Mini-lights?

I was watching the travel channel's Vegas specials, and I saw the "monkey paw" description. Doing some Googling, I found this note:

Quote:

That being said, there are many methods used by slots cheats. One of the most successful in the modern electronic age of slots is the mini-light. This was a focused light which could be directed at the slot machine's sensors, confusing the machine about how many coins had been paid for a win. This worked for a while until casinos caught onto the scam. Now, all slot machines have protections against the tripping of their light sensors.

I'm confused as to how light sensors would have an affect. From reading the Wizard's articles on slot machines, it seems like data like which numbers were generated, what reels those corresponded to, how much the combination of the three reels you put in were, how much you bet, and how much you had in the machine would just be stored in volatile memory like RAM (or, I guess, non-volatile if you're worried about power loss).

Whats the deal?

The mini lights served the same purpose as the old coin on a string trick. The machines thought you made a bet when a beam of light in the machine was broken by a coin passing it. However, by shining a light up the hopper you could fool or confuse the mechanism somehow into thinking the player made a bet. Once you did that it was like playing for free. The odds of any given play were the same as for a legitimate player.

If a slot machine was supposed to drop 25 quarters into the metal tray, it would COUNT the 25 by counting up how many times a light beam was broken by a passing quarter. Shining the fake but bright light up into the innards of the machine kept the count from reaching the proper value so additional quarters would spew out on any win.

It didn't take the casinos too long to catch on.

In a "Breaking Vegas" ep some guy used a light, as the Wizard describes, to trick slot machines into counting a lot more coins than he put in (if he put in any at all). He'd play for a while, then cash out coins that never went in.

These days with most slots taking in bills and tickets, that's no longer an option. Counterfiting a bill is difficult, though perhaps one to fool a slot machine might be easier (I truly don't know). In any case it's a federal offense.

Counterfiting a ticket should be easy, except they all quite naturally have an authentication number. If you were to copy the visible data on a ticket and feed it to a slot machine, it would probably work (assuming there's no data in ultraviolet ink or a magnetic stripe of some sort). But then when you wanted to use the original ticket, it would probably be rejected since it has already been used.

There has to be some way to mess witha slot machine. There always is. But I haven't heard of any. I suppose when they all go server based you could hack into the system and do mischief in a major way ;)

Quote: Nareed

Counterfiting a bill is difficult, though perhaps one to fool a slot machine might be easier (I truly don't know).

I attended a presentation by the head of security at the MGM a few years ago. He said the slot machine bill valuators were very good, much better than the human eye. His advice was if you were unsure if a bill was real, to run it through a slot machine.

Quote: Wizard

I attended a presentation by the head of security at the MGM a few years ago. He said the slot machine bill valuators were very good, much better than the human eye. His advice was if you were unsure if a bill was real, to run it through a slot machine.

I believe that, if only because casinos could lose a fortune otherwise.

But how about the ticket redemption/bill-breaking machines? I suppose they use the same kind of bill valuation technology, or the whole thing becomes an excercise in futility.

I had a job which involved handling currency. Because of that I can distinguish a counterfeit easily, many times just by touching it.

Anybody remember the original dollar changer?

It had a little glass drawer where you put the dollar, closed the glass list, then slid it into the machine and held it there while the scanner checked it out. It took a good 15 seconds before the bill was approved or rejected. Part of the reason was because they were very thorough. It was near impossible to slip a counterfeit thru.

And it only changed singles.


Today's bill scanners, although faster and with the ability to verify multiple denominations and various versions of art, are just as thorough. It is FAR more likely that a good bill will be rejected than a bad bill accepted.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Anybody remember the original dollar changer?

It had a little glass drawer where you put the dollar, closed the glass list, then slid it into the machine and held it there while the scanner checked it out. It took a good 15 seconds before the bill was approved or rejected. Part of the reason was because they were very thorough. It was near impossible to slip a counterfeit thru.

I remember change machines that took only singles. They used a metal kind of metal slide and you pushed the bill into it. They were quite hard to use, rejected many bills and spewed out only 4 quarters. As I recall you saw them mostly at laundromats and near vending machines in hotels. This was in Houston and Orlando, BTW, in the late 70s and early 80s.

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Today's bill scanners, although faster and with the ability to verify multiple denominations and various versions of art, are just as thorough. It is FAR more likely that a good bill will be rejected than a bad bill accepted.

I've had good bills rejected by bill breaking machines. That's a traditional engineering/testing safety margin. You see it in bacterial/viral testing kits, too. The idea is that a false positive (in this case positive means counterfeit) hurts you less than a false negative. These kinds of tests are supposed not to give false negatives at all.

In bacterial/viral tests it makes lots of sense. Better to repeat a test after a positive to confirm it, than to let disease go unterated due to a false negative.

Oh, BTW, one time a bill breaker at MGM refused to accept a $100 bill. I fed it to a VP machine also at MGM and it accepted it. I took the ticket out full credit, then the ticket redemption machine gave me 5 $20 bills.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Anybody remember the original dollar changer?

Yes, I remember them well. The Laundromat I used in college had one. It changed a dollar into four quarters. While the washers were 25¢, the dryers were a dime. You had to remember to bring your own dimes.

I have the least trouble with a machine taking a dollar. Some practically take a crumpled up and nearly shredded one. But on the other hand I routinely come across machines which spit out other denominations for the slightest reason it seems, like a curled edge. I swear they seem to hate newer 5s the most though. It's easier to get 20s in than a lot of 5s.

Quote: rxwine

I have the least trouble with a machine taking a dollar. Some practically take a crumpled up and nearly shredded one. But on the other hand I routinely come across machines which spit out other denominations for the slightest reason it seems, like a curled edge. I swear they seem to hate newer 5s the most though. It's easier to get 20s in than a lot of 5s.

oh yeah ive had this experience with the newer 5s countless times.

In Mexico City automated parking lots and garages are all the rage now. Instead of paying an attendant sitting in a booth at the exit, you pay at an automated teller which gives you a ticket you then feed an automated gate at the exit.

Mexican currency is more variable. We used to have American style bank notes (all the same size) but of different colors. Now we've gone european, with different sizes for the 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 peso bills (there's a 1,000 peso note, but it's the same size as the 500). In addition the 20, 50 and 100 are made of plastic rather than paper. Frankly I'm amazed any bills make it through at all.

For some reason, 50 peso bills are the most troublesome. Once I had to feed a 200 bill because the machine wouldn't take the 50. Unfortunately they only give change in coins, and there are no convenient stacks of plastic cups to carry your change around ;)

FYI the current rate of exchange is about 12.50 to 13 pesos per US dollar