The secretive world of casino cheaters, the seedy underbelly of the gambling industry, is typically associated with poker and table games.
Cheats physically manipulate cards, dice, wheels, and chips to gain an unfair advantage over the house. But cheaters have long targeted machine games like the slots, too. Ever since the first 'one-armed bandits' of old hit saloon floors in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century, cheats have endeavored to trigger jackpots and payouts unfairly.
- Don't try and beat the system. Replicating the winning pattern of a slot machine is impossible. At the heart of it, are very complex algorithms. Don't try and beat the system. The design of a slot machine is to give random results which are to pay out in an uneven distribution.
- A further slot machine cheat device was a simple magnet, which players would hold against the reels to force matching symbols to line up. Most of these cheats were reasonably crude with the exception of the computer programmer inside jobs, which created a deliberate weakness in the code. These days it's a bit more complicated due to the.
- This device is the result of several years of research and development and affects slot machines, video, fruit, 8 liners, cherry master, pot o gold, sweepstakes and many other gambling machines worldwide and has been tested in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. It affects machines that.
- Using Univeral Lock-Pick for Slot Machines This method is not that popular like the jackpotter, because it is harder to execute without attracting attention to your-self. Using the specialized lock-pick, you can unlock the slot machines money storage box, and just empty it.
The earliest mechanical slot machines on the market accepted nickels, prompting cheaters to melt down cheap metal and fashion counterfeit coins known as 'slot slugs.' These tricked the game into offering a free spin. When dimes became the coin of choice, they filed down pennies to the circumference of a 10-cent piece, thus 'earning' a nine-cent rebate on every spin.
May 09, 2018 But most online slot machines offer this information somewhere. And you won't have to look more than 5 minutes to find them in many cases. 2 – Look at State Gaming Reports to Find Best Land Based Slots Payback. Finding RTP for land-based slot machines is a more-difficult matter.
Slot cheats also liked to drill a hole through genuine coins. They would tie it to some fishing line, play the coin, and let it fall just far enough to trigger a spin. Then, they would pull it back out and repeat the process to play for free.
Eventually, slot machine manufacturers countered those efforts with a device called the 'coin escalator,' which displayed previously played coins in a window for all to see. When the operator spotted slugs, filed down pennies, or an insufficient number of wagers in the coin escalator, they knew a cheater was in their midst.
As the mechanical three-reel slots of old gave way to electronic video slots, coin-based machines were replaced by those which accept cash bills or barcoded casino vouchers. Manufacturers also replaced the drum reel setup with complex random number generators (RNGs) that 'shuffled' the reels into seemingly infinite combinations.
These technological advancements stemmed the tide of slot cheating for a while, but gamblers who try to get over on the house are relentless if nothing else. Cheaters found more creative ways, engaging in a back and forth crusade with the casinos that continues to this day.
In the past, I've taken the time to write up guides on the various ways to cheat casino games, including poker, blackjack, roulette, and craps. But I've also included very serious reasons why you should never try them. In this guide, you'll find five ways you can cheat when playing slot machines circa 2019 and beyond, along with why readers should never attempt it.
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. But you probably also know about Tommy Glenn Carmichael, the so-called 'Godfather of Slot Machine Cheats.'
Carmichael, a former television repairman who parlayed his technical skills into a career as a professional cheat, invented all three of those devices used to fool a mechanical slot's sensors into unloading its coin hopper on command.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times conducted back in 2003, convicted slot thief Jerry Criner spoke of Carmichael in reverent tones:
'A legend. He's the greatest mind as far as developing cheating tools.'
As for the man himself, Carmichael told the newspaper he was but a humble tinkerer who never said no to a challenge:
'Figure out how a machine counts money and then work your way into the machine. We got to playing around, and I could see where it was pretty easy to do. Give me a slot machine and I'll beat it.'
When the electronic slots and their sensitive sensors used to detect lights and lasers became the norm, Carmichael wasted no time in purchasing an IGT brand machine for himself. Almost immediately, his ingenious mind went to work deconstructing the sensor array. Before long, Carmichael had developed his latest cheating tool, the 'light wand.'
