- 1 – Flashing a 'Light Wand' to Fool the Machine's Payout Sensor and Triggering a Jackpot. If you've ever heard of the 'top-bottom joint,' the 'kickstand,' or the 'monkey paw,' congratulations! You know more about slot machine cheating than you probably should.
- Cheat 1 - The coin on a string. The coin on a string trick was one of the first cheats around. This is perhaps one of the easiest ones as cheaters would simply attach a string to a coin and drop the coin into the slot. They would move the string up and down until the slot registered coins as credits.
Monkey Paw was suitable for hacking mechanical gambling machines. Cheaters inserted a hook inside the slot and searched for a switch focusing on the sound. Pushing it, they made the slot share its chips. Monkey Paw has various types intended for certain models of slots. Although cheats have and do exist for random machines, it is far easier to create cheats for machines that are trying to reach a target percentage. Think of cheating a gaming machine in the same way you might develop a really good playing strategy for a video game, they are both computer programs attempting to lead the player in a certain. The coin on a string. The coin on a string trick was one of the first cheats around. This is perhaps.
'How to win on slot machines' is a popular search term, but we all know that the real question most of the gamblers want to know if there are 'ways to cheat a slot machine'. That's ok. Everybody wonders that. Since it is just the reels turning and symbols placing, there must be a 'trick', right? Well, we will answer this question right below but we are warning you: Don't get your hopes up.
IS CHEATING ON SLOTS POSSIBLE?
No. It is certainly not possible. This is not a click-bait article, we are giving you the answer right away. No, you cannot manipulate slot machines. There are no cheats, no hacks. Sorry. There was a time when this was possible, but not anymore. (We are giving a couple examples below.) To understand why, you must learn how slot machines work.
Most of the players still think that they are made of cogs and wheels. Thing is, they are totally 'digital' since the 90's. The spinning reels you are seeing are actually a piece of a computer code. If you open a slot machine cabinet and look inside, you won't be seeing any 'cogs'. The inside of a slot cabinet looks like a computer case. Each cabinet is connected to a central server, which actually 'spins' the reels. A computer software decides whether you have won or not. You cannot manipulate such a system with a screwdriver – you cannot manipulate it at all.
CHEATING THE COGS AND REELS
Up until the 60's, slot machines at casinos were mechanical devices. Believe it or not but they did not actually require 'electricity' to run. They were like mechanical watches and some casino worker manually winded them every couple of days. These were the games that could be cheated: In fact, most of the slot cheats are made to work with that type of machines. It was even possible to understand when a winning spin would happen – the cogs were making a weird sound when that was about to happen, especially if the machine was old. Thing is, there are no mechanical slot machines anymore. In 1960, all casinos switched to electro-mechanical games, which worked with electricity. These were still using cogs and wheels, but they were much harder to cheat. In the 90's, IGT presented video slots: Games that ran on a computer software. All the wheels and cogs were gone, it has been only computer code from now on. And this is the case since the last 30 years: All slot games have been running on a central server (even the ones in brick-and-mortar casinos) and they are using advanced software, which cannot be 'hacked'.
WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CHEAT MODERN SLOT MACHINES?
That's because the results are determined by an RNG (random number generator) and it is impossible to predict the outcome. Let's explain this so it will be easier to understand. The symbols you see on the slot machine screen are not actually symbols. They are computer codes that have a numerical counterpart. Here is an example:
- Watermelon symbol: 22343
- Grapefruit symbol: 34342
- Jackpot symbol: 33525
Each time you spin the reel, the RNG software randomly generates a series of numbers. If this number is in the range of the symbol's number, that symbol is displayed on the screen. For example, if the RNG software generates a number between 22.340 and 22.350, you see the watermelon symbol on the screen, because its numerical counterpart is 22.343. Basically, it works like this:
- The RNG software tells the central server which numbers it generated.
- The central server checks the numbers and decides which symbols to place on screen.
