The Intriguing History of Cheaters at the Slots

No matter what part of the world you’re from – if there exists a cheating strategy. It’s not confined till the physical games; it extends all boundaries of physical presence. Normal games evoke such passionate feelings amongst players. Involved money and you have got yourself a war! No matter how many safety measures you put in your casinos or firewalls to protect your online slots, notorious cheaters will find a way like they always have. Let us go through some of the most popular tricks people have used over the years.

What It Was Like Back in the Days

Yes, slot cheating has a proper history as well. Well, this was a time when people took the time and effort out to actually visit a casino so that they could play their favorite slot machines. Usually, there is a very firm system in place that enables random numbers and symbols to be generated – but every game has loopholes (sometimes literal ones).

One of the most commonly used tricks back in the day was called “fishing.” It’s exactly as it sounds. a string was attached to the coin before inserting it into the slot machine. You out the coin inside, as soon as the machine approved it and began the game you pulled it out. Like pulling out a baited fishhook. The trick became so popular, that it also made an appearance in a Donald Duck episode back in 1949 where his nephew uses this trick to win at the slots.

Later with the times, the techniques evolved somewhat and cheaters started using coat hangers instead of the stringed coin. What? They’d bend the coat hanger’s wire and jam it into the machine. How did it work and what did it do? The bent wire is used to usher the coins out. There was a case long while ago where an individual successfully cheated and got away with about $200k (from a few machines, and not one alone).

At one point, fake coins were all the rage at the casinos. Since the machines did not have a currency detector, as soon as the impulsive cheaters found out they started using fake coins. It became so widely commercialized that the guy who invented these hardened metal dye coins started to make some business out of it. A documentary is available online, based on this topic.

Soon, the slot makers figured these tricks out and carried out counter measures to ensure minimum theft. Due to these security measures, these tricks almost disappeared from the casinos.

BUT! When there’s a will, there’s a way. It wasn’t after a long time when the cheaters of 1970s and 80s took re bilk slot machines by storm. The tricks they used were rather unique.

Top-Bottom Joint

As the name itself suggests, the trick consists of two parts. The first part is “bottom,” which is a wire or string of any kind. And then there’s the “top,” which is a bent metal rod (in the shape of a curly q).

How it worked: Once the wheels of the machine started to spin and began to turn into a winning position, a lever behind the wheel slid into a specific position. Now, these levers were attached with metal joints. What the cheater would do was slide the wire into the coin slot until it touched a metal joint. Then they joined the top part of the string through the coin receptor. This ensured the electrical flow, and enabled the coin chute to pour out as many coins as it had inside.

Monkey Paw

Tommy Glenn Carmichael got quite famous after inventing this trick, he is also known as one of the best and most popular slot machine scammers of that era. But before he could even begin devising a trick together, he was caught using the top-bottom joint at a casino, was arrested and put into a jail sentence that was five years long – that is where he devised the plan to create the monkey paw.

How it worked: The design was similar to the top-bottom joint, but the difference was that he used the string to go through the air vent all the way to the switch for the coin hopper. The wire paw switched it on, and he had instant overflow of coin treasure.

How can we forget cheat codes?

Ronald Dale Harris was the slot machine cheating genius who engineered his custom programming chips into the slot machine. The trick was to enter a specific amount of coins and the machine would give you an automatic pay out. Yeah, cheat codes aren’t only used for action games to get cars and weaponry, slot machine cheaters use it to earn what matters!

How They Do It NOW

You can always rely on a software glitch to win you the money you want to. But it’s the road less traveled.  Since you’re completely relying on a coincident to take place and turn you into a rich winner. The other way traveled most often? Hack it up!

Even though the systems have been amped up with high alter security systems, people are still trying to work their way into them and win big time. Everyday a new security plan is put in place, and someone on some side of the world begins to formulate a plan to break those barriers.