Here's how Carmichael described his light wand epiphany, which occurred as he tricked a casino employee into providing access to an IGT machine's inner workings:
'The second I opened it up, I knew how to beat it. He told me so much I thought he had called the law. I thought he was trying to stall us.'
Mark Robinson, the former manager of the Nevada Gambling Control Board's Electronic Services Division, told the LA Times:
'The light would shine in there and be so bright that the sensor would be blinded, causing the hopper to not realize it was paying out the coins.'
Wielding nothing more than a camera battery and a miniaturized lightbulb, Carmichael went to work, bilking casinos from coast to coast out of $10,000 or more per day.
Why You Shouldn't Fool the Payout Sensors
Like all swindlers, however, Carmichael's refusal to walk away a 'winner' led to his downfall. He was caught deploying a light wand to win jackpots in 1996 and again in 1998, before fleeing Las Vegas for Atlantic City. But his reputation preceded him, and private detectives employed by casinos there quickly spotted Carmichael and took him down.
The feds stripped Carmichael of every last penny from his ill-gotten gains, sentenced him to one year in prison, and placed him on extended probation. That's reason enough to avoid the light wand 'hack,' as is the method's relatively outdated practicality in the modern age.
2 – Recording Spins on a Smartphone to Crack a Slot's Randomization Pattern
This scam is so elegant and effective that casinos and slot machine manufacturers alike still haven't been able to stop it.
During the 2000s, international slot makers Novomatic and Aristocrat Leisure began receiving disturbing reports from their respective casino clientele. Apparently, machines from both manufacturers had been observed paying out small to medium-sized payouts far more often than their preprogrammed odds should've allowed.
Comprehensive reviews and investigations were conducted to audit the machines in question, but engineers and analysts could find no trace of physical manipulation.
In 2011, Novomatic issued the following statement to client casinos to warn them about potential weaknesses in its slots 'pseudo random number generators' (PRNGs):
'Through targeted and prolonged observation of the individual game sequences as well as possibly recording individual games, it might be possible to allegedly identify a kind of ‘pattern' in the game results.'
As it turns out, a slot's RNG isn't technically randomized because it relies on manmade inputs, such as the second hand of the machine's internal clock, to generate its seemingly random results. From the average player's perspective, the results will definitely appear random over both short- and long-term sessions.
But as Novomatic admitted in its internal memo, the 'pseudo' nature of a PRNG ensures that detectable patterns can be discerned from the reels' final alignment, provided a player knew what to watch for.
A professional computer hacker known only as 'Alex' was one such player, a gifted mathematical mind capable of cracking convoluted coded algorithms in his head. After deciphering the codes behind a particular model of Novomatic slot machine, then the Aristocrat Mark IV model, Alex designed a computer program to predict exactly when players should press the 'SPIN' button.
Alex formed a team of players and taught them to use iPhone cameras to secretly record a few dozen low-stakes spins. This footage was then uploaded to Alex's computer, which crunched the patterns onscreen to determine, down to the millisecond, when the 'SPIN' button should be pressed to trigger a winner.
From there, all Alex had to do was send an automated text message timed with a 0.25-second delay to his cheater's phone, thus providing the average human's reaction time as a window. A quarter of a second later, with the stakes now increased significantly, the player would press 'SPIN' and watch the screen light up for a sizable score.
Why You Shouldn't Crack a Slot's Randomization Pattern
Both companies acknowledge that their machines are vulnerable to Alex's version of slot hacking. But as he pointed out in an interview with Wired magazine in 2017, his scheme isn't technically considered cheating because nobody physically manipulates the machine:
'We, in fact, do not meddle with the machines – there is no actual hacking taking place. My agents are just gamers, like the rest of them. Only they are capable of making better predictions in their betting… Yes, that capability is gained through my technology, it's true. But why should it be against the law? On the basic level, it's like using a calculator for counting faster and more accurately, rather than relying on one's natural capacity.'
Alex himself was never caught, thanks to his identity concealing skills and Russian residency, but several of his 'agents' have been apprehended all over the world. As for the mastermind himself, Alex failed in convincing Aristocrat to hire him on as a security consultant.
Today, he makes a living selling his tech for five-figures a pop on the dark web rather than resort to cheating himself.
