So Which List Do You Aspire To?
January 9th, 2010 at 4:50:02 AM
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Gotta be some interesting stories here.
Barr, for example:
"Barr is considered a career slot cheat who has shown no source of legitimate income for most of his adult life. He has been arrested over 150 times for a wide range of offenses with a great deal of them being for gambling offenses. Since being excluded, Barr has been arrested on three occasions for entering casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. He is currently wanted by the Gaming Control Board."
http://gaming.nv.gov/loep_main.htm
http://gaming.nv.gov/wanted_main.htm
Barr, for example:
"Barr is considered a career slot cheat who has shown no source of legitimate income for most of his adult life. He has been arrested over 150 times for a wide range of offenses with a great deal of them being for gambling offenses. Since being excluded, Barr has been arrested on three occasions for entering casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. He is currently wanted by the Gaming Control Board."
http://gaming.nv.gov/loep_main.htm
http://gaming.nv.gov/wanted_main.htm
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
January 9th, 2010 at 5:19:59 AM
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Are those all of the people who are excluded from gambling in Vegas?
I would have thought it would be a lot more than just 35...
Noy
I would have thought it would be a lot more than just 35...
Noy
January 10th, 2010 at 5:18:35 AM
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Quote: noy2222Are those all of the people who are excluded from gambling in Vegas?
I would have thought it would be a lot more than just 35...
Noy
I'm sure the casinos have a gigantic list, these are the ones the gaming commission has set eyes on
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
January 10th, 2010 at 8:39:18 AM
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How exactly does a "career slot cheat" operate? Is there some simple way to cheat a slot machine? (Not that I'm going to do it or anything :))
January 10th, 2010 at 12:38:17 PM
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Don't know the specifics of course, but I think back in the old days of mechanical slots it was possible to "pop" the handle to somehow influence the outcome. The GCB list also implies that some of these folks have worked on ways to cheat at electronic slots as well...no idea how that would work without being obvious.
"I believe I've passed the age/of consciousness and righteous rage/I've found that just surviving was a noble fight...
I once believed in causes too/I had my pointless point of view/And life went on no matter who was wrong or right..." --Billy Joel
January 10th, 2010 at 1:04:50 PM
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that 2005 television series that unfortunately gets confused with the movie showed slot cheats that gained enough infamy to be fascinating... I guess you could say the program might have made it more clear they weren't people to admire for the most part, still...
I can remember them showing people using various gadgets like slugs on a wire; and I think some more sophisticated stuff [it escapes me now]. And Ron Harris, which was an inside job you might say.
IMDB identifies the series, but has little on it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445870/episodes
I can remember them showing people using various gadgets like slugs on a wire; and I think some more sophisticated stuff [it escapes me now]. And Ron Harris, which was an inside job you might say.
IMDB identifies the series, but has little on it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445870/episodes
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
January 10th, 2010 at 6:27:06 PM
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I remember two slot eps from the Breaking Vegas show. Both involved cheaters. I don't recall the names of the people involved, but here's a brief recap:
1) With the old mechanical slots there was a way to insert a wire through the coin slot and another through the pay door to, IIRC, short the machine and make it spit coins. The guy doing this was caught and sent to jail for some years. When he came out most slot machines were electronic. He found a way to cheat them. This is more straightforward. The machines counted coins with an optical sensor. The coins interrupted a beam passing through and were counted in. He built a light wand to simulate the effect and made the machine count lots of incoming coins without placing a single coin in. Then he simply cashed out "unused" credits and walked away. I think he was caught at it, too.
2) At a time when slots used tokens, a man with some metal working and stamping tools managed to counterfeit box loads of tokens. He'd feed them into slot machines and, as the other guy above, simply cash out. He then exchanged tokens at the cage and walked out. Problem was the counterfeit tokens were indistinguishable from the legitimate ones. I don't recall how the casinos failed to notice the extra amount of tokens when they made inventories.
1) With the old mechanical slots there was a way to insert a wire through the coin slot and another through the pay door to, IIRC, short the machine and make it spit coins. The guy doing this was caught and sent to jail for some years. When he came out most slot machines were electronic. He found a way to cheat them. This is more straightforward. The machines counted coins with an optical sensor. The coins interrupted a beam passing through and were counted in. He built a light wand to simulate the effect and made the machine count lots of incoming coins without placing a single coin in. Then he simply cashed out "unused" credits and walked away. I think he was caught at it, too.
2) At a time when slots used tokens, a man with some metal working and stamping tools managed to counterfeit box loads of tokens. He'd feed them into slot machines and, as the other guy above, simply cash out. He then exchanged tokens at the cage and walked out. Problem was the counterfeit tokens were indistinguishable from the legitimate ones. I don't recall how the casinos failed to notice the extra amount of tokens when they made inventories.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
January 11th, 2010 at 8:03:25 AM
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Quote: Nareed
2) At a time when slots used tokens, a man with some metal working and stamping tools managed to counterfeit box loads of tokens. He'd feed them into slot machines and, as the other guy above, simply cash out. He then exchanged tokens at the cage and walked out. Problem was the counterfeit tokens were indistinguishable from the legitimate ones. I don't recall how the casinos failed to notice the extra amount of tokens when they made inventories.
