The Wide World of Slot Machine Cheating and Scamming
Who would have thought that it
was actually possible to cheat a slot
machine? Compared to more traditional casino games, the
slot machines
have always appeared to be untouchable; they come programmed to operate
on nothing but luck. Still, people have been known to rip off $thousands
- even $millions - from casinos with slot machine scams.
Don't Try This at Home
Most slot machine cheats that have been pulled over the years are not easy to duplicate. They often require being on the inside or getting your hands on special tools. The more obvious scams are easily detectable by the all-seeing security cameras. Those more intricate ways of robbing the slots are things that can’t really be seen, but casinos know the odds, and as soon as someone starts beating them they get suspicious. A casino being suspicious of you is the last thing you want hanging over your head. It usually results in long, long time in jail.
Cheating Casinos Sure Ain't Easy
Casino slot machines are designed to operate based on a complex series of calculations that result in random results. There are lots of laws in place to make sure this is the case, but while we have all heard tales of people counting cards or working out the odds for any given dealt hand, winning against whatever card the dealer’s flipped, slot machines just aren’t open to this kind of calculated play.
Watching for a slot machine that hasn’t paid for a few hours or even days isn’t really useful. Doubling up bets after winning or losing streaks, in the long run, doesn’t pay off. The fact is that the slots are designed to—and are legally obligated to—operate with absolutely no prejudice based on a previous play. The calculations that go on cannot be affected by how much is bet, what the previous outcome was or how long a player has been there (in the case of club cards).
So how the heck have people managed to cheat slot machines? Through 100% criminal methods, that’s how.
Bring Your Own Quarter
Practically all modern casinos use their own kind of chips and tokens. A slot machine is designed to measure their size, metal makeup and density. This results from one of the original slot machine scams, where the crook simply uses fake tokens. So long as they have the same properties, the machine can be fooled by slugs, and scammers have been known to make and carry slugs of all different sizes so they could fool any of the casino’s slots.
Similarly, just as schoolyard thieves try to get a free cola from the vending machine by tying a string to their quarter, people have also been known to trick slots in this same way. By dangling the same token in a machine and pulling it back and forth in a manner much like playing with a yoyo, the slot machine would think you were betting money. Nowadays, slot machine manufacturers have catches in place that prevent this kind of activity, but every security innovation has come from someone finding a new way to exploit the machines.
Make Your Own Jackpot
Some of the more successful historical slot machine scams can be boiled down to simple robbery. "Simple" is probably a misnomer though.
Old fashioned slot machines had a small trigger that released a payout to the dispenser. Devices with names such as monkey wire and sliders have been made, used, and sold to thieves so they could trip this trigger at will. All anyone would have to do is approach a machine, insert the device and empty it out.
That’s not so easy anymore. Nowadays there are more sophisticated methods of keeping track of what money is coming out of the slot machine. Optical systems shine lights inside of the machine. To put it simply, imagine the light working as a high-tech lock. As long as the light is on, the coins are locked. Slot machine scam artists were able to trip this system up eventually as well, in a manner similar to how they handled the mechanical trigger.
This system of optical sensors grew harder to crack back in the 90s, so merely sticking something inside of a light became impossible. The scam evolved and, ironically, while the machine’s security advanced, the methods used to defeat it grew less complicated. It seemed that shining a certain amount of light into the slot machine fooled the optical devices and, like magic, out came the payoff.
Again, the slot machine security subsequently improved to cover the loophole.
Cheating Slots is Like Cheating Video Games
The most impressive of the slot machine scams involves a bit of advance planning. The large number of failsafes in the gaming industry make this particular scam almost impossible to get away with.
Some slot machine scammers have managed to introduce flaws into the slots computer before the slot machine arrives at the casino. These flaws have to be subtle enough that it will get past hundreds of the casino’s tests, including industry oversight testing.
The glitches that get built into the machines force the slot to pick up on and reward certain patterns. In the same way that hitting certain buttons in a specific order at a specific time allow you to jump ahead a couple levels in Mario Brothers, a specific betting pattern can cause one of these flawed machines hit a jackpot.
No One’s Really Got Away With It
Well, we shouldn’t say “no one,” but bear in mind that these scams are known for a reason: people have been caught. They get away with it for a long time because they usually work in groups and are able to do their work under cover of a partner. Still, a casino has its eye on the winners. When the odds get beat too much they start to look at you a bit closer. Dozens of slot machine thieves have spent dozens of years in prison reminding themselves that, no matter how many times you get away with a scam, eventually the scam gets away with you.
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