So, unless you're a savant like him with otherworldly math skills and the 'Rain Man' ability to read PRNGs in your sleep, or have $20,000 to spend on a slot-cheating system, hacking the game isn't a great idea. Wwwfreeslots com slots.
3 – Using Computers and Advanced Tech Skills to Rig the Machine for Instant Jackpots
Another case of computer engineering knowledge becoming the cheat's tool of choice involves a fair share of mystery more than 20 years later.
Beginning in 1996, former locksmith Dennis Nikrasch used the 'brute force' style of computer hacking to essentially break the machine's payout sensors. Using a blocker to screen the surveillance cameras, Nikrasch took less than a minute to pick the lock, open the machine's interface, and attach a device that manipulated the reels' RNG. Just like that, Nikrasch was gone like a ghost, leaving his blocker behind to play the game until an inevitable jackpot was triggered shortly thereafter.
Speaking with the Las Vegas Sun, former chief of the Enforcement Division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) Keith Copher offered begrudging respect when referencing Nikrasch's scam:
'He had the most sophisticated system we've ever seen. We don't know that he's passed it along, and if he has, he'd better tell us.'
J. Gregory Damm, the assistant US Attorney who ultimately prosecuted Nikrasch for his litany of crimes, told the newspaper the use of a proxy helped hinder casino security systems:
'He would be in the casino a very short period of time. He would fix the machine, then leave. He wasn't present when the jackpot was hit.'
Why You Shouldn't Rig Slot Machines
Nikrasch absconded with more than $6 million in stolen slot funds before his run was cut short, sending him to prison for seven years.
Once again, the biggest reason to avoid this slot cheating method is impracticability, because Nikrasch took his tech secrets to the grave.
4 – Watching for Players Who Leave Money on the Machine So You Can Spin for Free
Whether you count this one as cheating is up to your own moral code, but what do you do when a neighboring player leaves a few bucks in the next machine over?
You see them take their Player's Card, and even leave the casino, so you're sure they're not coming back for that last dollar or two. Do you slide over and play the free spins? https://phone-for-xwal-casino-cell-games-free-betable-best.peatix.com.
If you're like Colorado resident and gambling man 'Dan' (his last name hasn't been made public), you take your shot at winning a jackpot on the forgetful player's dime.
Why You Shouldn't Use Other Players' Money
Fire opals slot. Pari match com. While gambling in a Central City casino two years ago, Dan saw a fellow slot player leave $2 on a nearby machine. After playing two spins and winning nothing, Dan continued his own game for awhile before security arrived and escorted him to the dreaded back room.
Here's how Dan described the scene to his local KDVR News station after the ordeal was over:
'There was no intent to steal from anybody. I had no idea. I go upstairs to the third floor into a dirty little room and someone tells me I stole $2 from the casino. They said they had it all on camera. I was guilty, I guess. You're certainly not stealing it from the casino because it wasn't theirs to begin with. There are certainly times where there are ‘laws,' but they are not morally or ethically correct.'
Dan was charged under Colorado Statute 12-47.1-823(1)(c), which covers various forms of casino cheating. In this case, the casino claims ownership over any lost, forgotten, or unused funds in its facility, so Dan technically stole $2 from the house and not the other player.
He was arrested, charged with criminal conduct, levied with $250 in fines, forced to pay for FBI criminal background checks, placed on probation, and banned from all Colorado casinos for a full year.
And while Dan's case might seem like an outlier, consider that Colorado charged nearly 1,000 players for stealing slot funds in 2017 alone. Similar laws are on the books in Las Vegas and elsewhere, so when you see a few dollars flashing on an unclaimed machine, think twice before trying to turn somebody else's money into your life-changing jackpot moment.
5 – Counterfeiting Bills or 'Shaving' Coins to Trick the Machine Into a Free Spin
I covered the concept of counterfeit coin slugs in the introduction, and nowadays, you'll only find a handful of old-school coin-operated slots in Downtown Las Vegas. You can blame infamous counterfeiter Louis 'The Coin' Colavecchio for that development.
