What is the Gambling Protection Series?
The original GPS was a series of 4 videotapes produced by Steve Forte and Paul Donnelly in the mid-1980s. The series exposed dozens of cheating techniques that were used in private games (and to a lessor-extent, casinos) and methods of protection from those techniques. The series was never intended to teach people how to cheat, but rather to protect them from cheaters.

Who is Steve Forte?
Steve is widely considered to be the foremost authority/consultant in the world on casino game protection. Although retired from the consulting business for over 10 years now, he is still sought-after by casinos and private firms for his expertise and knowledge. Steve authored two of the best books in the business on cheating: Casino Game Protection and Poker Protection. Both books are considered the standards by which all other game protection books are measured. Other books and projects are in various stages of development.

Why did it take so long for the series to be converted to DVD?
Steve simply wasn't interested. He felt that the VHS version of the original series had run its course and he was prepared to let the remaining copies of the series slowly vanish by attrition. Several friends had attempted to convince him to convert the series over the years, but the timing was just never right. In early 2007, after repeatedly hounding him to do something with the series, Steve caved and turned over the masters to Jason England. The responsibility to convert the series was now Jason's.

Ok...so why did it take so long?
Because we wanted to do it right. Jason felt that some 'bonus features' would help to update and revitalize the series for a new generation. He asked for many things and got some of them - others were denied. At the end of the day he came away with almost 2 hours of footage that had never been seen before, some of it genuinely breath-taking.

What are the bonus features?
There are four items included on disc 3: Gambling's Invisible Thieves, Steve's 'Hidden Secrets of Magic' performance, Museum Tour, and '52.'

• Gambling's Invisible Thieves is a 1-hour television show that was shot just after the original G.P.S was completed in the late 1980s. On the show, Steve demonstrates several cheating techniques in a real blackjack scenario, a real craps scenario, a poker scenario and a slot-cheating scenario. All of the moves are presented in a 'test' format first, and then revealed to the viewer. Placing the moves in the proper gaming context really helps to sell the difficulty of detecting these moves without specialized knowledge.

• The Hidden Secrets of Magic clip is Steve's performance of false shuffling, card location work, second, bottom and center dealing. This clip has fooled (and continues to fool) some of the best cardmen in the world. It is the only item in these bonus features that has ever been previously released.

• The Museum Tour is a walk-through of Steve's private gambling museum in his home. This virtual tour is given in almost the exact same manner that Steve uses in person. You begin with chips, work your way around to the mini-craps table, and if you're lucky, you get a peek into the back room and wind up sitting at the center table with him. It's the closest many people will ever come to a tour like this, and we worked very hard to do it right.

• Lastly we have '52.' This segment represents 52 moves that were culled from footage Steve had shot but never planned to release. The footage was his "video outline" of moves he's collected over the years. Having them in a video format enables him to remember them without resorting to extensive hand-written notes. When he needed to brush up on a technique he would simply pull the proper tape and review it.

When I learned of the existence of these tapes I requested that they be made available as bonus features. Steve agreed and told me to pick 10 or 12 and put them on as bonus material. Somewhere along the way a dozen moves became 52. We hope you don't mind. The techniques shown include classic push-through shuffles, overhand shuffling techniques, false deals, palms, mucks, switches and even a few "special" moves. This section represents a culmination of over 30 years of collecting gambling moves. The results are unbelievable.

Are the moves taught, or just demonstrated, in the GPS series?
The moves are not 'taught' in the conventional sense. There are no "put this finger there and that finger there" instructions. However, the goal of the original series was to understand the techniques in order to be able to spot them, and almost every technique is shown from angles that facilitate learning the core move. Put another way, if you were a serious golfer, do you think you could learn anything from watching almost 6 hours of Tiger Woods swinging his driver from a dozen different angles? When it's all said and done, there is a massive amount of technique, rhythm and handling touches to be learned from this series. Don't believe us? Take a look at some of the things others have said. You might recognize a few of these names.