Viratech Corp. (VIRA)

[JASON312]

WOW...

Here is a little DD on our friend Paul Wilson

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/jul/05/519003213.html

Pro Con: Wilson has scam-do attitude in 'The Takedown'
By Kirk Baird <[e-mail]>

LAS VEGAS SUN

Everything about Paul Wilson's appearance is average: average height, average weight, average looking.

Which is fine by him.

The 36-year-old Wilson doesn't want you to notice him. And if you do, it usually means something is wrong.

Wilson is a con artist, with an expertise in sleight-of-hand. It's his job to blend in with everyone else while pulling off the most extraordinary of scams.

In fact, if Wilson wanted, he could walk into any casino and switch casino dice to loaded dice during a game of craps, or pull out a king when needed during a poker match.

It takes years of practice and discipline to be that good. Wilson has nearly three decades of experience, beginning as an 8-year-old boy when his grandfather taught him how to deal from the bottom of a deck of cards.

Wilson recalls playing poker as a teenager with members of the Scottish mob, and pulling cards from the bottom of the deck for fun and practice.

"It was stupid, really," he said in a recent phone interview from his office in Los Angeles. "If I'd been caught, I would have been at the bottom of a river."

But that's all behind him now. Wilson gave up the cons years ago. He even passed on what he said was a scam involving computers and a South Korean casino that netted friends of his millions.

"I could've made a ton of money, but I made the right choice," he said. "I've got two kids. At the end of the day, I'm done screwing around."

But not completely.

Old habits die hard, and it's difficult for con artists -- even reformed con artist such as Wilson -- to give up the scam.

Not wanting to give up what he does best, cons, nor willing to risk going to prison because of it, Wilson turned to television.

The result is a new reality series, "The Takedown," in which he and a group of con experts attempt to scam casinos and other high-tech security businesses.

While the scams are real -- just as in real life, the cons almost go as planned -- the key difference between Wilson and other con artists is that he gives back whatever he takes.

He even shows the security team how his group managed to pull the scam. Wilson compared what he and his team members do to the Robert Redford-led group of con experts in the 1992 film "Sneakers."

"It's like hiring bad guys to come in and have a go, although it definitely turns out to be a pleasant experience," he said.

Despite "The Takedown's" mission of exploiting casino security weak spots so that the problems can be corrected, most casinos were reluctant to be a part of the series.

"We called over 100 casinos pitching a show where a guy is going to cheat your place," he said. "That was the end of the conversation."

In the end, two Las Vegas casinos, Fitzgeralds and Lady Luck, agreed to host the scams, along with casinos in Reno and an art gallery and a pool hall in Los Angeles.

The rules of "The Takedown" are simple: A few members of casino management know of the scam; the remaining employees are told a reality series, "Gambling and the Law," is filming on the premises.

During the time Wilson and his team try to pull off scams -- everything from switching dice, counting cards and rigging slot machines -- normal casino security is present.

Considering Wilson is playing cat-and-mouse with millions of dollars in high-tech security equipment and experts trained to catch con artists, the stakes are intense.

And if any of the team members are discovered cheating, they go through the normal shakedown by security, just as in the series' pilot, when one of Wilson's experts is caught by casino security and taken to a room for questioning.

But Wilson expects wants security to be tight, in the spirit of competition.

"You want Foreman vs. Ali, you want a match," he said. "We don't want to walk in there and take the money out. We want it to be difficult."

Wilson and his team also have rules of their own.

They cannot cheat at a table being played by regular casino patrons. If authorities are called, or any team member is taken outside of the casino by security, the scam is stopped and the truth about the show is revealed.

"That's when someone will stop it right there," Wilson said.

But most often, security personnel are grateful for what they learn as result of being scammed -- especially employees at the Crystal Bay Club in Lake Tahoe, the first casino conned in the series.

In the episode, Wilson and his team manage to switch out the casino's standard dice for loaded dice that respond to magnet fields.

To pull off the con, three expert dice switchers, including Wilson, man a craps table, while another team member sneaks a magnet hidden in a coffee cup underneath the same table. Additional members are used around the table as distractions to the casino employees, to throw the loaded dice or as lookouts.

"I've been looking for that kind of thing for 24 years now and never really seen it," said craps dealer Jeff Cole to the cameras after the con was revealed. "It's quite surprising the kind of things that can be done."

Bill Wood, Crystal Bay Club casino manager, was equally impressed by Wilson's team and their elaborate scam.

"When you have a group of people who are as adept at doing what they are doing, it's difficult to catch them," Wood said to the cameras. "I thought they were great."

A reality series about con artists cheating casinos might seem a departure for Court TV, which is a network best known for its live coverage of sensational court cases. But Marc Juris, general manager of Court TV, says otherwise.

"We're always looking for ways to show a different side of the justice system and those that ... walk on a different side of the law and how they got there," Juris said. "This is just a very different way to show a side of casino gambling, which is also subject to lots of scams, cheats and frauds."

When Juris took over as GM of Court TV, "The Takedown" was already seven or eight months into production. After reading the show's premise, Juris said he was intrigued by the series' potential and "how unique it was and how it can tap into the fascination of gambling."

"It's about expertise, high stakes and there's an (aspiring) quality to it and a sexiness," he said. "I don't think people view it as the hard work that it is."

In all, 12 half-hour episodes of "The Takedown" were made, four of which were filmed in Las Vegas.

But odds are strong that there will be additional episodes next year.

Juris said "The Takedown" is doing well enough to merit a second season, and Wilson said he has plenty of ideas for additional cons to pull on even bigger casinos.

"For every game in the casino, there are 100 scams you can do," he said. "Do the math -- that's a lot of shows."