Why You Shouldn't Counterfeit Bills or Coins
During his reign as the East Coast's preeminent slot cheat, Colavecchio used genuine steel dies from U.S. Mint printing presses to trick the machines. That ploy wound up resulting in a seven-year prison bid, leaving the formerly flush 'Coin' Colavecchio penniless and out of options.
After his release, Colavecchio was forced to adapt to a brave new world of cash and voucher-operated slots. Predictably, he tried to expand his operation into counterfeit $100 bills, hoping to hit high-stakes machines for six-figure scores.
And just as predictably, the U.S. Secret Service swooped in to arrest the now 77-year old Colavecchio in 2018.
Counterfeiting is one of the most serious federal crimes imaginable, and when you add in casino surveillance, this cheating recipe just doesn't add up.
Conclusion
Slot machines probably inspire so many cheating attempts simply because of the volatile gameplay they offer. When winners can come few and far between, and losing by session's end is a statistical certainty barring a big jackpot, grinding the slots can get downright depressing in the worst of times.
Cheaters who refuse to accept the 'boom and bust' dynamic of the slots will always try to gain the upper hand, but as these five entries make clear, casinos are always one step ahead of the culprits.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Cheating at Slots 2021
Cheating at slots is often frowned upon but it is certainly an interesting subject. There are many stories of people who have successfully attempted cheating at slots.
Reading about various methods used by these people to cheat slot machines may be exciting, but you should definitely be cautious when you give it a try in real life. Modern slot machines are highly advanced and very difficult to take advantage of.
There are as many as 3 million slot machines in brick and mortar casinos across the world. Slots are often one of the biggest contributors to a casino's revenue. As much as 80% of a casino's income may come from its slot machines. So slot cheats can do some serious damage to a casino's business.
According to estimates, gaming establishments in Nevada alone have had to bear a loss of millions of dollars every year as a result of slot machine cheating. This is one of the reasons why modern casinos have surveillance cameras covering every inch of the place.
Various Slots Cheat Methods
A big casino can have around 5,000 slot machines or more and continuously monitoring all the machines may not be possible. This provides an opening for slot cheats to try their luck. Slot machine cheaters have tried a number of different techniques in an effort to make big money, these include:
Cheating with coin and string or yo-yo method
This was one of the oldest methods used by cheaters to trick slot machines. The concept was simple. King of africa slot machine free. Cheaters used to attach a string to a coin before inserting it into the slot machine. After the machine registered that a coin has been inserted, the person used to simply pull out the coin using the string taped to it.
This enabled the person to use the same coin over and over again to add to his/her credit without investing a single penny. Because of the yo-yo like action of dropping the coin and pulling it back up, this method is also called yo-yo method.
Some cheats have tried using this same trick with bills as well. They would attach a string to a bill instead of a coin before dropping it into the slot machine and pull it out once the money was registered.
The problem with this method was that it involved a visible string coming out of the coin slot, which would be difficult to justify for the fraudster. Since the discovery of yo-yo method, the slot machines have been modified to ensure that the coins once dropped into the machine can not be pulled out.
Cheating with devices like the monkey's paw
Devices like the monkey's paw, which was a foot long flexible steel rod bent into the shape of a claw, were also a popular method of cheating at slots. The device was inserted into a slot machine through the payout outlet and used to tamper with the coin counter to cause overpayment.
The monkey's paw was one of the early devices used by slot cheats. Since then other devices that can tamper with a slot machine's coin comparator have also been invented and used. Such devices, when inserted into the machine, could generate fake signals so that credit would be registered without any coins being inserted.
This enabled the cheater to play without making any payment or make money simply by cashing out. Today most casinos use highly sophisticated machines that cannot be tampered with such devices.
Cheating with shaved coins or tokens
This was another popular method of cheating at slots used by fraudsters in olden days. The cheats realized that if they shaved off a tiny bit of a coin and dropped such coin in a slot machine, the coin would be registered, but it would be rejected and discharged.
This meant that the person could keep using the same coin again and again to add credit just like the coin and string method, but without the disadvantage of a visible string sticking out.
In order to avoid such cheating, many casinos started using tokens instead of coins in their slot machines. But cheaters have tried the same trick with tokens as well i.e. using shaved tokens to cheat slot machines.