All this happens in mere seconds. The results are really random, even the programmer of the RNG software cannot predict them. In other words, even if you have full access to the central server, you still cannot change the result of the RNG. That's why 'hacking' won't work: The results of a spin are checked by multiple sources and all this happens in a very short period of time. To 'cheat' such a system, you must hack several servers, listen to every digital communication, and get full access to the entire network. To tell the truth, if you are capable of such things, do not waste time on cheating slots. We are sure some intelligence agency will find a job for you. It will be a futile effort anyway: The RTP values of these games are known by the casinos, and if those values change, someone will notice you. In short, there are no slot cheats for modern slot games, whether they are in a brick-and-mortar or an online casino.
THE MOST FAMOUS SLOT MACHINE CHEATS: TOP 10
We mentioned that there was a time when slot cheats were possible, due to mechanical defects of the cabinets. Well, here are some examples. These are known as the most famous slot cheats of all times. We must warn you though: None of them work anymore. So if you are planning to visit a casino with this 'knowledge', know that it will be a punishable crime and a very shameful situation.
- Cheat Code: This was a cheat method that was not open to 'public'. When the video slots first appeared, they were using simple computer code and even simpler chips. There is a thing called 'backdoor' in coding, which means the programmer leaves an open door for himself to access the software anytime he wants. Ronald Dale Harris was one of those programmers. He left several backdoors on slot codes he wrote and used some of them to gain full access to the games. Basically, he was able to predict the results before the reels start to spin. He got arrested and the casinos switched to the central server audition we mentioned above. It is impossible to do this anymore.
- Shaved Coins: Slot machines use simple light sensors to identify the value of coins inserted. The name of this slot cheat is literal: People were shaving the outer rims of the coin. The light sensor accepts it as a normal coin since it is unable to check the outer rim. However, the payout mechanism is able to do that, so detects it as a faulty coin and refunds it. Basically, it was possible to insert a coin, spin the reels, and get the coin back. This was a mechanical fault and it is mostly fixed now. Modern light sensors check the whole surface of the coin (sides included).
- Fake Coins: This is actually counterfeiting. Some gamblers were using hardened metal dies to make their own 'coins'. A person is able to tell the difference but a light sensor can be tricked, which was the whole 'concept' of this cheat. Once more, modern light sensors do not fall for this scam. A person named Louis Colavecchio was especially successful at this tactic and he is in jail now.
- Yo-Yo: Get a monofilament fishing line. Tie it around a normal coin. Drop the coin to the machine. Right after the light sensor accepts it as a payment, pull the line and get the coin back. This 'tactic' used at phone cabinets too for years. It does not work anymore. But it was possible to trick the old mechanical slots back in the days.
- Light Wand: Invented by the famous slot cheater Tommy Glenn Carmichael, this was a weird looking device. Remember the light sensors of slot machines we keep telling you about? Yeah, most of the slot cheats were designed to manipulate that system and the light wand is no exception. This device is inserted at the coin slot of the cabinets, where the light sensor is placed. Then, the device starts to flash a series of lights to confuse the sensor. With this 'technique', you can place a penny and the sensor will think you just placed hundreds of coins. The device was very small and portable, and once it goes into the slot, it is impossible to see it. The fun part is, it is actually still possible to use this technique because light sensors are unguarded against it. However, you need to know which 'light codes' the sensor accepts. This was the trick of Carmichael. He bought a couple of scrap slot cabinets, analyzed the sensors, and programmed his device accordingly.
- Piano Wire: Take a mini-drill. Find a mechanical slot cabinet. Open a small hole next to the cogs. Insert a 20-inch long piano wire to the hole and manipulate the wheels & cogs. If you know what you are doing, you can jam the cogs and stop them at the winning spin. All of these happened back in the 80's. Well, not anymore. There is a reason why casinos stopped using mechanical slot games.