Inventory is when they did catch that guy. Say you have $1MM (all numbers made up) in $1 slot tokens for example. In daily use an unknown but positive number will dissapear as people intentionally or not carry them out and keep as souviners or lose them, whatever. So they would check yearly and reorder if needed. So they count and they find they have say $1,020,000 in tokens. The overage was enough that it was impossible that it was just a "correction" from a previous undercount and it was also enough that they knew it was a very sophisticated operation.
When the first place or two reported the overage, either the casinos of the NJGCB (I forget which) told the other places to check ASAP.
The two things I found funny here were:
1. The casinos were never able to pull the fakes out they were so good. They lasted until they went coinless it seems.
2. The guy was so good the US Mint hired him while he was in prison!
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
January 11th, 2010 at 11:33:23 PM
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Quote: Nareed1) With the old mechanical slots there was a way to insert a wire through the coin slot and another through the pay door to, IIRC, short the machine and make it spit coins. The guy doing this was caught and sent to jail for some years. When he came out most slot machines were electronic. He found a way to cheat them. This is more straightforward. The machines counted coins with an optical sensor. The coins interrupted a beam passing through and were counted in. He built a light wand to simulate the effect and made the machine count lots of incoming coins without placing a single coin in. Then he simply cashed out "unused" credits and walked away. I think he was caught at it, too.
That's Tommy Glenn Carmichael. There's a little more to it than that.
The first device mentioned is a "top-bottom joint." That had been around for a while. That wasn't his, but the rest of it was.
The first electronic slots would count coins using a microswitch. By holding that switch open (or closed, the point is it was held), the machine would keep spitting out coins until it was released (or empty). The slot makers replaced the microswitch with a light sensor that did the same thing. The cheating device was replaced with the light wand that in turn did the same thing. Eventually the slot manufacturers made it difficult (if not impossible) to run cheating devices up through the bottom of the machine, so he came up with a form of "electronic slug" that he'd stick in the coin-in slot and make the machine think it was receiving coins.
I'm really surprised it took until 2003 to permaban him. He'd been doing these things since 1980 and even served time for it.
Now (well, as of 2003) he's supposedly invented some sort of anti-cheating device for slots. I'm sure the casinos would love to have him in for a sales pitch as long as it was in their offices. Surprisingly, there haven't been any takers.
BTW, the Ron Harris episode is scheduled for this Friday on Biography.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:39:51 AM
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Quote: wildqatQuote: Nareed1)
BTW, the Ron Harris episode is scheduled for this Friday on Biography.
Is he the one that cracked the RNG for the Keno in AC? I'm not sure whether to call that one "cheating." He didn't affect the outcome of the game, but he did use a "device." Still, he should have gone in with someone smarter, and it never ceases to amaze me how a cheating team is too cheap to get more than one room. In "Supercasino" they say how they comped a BP a room to catch the team together in it later, they fell for it easily.
Now, the slot cheating the guy did in Nevada, that was total cheating. And copied in "Oceans 13."All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
January 12th, 2010 at 8:59:05 AM
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Quote: AZDuffmanI'm not sure whether to call that one "cheating." He didn't affect the outcome of the game, but he did use a "device."
Yes, but one article that EnvyBonus provided below said that he just figured out that Atlantic City decided to go with the same RNG formula that Nevada did. If he had "cracked" it because it was too simple or something, that would be different.
Quote: the article below"New Jersey now requires that any electronic keno machines used in Atlantic City have a "source code" different from the same machines used in other states. Also, in Nevada the chairman of the state's Gaming Control Board, Bill Bible, ordered a review of its safeguard measures with an independent firm and now requires staff electronics employees to check each others work."
The clear suggestion is thus that this is where they went wrong, easy to believe. So Harris was using priviliged information.
Quote: EnvyBonusA decent summary is here.
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
January 12th, 2010 at 9:04:34 AM
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Quote: AZDuffman...it never ceases to amaze me how a cheating team is too cheap to get more than one room.
watching some other true crime stuff lately, it is certainly nearly 100% consistent that the planning for the crime can be ingenious, but the plan to 'get away', or use the money, is pure bonehead!
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
January 12th, 2010 at 12:03:06 PM
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Quote: odiousgambitQuote: AZDuffman...it never ceases to amaze me how a cheating team is too cheap to get more than one room.
watching some other true crime stuff lately, it is certainly nearly 100% consistent that the planning for the crime can be ingenious, but the plan to 'get away', or use the money, is pure bonehead!
Remember when Winston Wolf said, "Don't let me get out on the highway and find out the brake lights are out!"
Look at how some crimes first got cracked:
Tim McVeigh got caught because of a traffic stop for I forget but I think brake lights or expired tags.
The Jimmy Burke Crew got caught because of throwing money around and leaving the getaway van on the street.
Son of Sam by a parking ticket.
Even if you assume "heist" crooks are smarter than degenerate serial killers, still. Leaving the van and getting stoned instead of having it crushed when that was your only job? I mean come on.
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
January 13th, 2010 at 7:01:32 AM
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Quote: AZDuffmanLook at how some crimes first got cracked:
I dare say most criminals are dumb that way. That's why New York's strategy of arresting people for minor offenses yielded big results. Briefly, people who commit big crimes also often commit smaller crimes. So booking those who jump a turnstile and such lets you catch bigger felons as well.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