With hundreds of cameras surveying every inch of modern casinos, a fraudster is sure to draw attention, if he/she tried this method. Moreover, the sophisticated machines used today ensure that the rejected coin/token is not registered in the credit.
Cheating with foreign coins
Fraudsters have even tried cheating casinos using foreign coins. They used foreign coins having a close resemblance to the US currency, but a very low value. The value of these foreign coins would be as much as ten times lower than the American coin it would be mistaken for. King billy butterfly.
After his release, Colavecchio was forced to adapt to a brave new world of cash and voucher-operated slots. Predictably, he tried to expand his operation into counterfeit $100 bills, hoping to hit high-stakes machines for six-figure scores.
And just as predictably, the U.S. Secret Service swooped in to arrest the now 77-year old Colavecchio in 2018.
Counterfeiting is one of the most serious federal crimes imaginable, and when you add in casino surveillance, this cheating recipe just doesn't add up.
Conclusion
Slot machines probably inspire so many cheating attempts simply because of the volatile gameplay they offer. When winners can come few and far between, and losing by session's end is a statistical certainty barring a big jackpot, grinding the slots can get downright depressing in the worst of times.
Cheaters who refuse to accept the 'boom and bust' dynamic of the slots will always try to gain the upper hand, but as these five entries make clear, casinos are always one step ahead of the culprits.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Cheating at Slots 2021
Cheating at slots is often frowned upon but it is certainly an interesting subject. There are many stories of people who have successfully attempted cheating at slots.
Reading about various methods used by these people to cheat slot machines may be exciting, but you should definitely be cautious when you give it a try in real life. Modern slot machines are highly advanced and very difficult to take advantage of.
There are as many as 3 million slot machines in brick and mortar casinos across the world. Slots are often one of the biggest contributors to a casino's revenue. As much as 80% of a casino's income may come from its slot machines. So slot cheats can do some serious damage to a casino's business.
According to estimates, gaming establishments in Nevada alone have had to bear a loss of millions of dollars every year as a result of slot machine cheating. This is one of the reasons why modern casinos have surveillance cameras covering every inch of the place.
Various Slots Cheat Methods
A big casino can have around 5,000 slot machines or more and continuously monitoring all the machines may not be possible. This provides an opening for slot cheats to try their luck. Slot machine cheaters have tried a number of different techniques in an effort to make big money, these include:
Cheating with coin and string or yo-yo method
This was one of the oldest methods used by cheaters to trick slot machines. The concept was simple. King of africa slot machine free. Cheaters used to attach a string to a coin before inserting it into the slot machine. After the machine registered that a coin has been inserted, the person used to simply pull out the coin using the string taped to it.
This enabled the person to use the same coin over and over again to add to his/her credit without investing a single penny. Because of the yo-yo like action of dropping the coin and pulling it back up, this method is also called yo-yo method.
Some cheats have tried using this same trick with bills as well. They would attach a string to a bill instead of a coin before dropping it into the slot machine and pull it out once the money was registered.
The problem with this method was that it involved a visible string coming out of the coin slot, which would be difficult to justify for the fraudster. Since the discovery of yo-yo method, the slot machines have been modified to ensure that the coins once dropped into the machine can not be pulled out.
Cheating with devices like the monkey's paw
Devices like the monkey's paw, which was a foot long flexible steel rod bent into the shape of a claw, were also a popular method of cheating at slots. The device was inserted into a slot machine through the payout outlet and used to tamper with the coin counter to cause overpayment.
The monkey's paw was one of the early devices used by slot cheats. Since then other devices that can tamper with a slot machine's coin comparator have also been invented and used. Such devices, when inserted into the machine, could generate fake signals so that credit would be registered without any coins being inserted.
This enabled the cheater to play without making any payment or make money simply by cashing out. Today most casinos use highly sophisticated machines that cannot be tampered with such devices.
Cheating with shaved coins or tokens
This was another popular method of cheating at slots used by fraudsters in olden days. The cheats realized that if they shaved off a tiny bit of a coin and dropped such coin in a slot machine, the coin would be registered, but it would be rejected and discharged.
This meant that the person could keep using the same coin again and again to add credit just like the coin and string method, but without the disadvantage of a visible string sticking out.