- Top-Bottom Joint: Another device designed by Tommy Glenn Carmichael. Yes, he was the most famous slot cheater of all times. He loved to manipulate gaming cabinets – the guy had a talent for it. A top-bottom joint is a long wire. The top looks like the letter 'Q'. The bottom is connected to a mini-battery. You insert the Q part into the coin chute and give a little electricity to the wire. If you know where to 'touch' inside the cabinet, you can hot-wire the payout mechanism and force the cabinet to release all of the stored coins. Again, this technique required a very detailed knowledge of how slot cabinets work. Tommy Glenn Carmichael was buying those used slot cabinets for a reason. In theory, it is still possible to do this.
- Monkey Paw: This was the primitive version of a top-bottom joint. Basically, a monkey paw is guitar string attached to a metal rod. If you know where it is located, you can put a monkey paw to a coin chute and trigger the release switch of the payout mechanism. Once more, it is invented by… you guessed it right, Tommy Glenn Carmichael. He used this device on mechanical slots and switched to the top-bottom joint when video slots appeared.
- Bill Validator Device: You can insert bills into a slot machine too, coins are not the only way to pay them. This is a simple device: The top part is covered by a 100 USD bill. You put a 1 USD bill inside. Insert the device into the chute. The light sensor will accept it as a 100 USD bet. Pull the device out (and the 100 USD bill that is tied to it) and the 1 USD bill will drop into the machine. Congrats, you just made a 100 USD bet with paying only 1 USD. This technique still works on some old slot games.
- Computer Chip Replacement: Buy a second-hand slot cabinet. Reverse engineer its chips. Write the entire code and get a chip of your own, which will favor the odds in your favor. Go to a casino. Open a cabinet, insert your own chip. Start spinning. A skillful cheater can open the cabinet & insert his own chip in less than 15 seconds. This technique does not work anymore due to the multiple control mechanisms we described above.
HOW CASINOS PROTECT FROM SLOT CHEATS?
They are investing in better light sensors, for starters. In addition, the whole casino floor is watched & recorded 7/24. Note that almost all of these cheats require physical manipulation of cabinets. So they watch the recorded streams right after anybody wins a prize. If they see the manipulation, you get arrested – simple as that. There will always be cheating players, but they will always get caught.
IT IS LUCK AND NOTHING ELSE
Do you wonder how to win at slots? It is luck and nothing else. You cannot cheat slots or use a 'system': All games are random and you cannot predict the results. Sure, there are some tips and tricks you can use to increase your chances of winning, such as choosing games with high RTP rates but that's it: You cannot cheat the system. Read our other guides that focus on slot games tips & tricks to see the 'legal' ways of increasing your luck. Using a cheat is… well, it won't end well, we can guarantee that.
For as long as casinos have been around there have been people trying to cheat them. Casinos dedicate a lot of resources to catching cheaters, and they are usually pretty good at doing so.
However, throughout history there have been a few cases of people who have won fortunes by cheating.
Many of these have been caught eventually, but some of them have gotten away with it completely. Of course, the most successful cheaters are those that we have never heard of and never will.
On this page we will look at some of the famous cheaters and the methods they used to cheat, scam, or hustle casinos out of substantial sums of money.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael
Carmichael is one of the most successful slot machine cheats, although he has spent time in prison for his crimes. He began cheating slot machines in 1980 when he used a metal device that was inserted into the coin slot and then triggered a payout.
When the big casinos started updating their slots with newer machines, Carmichael found his device no longer worked with them.
As a result he moved to the smaller gambling establishments in Las Vegas that still used older machines. He was eventually caught and sentenced to five years in prison.
This sentence failed to act as a deterrent though, and Carmichael resumed his cheating upon his release in 1987. Slot machine technology had advanced during his spell in prison and therefore he had to change his methods.
Carmichael bought one of the new machines and set about designing a new device that he could use to cheat. He came up with something that has since been called the monkey paw, or slider.
