The Mickey Mouse Camera

In October 2025 a couple flew from Kazakhstan to Sydney and joined Crown casino the same day they landed. Dilnoza Israilova was 36. Her husband, Alisherykhoja Israilov, was 44. Over the next few weeks they kept coming back to the same tables.

Police say those visits added up to $1,179,412.50 in Australian dollars. The games, according to industry writer Willy Allison, were Mississippi Stud and Ultimate Texas Hold’em. Both are built around the dealer’s hidden cards. If you know those cards, you know when to raise and when to get out. The house edge does not survive that.

The opening is ordinary. Cards come out of an auto-shuffler and get laid face down. Sometimes a corner flashes as the dealer lifts them. Old teams sat in the right seat and used their eyes. Most rooms treat that as advantage play. A hidden camera is different. In Australia, and in most other places, using a device to help you play is a crime.

Allison says the couple started with a phone camera on the table. Later the lens moved into a pinhole on Israilova’s Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Earpieces closed the loop. One of them could see the card. The other could bet. Nobody else at the table heard a word.

Staff spotted the shirt camera on 27 November 2025 and called police. Officers from the Casino and Racing Unit arrested the pair at Barangaroo and later searched a Kent Street flat nearby. They found phone mirror attachments, magnetised probes, batteries, jewellery, and €2,000. NSW Police told the BBC they were not looking for a third person at the time. A similar job in Paris a year earlier had used a third person sitting in a car.

The couple were charged with dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception. They did not apply for bail. A court still has to decide guilt. Det Supt Peter Faux said the stop came from casino security and detectives working the floor together.