When Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider, he developed special senses and turned into Spiderman.
What happened to a Vietnamese casino cheater who used a radioactive deck of cards is a lot less prosaic than what happened to the famous superhero, -but keep on reading if the stupidity of human beings interests or amuses you!
On August 15, 2014, Vietnamese police in the Quang Ninh province arrested a man who was carrying 4 decks of cards that were marked using an unidentified radioactive material.
The man, Bui Dinh Chung, confessed to the police that he had a hidden device somewhere about his person which started vibrating when he had any contact with the cards marked with the radioactive substance.
According to nuclear experts who examined the cards, the amount of radiation coming from the marked deck was a whopping 30 times higher than recommended for human health!
High radiation counts are probably the reason why these kinds of rigged decks and radiation detectors are not too popular with crooked gamblers.
The side effects of playing with such doctored equipment include extreme exhaustion, nausea, and in 2006 Hanoi police reportedly arrested a gambler with a similar radioactive deck which, upon closer inspection of his home, had, along with other, similar devices he was storing at home, caused his child’s hair to start falling out!
The penalties for messing around with nuclear waste is naturally far more severe than a ‘regular’, more environmentally-friendly cheater caught at a local casino would receive.
Mr. Dinh Chung was charged with handling and trading radioactive materials instead of just manipulating cards, and is now probably headed for jail as a result.
Winning is always great, but surely you have to offset the short-term benefits of victory over a few hands of cards against the costs of causing serious damage to your own health and that of your friends and family?!