The principle was the same as his original device; it was inserted into the coin slot and caused the release of coins from the machines. He used it successfully until technology advanced again and he once more had to refine his methods.
He bought one of the new electronic slot games and again developed a way to beat them.
It worked so well that Carmichael made money from selling it to other cheaters, as well as using it himself.
Perhaps inevitably, Carmichael was eventually arrested for using the wand in 1996. Charges were dropped on that occasion, but he was arrested again in 1998 and once more in 1999. He pled guilty to running an illegal gambling enterprise and was sentenced to more prison time.
He is now banned from playing in casinos, but he does work with them producing anti-cheating devices.
Richard Marcus has been labeled as one of the greatest cheaters in the history of gambling. That isn't unreasonable, given that he made a lot of money and never got caught. The only reason anyone knows about his cheating exploits is because he chose to write a book about his life after he had made enough money and stopped cheating.
Marcus named his method of cheating the 'Savannah,' and it was in theory quite simple. It took an awful lot of courage and a fair amount of skill.
It was very similar to the past-posting cheating techniques that had been used, but with one key difference. Traditional past-posters would add chips to a winning bet using sleight of hand, but Marcus did it the other way round. He would remove chips from a losing bet.
He would go up to the roulette table and place a couple of chips down as his bet. The top chip would be a $5 chip, or some other small denomination, but underneath would be a higher value chip.
He placed the top chip in a way that the bottom chip could not be seen. If his bet lost, he would grab his chips (which you are not actually allowed to do, hence the drunken act) and fling them at the dealer. During this move he would swap the higher value chip for another $5 chip.
If, however, his bet won then he would make a big deal of celebrating. Invariably the dealer would be a little confused, assuming he had just staked two $5 chips. At this point Marcus would point out the fact that the chip underneath was more valuable.
Because he had legitimately placed the bet, even if surveillance was checked by casino security they would find nothing wrong. He was effectively cheating on his losing bets rather than his winning ones, and it's winning bets that tend to be scrutinized.
Using this method he was able to win thousands on his winning bets and lose only a few dollars on his losing bets. Because of the way it worked, he managed to avoid being caught. He now works against the cheaters, consulting for casinos, and teaching them how to avoid being cheated.
In 1995, Reid McNeal hit a Keno jackpot at Bally's Park Place Casino Resort in Atlantic City, for $100,000. Suspicions were immediately raised when McNeal showed very little emotion following the win and asked to be paid in cash.
As jackpot wins of a certain size have to be verified by state gaming officials under New Jersey law, an investigation occurred as a result.
The investigation led back to Ron Harris, a computer programmer working for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Harris was responsible for finding bugs and flaws in the software of electronic gaming machines.
It transpired that Harris had been using his position to access and modify software in slot machines to pay out substantial wins if a precise sequence of coins were inserted. With his accomplice he had successfully cheated thousands of dollars and gone undetected.
Using his predictions his accomplice, McNeal, could be guaranteed a jackpot win.
McNeal duly won the jackpot at Atlantic City but, as we have described above, that was the beginning of the end for the two cheats. Harris was sentenced to seven years in prison, and released after serving two.
Throughout the history of gambling scams, women have typically been used to cause diversions while their male accomplices carry out the actual scandal.
Ida Summers was different; she certainly used her beauty and charm to distract pit bosses and dealers, but she also did the cheating herself.
Back in the 1960s she became known as the Vegas Vixen for her ability to cheat Las Vegas casinos.
Bingo cafe withdrawal. This involved using sleight of hand to remove and add cards to the table when required. She then progressed to adding whole decks of cards that were prearranged to ensure the house lost. These decks were known as cold decks, or coolers.
Although successful for a while, Summers was eventually caught and arrested. Gaming officials in Vegas had become suspicious here, and together with the FBI, launched an investigation.
Seeing as she only received probation rather than a custodial sentence, it seems her looks and charm may have had an effect in court too.
