Ida Summers
The Vixen of Vegas
Ida Summers or better known as the Vegas Vixen, is one of the most notorious and successful casino cheaters of all time. A petite and attractive woman with bold cheating techniques earned herself thousands of dollars daily during the 1960s and 1970s across casinos in Las Vegas.
Summers Bold Cheating Techniques
Amongst many cheating techniques Ida Summers used, was her attractiveness. She would flirt with the dealers to the point that they lost focus and did not realise she was cheating them out of their money. She also used the process of hand mucking when she first arrived in Vegas. Hand mucking involves bringing one or two of your own cards into play, but you have to match the cards being used by the casino perfectly.
Often Ida Summers would steal cards from the dealers or at times convince the dealer to give her one of the casino’s decks so she could “practice at home”. Upon her return to the chosen casino she would hide the cards in her sleeve and swop them without being noticed so she could reach 21, Blackjack her game of choice.
As she grew bolder, Ida decided to use “cooler” as her new method of cheating. Cooler or Cold Decks were Blackjack shoes filled with pre-arranged cards that were flawlessly designed to beat the house. It was risky as it entailed shoe swopping, yet Summers managed to pull it off by recruiting several male friends to assist her in her efforts.
The End
The details on exactly how Ida Summers landed up getting caught is unclear. Assumptions were that the FBI had been watching her for several months gathering sufficient evidence to prove she was cheating. It is said that the FBI received a tip-off by one of her male companions. Ida Summers indeed cheated death too, because the Mafia ran the casinos at that time; instead, she got off with probation.