Gambler who marked cards on blackjack games could be added to Black Book

By Thomas Moore

Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Nevada’s Black Book will likely get a little thicker today after the Nevada Gaming Commission meets to decide if Bujar Kaloshi will become the latest person to be prohibited from having anything to do the casino industry.

Kaloshi (also known as Bruce Koloshi, Bruce Kaloski and Jeffrey Eliott) was nominated for the List of Excluded Persons, as it’s technically known, in April by Nevada’s gaming regulators who said he had a history of fraud against casinos across the U.S.

“Kaloshi has two felony convictions in Nevada, one felony conviction in Iowa, one in Connecticut and one in Louisiana,” said James Taylor, deputy chief of the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s enforcement division. “All of these crimes involved marking cards on blackjack games. The latest convictions were in 2014 when we started considering him for the Black Book.”

Nevada law says a person can be included on the list if their presence in a casino poses “a threat to the interests of this state or to licensed gaming, or both.”

To determine if that’s the case, the board and commission can look at a number of things including felony convictions, crimes involving moral turpitude, violations of state gaming law, illegally not disclosing a stake in a gaming establishment, evading fees or taxes, and having a “notorious or unsavory reputation.”

The reputed card cheat was added to New Jersey’s version of the list early last year, also for attempting to swindle casinos.

In 2014, he was featured in a New York Times story because of the way he cheated — using special contact lenses to see the “invisible” ink — and his reasons for cheating.

After being caught marking cards at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, the Times reported that Kaloshi said he did it in order to pay for his bail in Louisiana, where he was also charged with cheating.

While Kaloshi has the right to dispute his addition to the Black Book, gaming regulators say he didn’t ask for a hearing and probably won’t appear. Attempts to reach him, or an attorney who represented him during his cheating case in Connecticut, were unsuccessful.

At Thursday’s meeting, commission members are scheduled to hear a presentation about Kaloshi from the attorney general’s office, discuss the matter and vote.

The Black Book already includes two other card cheats, Anargyros Karabourniotis and Gary Frederick Young, and the enforcement division has similar cases pending, but Taylor said he could not disclose any details about them.