French woman Monique Laurent, along with her crew consisting of family and friends, managed to win over $1 million from the roulette tables at Deauville Casino. Their winning had nothing to do with luck.
But rather thanks to some sophisticated equipment and the help of a rogue roulette dealer. Considering the scam took place in 1973, it was somewhat advanced for the time.
Laurent had her crew use a roulette ball that had been tampered with to insert a radio receiver.
With 90% accuracy she could make the ball land in a group of six numbers. Other members of the crew would place the necessary bets and collect the winnings.
The casino sensed something was wrong, but they couldn't work out what the problem was. They had the roulette wheel checked and monitored the table and the dealer, but they found nothing wrong. Laurent and her crew therefore continued to rack up the winnings.
They were only caught eventually as a direct result of Laurent's beauty.
The owner of the casino took something of a shine to Laurent and made romantic overtures. She rebuffed him and he didn't take it well. He began to suspect her of wrongdoing when he noticed that she was always at the roulette table costing the casino money.
She was always seemingly alone and only appeared to be placing occasional bets. Working out that the cigarette packet might be involved he asked Laurent for a cigarette and the game was up.
Louis Colavecchio is a counterfeiter who used his skills to manufacture incredibly accurate reproductions of slot machine coins. He then used these coins in many American casinos with initially great success.
His operation was on a grand scale and he was producing thousands upon thousands of coins.
When he was eventually arrested in 1998, following an investigation after casinos had started to notice sizable surpluses of the coins in their inventories.
Law enforcement seized his stash of coins and the tools used to make them. Such was the volume of this equipment they had to rent storage facilities just to house it all.
When Colavecchio was released in 2006 he resumed his activities, but was arrested again after just a few months. He brokered a deal to reveal the secrets of his operation so that casinos could avoid being stung in this way again.
Nikrasch, also known as Dennis McAndrew, is another slot machine cheater. In fact, he is arguably the biggest known slot machine cheater in history. It has been said that he posed a serious risk to the integrity of the whole slot machine industry.
Together with his crew, it's believed that Nikrasch made over $15 million using his sophisticated methods.
There has been a lot written about Nikrasch, particularly about his downfall, and much of it's speculation. It's widely believed that he was set up by someone who knew about his operation, but he himself has admitted that he does not know who or why.
He was arrested in 1998 while trying to cheat his way to a huge jackpot in a Las Vegas casino. Subsequently, he agreed to exchange some of his secrets in return for a reduced sentence.
Nickrasch had served time in prison before, having been convicted in the 1980s for his role in cheating the mechanical slot machines of the time. As a master locksmith with mechanical expertise, he had developed a method for forcing payouts from these machines.
Following his time in prison he returned to Las Vegas and soon began planning a return to his cheating ways.
By this time, though, slot machines were very different. The technology was now computerized rather than mechanical and the machines were vastly more difficult to manipulate.
This didn't stop Nikrasch however, and he began to work on developing new methods for beating them. He did indeed come up with an advanced system for doing so.
His new system required a crew of people, which Nikrasch recruited using his contacts. He would visit a casino and, with members of his crew covering him from video surveillance and security personnel, he would break into a machine using an untraceable method.
After he left, another member of his crew would then come and win the jackpot: seeming legitimate. It's not known for sure how many times Nikrasch pulled this off before he was caught. Equally, no-one knows how long he might have been able to get away with it if had he not been set up.
Although Brennan is a thief rather than a cheater, he deserves to be mentioned here for the simplicity and apparent success of his heist. Brennan was a cashier at Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
In 1992 as he was leaving work, Brennan decided to fill a bag with half a million dollars in cash and chips. He calmly walked out of the casino and has never been seen since.
There have been rumors that he was killed by an accomplice who didn't want to split the proceeds, but there has never been any evidence to back this up.
Video Gambling Machines Cheats
The common belief is that he is still alive, somewhere in the world, enjoying his ill-gotten gains. Golden nugget casino nj.
