Slot machines are a highly profitable game in casino for both the players and the house. With slot machines offering huge payouts, make it easy for cheaters and the house to engage in a cat and mouse game.
Let’s dive into some slot cheats used by slot cheaters over the years.
1. Cheat Code
For the gambling industry to operate correctly and fairly, there are gambling authorities to ensure that. The best casino games are designed by engineers to be monitored and audited, while providing quality gameplay. But what happens when the engineer decides to use the codes for his own advantage?
The infamous slot cheat engineer from The Nevada Gaming Commission Ronald Dale Harris did exactly the same. He knew how to maneuver a slot machine.
He cheated the slots for years by knowing the source codes. The scam was discovered in 1995 when his partner won big at the casino – $100,000 on a keno game.
2. Fake Coins
The use of fake coins is another slot cheats present throughout the history. Fake coins were used to trick casinos by con artist Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio for quite a long time until his arrest in 1998. In 2006, he was released and he re-started his cheating quickly. He was caught again within months of his release.
3. Magnet
People were able to cheat the machines with a magnet as they were made of metal. However, today it is not possible as they’re all programmed by computer software and are not magnetic.
Magnets were used to cheat at slots, when the reels were spun and a strong magnet was used on the outside of the machine to stop the reel from spinning when they saw their winning combination. Then they would remove the magnet and claim the payout.
4. Light Wand
Tommy Glenn Carmichael is responsible for the light wand. He is one of the most notorious slot cheaters in gambling history. He would use his light wand to make jackpot wins mysteriously show up out of nowhere.
The light wand would successfully blind the optical sensor on slot machines so it couldn’t resolve how many coins had been deposited into the machine which means it wouldn’t know how much to payout and when to payout. Carmichael could turn small wins into huge payouts by manipulating a slot machine to his advantage.
5. Piano Wire
In 1982, there were several men working together at the Caesars Boardwalk Regency casino in Atlantic City. One man opened the slot machine they had targeted and fastened a 20-inch long piano wires to the game’s whirring components.
By jamming the clock that measured the wheel rotations with the wire, the group could manipulate the spins. Their whole scam had been filmed when they win the $50,000 jackpot and the winning player was arrested.
6. Top-Bottom Joint
Top-Bottom joint is one of the most machiavellian ways to cheat at slots and was popular in the 1970s and 1980s among the scammers.
A special tool was used that would slit into two parts. The top is a metallic rod with its end bent in the shape of a ‘q’, and the bottom (a long wire).
They used to jam the machine by putting the bottom in through the coin ramp and the top through the coin slot and force the game to release all the coins it had stored.
7. Computer Chip Replacement
Dennis Nikrasch made a change to the slots cheating game with this idea. He purchased a slot machine and checked it in his garage to find out its flaws.
He figured out that the computer chips inside the slot machines could be re-programmed and can be manipulated to pay out jackpots on tap.
Nikrasch ordered a heap of these chips, recruited a group of scammers, got hold of a lot of slot machine keys and began to scam the casinos that would drain them dry for a really long time.
Also read: What is Rummy in Blackjack: Know About the Side Bet
