Obviously, cheating at any casino game is both illegal and immoral and not to be recommended, but who hasn’t fantasized about turning a slot machine into a free cash point? Here are the top five ways people have tried, and in some cases succeeded, to do just that.

• Devices To Cheat Slot Machines
• Ways To Cheat Slot Machines
• How To Cheat Video Slots
• How To Cheat Slot Machines Borderlands 2
• How To Cheat Slot Machines 2019

Slot machine cheats is a handy guide on how to beat the odds and potentially win big while playing slot machines at casinos. In this particular article, we will introduce a specific trick, which can be used on slot machines with nudge and holds. Keep in mind that the slot machine cheats featured here may work with some machines and not others. “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”. Everybody wonders that. Since it is just the reels turning and symbols placing, there must be a “trick”, right? Another cheat to increase your profits in Novoline slots is the use of the Gamble feature. The Book of Ra Gamble feature offers a 50/50 chance to double the profits after each win. Just as blunt as it looks, the 50/50 chance offered in this feature is equal to coin toss.

Cheating at casino games is nothing new in the gambling industry, with many clever individuals becoming infamous for their exploits. Through sheer ingenuity and low cunning several players have managed to leave their mark in history by cheating casinos out of their profits. Incidentally, they have also provided us with stories to regale each other and have some cheap laughs at the expense of gambling establishments everywhere.

Devices To Cheat Slot Machines

Fake Tokens: The Yo-yo

The original slots cheat was to tie a string around the coin the player was using to play with, lowering the coin into the slot until the machine had registered it, and then yanking it out again using the string. The player then continues with this method until they get a payout, risking none of their own money. Unsurprisingly this method only ever worked in the days of limited casino surveillance, and even then users of the yoyo were likely to be caught. In these times of CCTV and sophisticated security the chance of success using this technique is pretty slim, and of course, a cheat such as this won’t work with online and mobile slot games.

A variation on the yo-yo, instead of attempting to get your coin back out of the machine, you put fake money or tokens into the machine. The master of this cheat was an American called Louis Colavecchio. A jeweller, Colavecchio used his skills to make high-quality copies of the tokens used in casinos across Atlantic City and Connecticut. It wasn’t until a casino in Atlantic City realised it had more tokens on the gambling floor than they’d released that suspicions were raised. Colavecchio was eventually found with a carload of fake tokens, arrested and served 7 years in jail.

So is it possible to pull off such a cheat today? Probably not, apart from the fact that more and more casinos are using paper and electronic payment systems rather than tokens, the level of skill required to make convincing forgeries is extremely high. Colavecchio himself has said he doesn’t think anyone else could do it. Of course, there are other ways to get free spins these days!

Mechanical Devices

A set of clever cheats that worked with early, mechanical slot machines. The two most famous devices are the Top-Bottom Joint and the Monkey Paw. The Top-Bottom Joint was a piece of wire with a string attached. It took advantage of the fact that in older slot machines, when a winning combination of barrels slot into place they complete an electrical circuit, releasing the money into the tray. The Top-Bottom Joint works by completing the electrical circuit even when the player hasn’t won. In the 70’s and 80’s, the Top-Bottom joint was a favourite amongst cheats but its popularity meant the casinos and the police were on the alert for it.

One cheater who got caught using the Top-Bottom Joint was Tommy Carmichael. Being caught and jailed didn’t discourage him from cheating slots though. He just resolved to get better at it. After his release from jail, he went on the develop several more slot-beating tools, including the Monkey Paw, an evolution of the Top-Bottom Joint that allowed the user to locate and release the hatch that released money from the machine.

Blinding the Machine

Another Tommy Carmichael invention, the Light Wand, was essentially a tiny torch that could be inserted into a slot machine and shone at the optical sensor that regulates how much money to churn out on a win.

The light ‘blinds’ the sensor so it has no idea of when to stop giving out coins, turning a little win into one that empties out the machine. Unfortunately another option that won’t work at online or mobile casinos!

Cheat Code

All the cheats above are more suited to old style machines that have been mainly phased out by casinos. Cheat code has developed as machine software has been introduced and become more sophisticated, and as gaming has moved online. The software developer of a particular slot machine programme will introduce ‘rogue’ logic.

This could be that the machine will pay out if buttons are pressed in a certain order, for example, or if coins are inserted in a particular sequence. The difficulties of this cheat include the clear fact that only the coder of the programme can use the cheat, and once the cheat is discovered it’s pretty clear who the perpetrator is.

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Russian Magnet

Back in 2014, employees at the Lumiere Place Casino in St. Louis, USA noticed something particular. On two consecutive days, certain slot machines had paid out significantly more than they had collected. While casinos do expect some losses in the short term, these were much out of the ordinary. Upon closer investigation, the staff found out that a relatively unassuming man was holding his iPhone smartphone unusually close to the game’s display. He would then play a few games, winning several hundred at once. Interestingly enough, this man would only play at older models designed by Aristocrat Leisure, a casino game manufacturer from Australia.

Eventually, the man was arrested and he was identified as one Murat Bliev, a Russian citizen and part of a worldwide cheating crew. Apparently, he and a few others had been defrauding casinos all over the country with their inconspicuous technique, which involved magnet manipulation of pre-targeted machines. As it happens, the slots they had been playing came with a manufacturing defect, which modified the win ratios of the affected machines. The most interesting part? Casinos have no way of fighting this malfunction, save for the manufacturer recalling all machines of the series, which are available at dozens of US gambling establishments.

As far as Bliev and his partners in crime are concerned, they did not escape justice. Several of the perpetrators, including Bliev, have already served their sentences and have been deported from the US.

Conclusion

While we are sure that all of these exploits have brought much fame and fortune (and trouble with the law to boot) to these individuals, we are also inclined to believe that we will not see their like again soon. As it happens, casinos have upped their security to an almost Orwellian level and there is always a ‘Big Brother’ employee looking over everyone’s shoulder in the surveillance room. In the case of online casinos, it is nigh impossible to cheat at slots, or any other casino game for that matter, leaving us with no choice but to follow the rules. Granted, cheating is nothing to be proud of and it only serves to ruin the experience for everyone in the long term.

So the conclusion is that you’re probably best hoping that lady luck is on your side when playing the slots rather than attempting to beat the system. Of course, cheating works both ways, particularly in online slots you need to use reputable online casino sites to make sure they aren’t cheating you! Have a look at online slots and mobile slots reviews before signing up to a game and whilst casino bonuses aren’t guaranteed free money, they are certainly a big help!

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.

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.

Ways To Cheat Slot Machines

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.

How To Cheat Video Slots

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.

How To Cheat Slot Machines Borderlands 2

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.

How To Cheat Slot Machines 2019

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.

The common belief is that he is still alive, somewhere in the world, enjoying his ill-gotten gains.