circuit television camera. That shouldn’t have come as any surprise to him as Britain is notorious for its use of CCTV cameras to help reduce crime and promote public safety.
The arrest of Sahami shows that crime doesn’t pay at that the CCTV cameras are doing a good job of helping to identify criminals in the UK.