In order to avoid such cheating, many casinos started using tokens instead of coins in their slot machines. But cheaters have tried the same trick with tokens as well i.e. using shaved tokens to cheat slot machines.
With hundreds of cameras surveying every inch of modern casinos, a fraudster is sure to draw attention, if he/she tried this method. Moreover, the sophisticated machines used today ensure that the rejected coin/token is not registered in the credit.
Cheating with foreign coins
Fraudsters have even tried cheating casinos using foreign coins. They used foreign coins having a close resemblance to the US currency, but a very low value. The value of these foreign coins would be as much as ten times lower than the American coin it would be mistaken for. King billy butterfly.
This resulted in a significant loss for the casinos. But it is almost impossible to fool the advanced slot machines of today with such a trick.
Cheating with fake money or token
The use of counterfeit money is not exactly a slot cheating method, but slot machines are often used to launder fake bills. Good quality fake bills can closely resemble the real ones and the electronic sensors on slot machines may not be able to catch the difference.
This means that there was no way to catch the cheat as he will be long gone by the time the machine is opened and fraud discovered. Some cheats have even tried producing fake tokens that resemble the ones offered by a particular casino.
The disadvantage of these methods is that producing fake bills or tokens is not so easy. Also, producing counterfeit bills is a very serious crime and the cheater can end up spending many years in jail. Counterfeit token are also taken very seriously by casinos and cheaters can expect strong action.
Cheating with mini-lights – Slot machine cheaters have even tried blinding the machines. They made use of mini-lights, which is a small battery operated light emitter, to tamper with the optical sensors of slot machines, which are used to count coins to be paid out. This sometimes resulted in overpayment. But the modern slot machines come with safeguards against such devices.
Cheating by a casino insiderIn the history of slot frauds, there have been a few cheaters who have made ambitious plans of introducing errors in the slot machine program before its installation in a casino, so that it paid out on pressing buttons in a particular pattern.
The success of such a plot is impossible without the help of a casino insider and a real programmer. Majority of such plots have ended up in failure with the fraudsters serving long jail terms.
As slots machines become more and more sophisticated, cheaters are also coming up with advanced techniques of cheating. But with the introduction of hi-tech slot machines that accept only cards, not coins, the future of slot cheats is bleak.
One of the most famous fraudsters in the history of slot cheatingTommy Glenn Carmichael is a slot cheating legend. He is probably the most famous person in the field. Although a cheater, Tommy's mechanical genius can't be denied. He started his slot cheating career using a device called a ‘top-bottom joint'. The initial success encouraged him to close his shop and leave for Vegas. But soon he was caught and sentenced to prison.
Five years of jail time could not change Tommy. On getting out of the prison, he realized that slot machine technology had changed. He soon educated himself and came up with the famous monkey paw device mentioned earlier. As the slot machine technologies kept changing, Tommy kept coming up with newer devices to cheat them.
When slot machines started using the optical sensor technology, Tommy invented a light wand that could blind these sensors. He managed to overcome the slot machine safety device called the actuator arm with his ‘hanger'. According to records, he took 7 cruises within 6 months in 1995, winning huge amounts of money in casinos at these ships.
The following year Tommy was arrested, but the charges were dropped. He still did not mend his ways. He was arrested once again in 1998-99 and in 2001 he was sentenced to a year in prison, 3 years of probation and prohibition from entering casinos.
How To Cheat Slot Machines In Casinos
He is listed in the Nevada black book, which lists various casino fraudsters and the methods used by them. Slot cheats account for about 27% of the entries in this book.
Tommy has finally changed sides and is now working with casinos to develop an anti-cheating technology to prevent people like him from cheating. He now aims to make a fortune by selling products that prevent cheating, as opposed to earlier days when he was known for his inventions that helped fraudsters to cheat at slot machines. He has also been featured in 'Breaking Vegas' series on the History Channel.
App To Hack Slot Machines
Rather than cheating and ending up on the wrong side of the law, strategic gaming can help you win big legally. If you get rid of the misconception that gambling is all about luck, you will realize that strategies do play a role in winning at any casino games, including slot machines.
