A.C.'s Golden Nugget in legal war with $1.5 million winners

IT WAS Friday the 13th, this past April, when 28 decks of playing cards left a manufacturing plant in Kansas City allegedly carrying a simple, fateful flaw.

That minute mistake in Missouri grew into a giant mess more than 1,000 miles away at the Golden Nugget, one of Atlantic City's newest casinos. The saga includes almost a million bucks in uncashed casino chips, accusations of racism and allegations that patrons were held against their will by some clandestine security force. At one point, one of the patrons was allegedly put in a headlock at a noodle bar and dragged away.

In an unprecedented play, the casino filed a lawsuit to recoup money it lost to gamblers who thought they'd hit the jackpot. After a contentious hearing Friday in Atlantic City, the Texas billionaire who owns the Golden Nugget appeared to have had a change of heart, and the whole bizarre story had a happy ending.

But a lawyer who represents nine defendants sued by the Golden Nugget says that Friday wasn't what it seemed.

"It's really almost too outrageous to believe it all," said Alan Feldman, the defense attorney.

The decks from Gemaco, the Kansas City-based playing-card manufacturer, were dealt on April 30 at 7:42 p.m. during mini-baccarat game No. 802. According to the Golden Nugget's lawsuit, casino employees quickly realized something was wrong, at least for the casino.

It was as if lady luck had changed her fickle ways and graced the gamblers at game 802, hand after hand, for two hours and 36 minutes. The players won a whopping 41 straight hands and the casino, according to the lawsuit, figured a "criminal conspiracy of swindling and cheating was under way." Floor managers, pit bosses and surveillance teams descended upon the table.

No one at the Nugget could decipher why the players were so lucky, though, and the casino let the game go on till 10:18 p.m. When it ended, the house had lost a little more than $1.5 million.

There was no complex scheme, but it wasn't lady luck, either. Someone in Kansas City allegedly had forgotten to turn on the automatic shuffler before the cards got shipped out. Since the cards were never shuffled at the plant - the casino doesn't shuffle them again - the same patterns kept repeating in game 802. The players noticed, kept on betting and upped their wagers.

"They saw a pattern and didn't know how long it would last," said Feldman, whose clients are Asian and speak little or no English.

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A.C.'s Golden Nugget in legal war with $1.5 million winners