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1. Casino Cheating Methods
2. Online Casino Cheating
3. Casino Cheating News
4. Casino Cheating Devices
5. Casinos Cheating Players

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.

It is a false belief you will be bashed. No legal and licensed casino would dare risk a huge law suit and bad publicity over a casino cheat. Casino cheats are not that uncommon. Casinos don’t just bash them. There are procedures the casinos in place for them. The players actually have the upper hand. It is not difficult to avoid detection. The First Casinos. Gambling was legalized in 1854, so Prince Charles III established the first casino in La Condamine, but this casino proved to be a failure, but many attempts by the Grimaldi family were put into action, and the doomed casino was relocated to various parts of Monaco. California is a great state for poker enthusiasts and casino game fans, as the Golden State is packed with tribal casinos, card clubs and prestigious poker rooms. In fact, the Commerce Casino is believed to host the biggest live poker room in the world. If that wasn’t enough, California also has horse racing, a state lottery and bingo. 5:12-112 Unlicensed casino gambling games unlawful; penalties 5:12-113 Swindling and cheating; penalties 5:12-113.1 Use of certain devices in playing games, grading of offense.

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.

Casino Cheating Methods

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

Online Casino Cheating

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.

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.

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.

Casino Cheating News

For online poker players, one of the most welcomed features of the new regulated online poker market is the prospect of having real-world ramifications and penalties for cheaters and players intent on skirting the rules.

To varying degrees, the definitions and penalties for cheating have been written into the regulations regarding online gaming in all three states that have passed online gaming laws: Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey.

Below you will find these details governing cheating, as well as the potential penalties for players caught breaking the rules.

Nevada regulations covering cheating

Nevada regulators have left much of the leg work up to the casinos and online providers. It is up to the providers to put in place (with the approval of the NGC and NGCB) the methods of detection.

Along with prohibiting specific items and acts, the blanket language inserted into the law can be applied to a variety of different cheating methods, or for breaking the online site’s terms and conditions.

Below I have listed three separate passages from Nevada’s online gaming regulations that reference cheating:

* 6. Reasonably ensuring that interactive gaming is engaged in between human individuals only;

* 7. Reasonably ensuring that interactive gaming is conducted fairly and honestly, including the prevention of collusion between authorized players.

* Each operator shall implement procedures that are designed to detect and prevent transactions that may be associated with money laundering, fraud and other criminal activities and to ensure compliance with all federal laws related to money laundering

As you can see, Nevada regulations cover everything from collusion to bots, and call on the sites to be diligent in their security and put the appropriate measures in place. Nevada regulators will then review these safeguards and policies to see if they are adequate.

Casino Cheating Devices

Reading through the regulations, the definition of cheating also extend to any measure employed that changes the fairness of the game, which would theoretically cover everything from ghosting to multi-accounting; making these practices punishable offenses.

Penalties for cheating in Nevada

Penalties for online cheaters will mirror those already in place at brick & mortar casinos.

The current process gives Nevada Casinos the chance to give a player caught cheating a “slap on the wrist” or “throw the book at them.” A far better system than the current one in place in the unregulated online poker market; where your only recourse is public shaming on poker forums while the perpetrator counts your money.

A quick look at the penalties listed on the Nevada.gov webpage for casino cheating shows just how harsh the penalties can be for online cheaters.

Delaware regulations covering cheating

Delaware’s online gaming regulations contain very little in the way of language regarding how sites and the State Lottery will deal with cheating, or conduct investigations into potential cheating.

A search of the regulation’s document returns zero results for the terms cheating, collusion, or poker bot. The word fraud or cheat appears less than a handful of the time, and mainly in reference to player funds or internally at the online site.

The Delaware Lottery is leaving security to what it is calling “Internal Control Systems,” otherwise known as “in the hands of the provider,” and any policies put in place will need the approval of state regulators before they can be implemented.

In some cases this type of loosely written law can be beneficial, as it allows the interpretation of the law to be written as situations arise (especially useful in new industries such as online gambling), but most poker players were probably hoping for something a bit more definitive, and along the lines of the Nevada or New Jersey regulations.

Penalties for cheating in Delaware

In Delaware, with its vague language, penalties for cheating will likely be hammered out along the way.

That being said, I expect the penalties to be consistent, as all online games (offered by Delaware’s three “Racinos”) are run through the state lottery by only a single provider, the partnership of 888 Holdings and Scientific Games.

One indication of how severely Delaware will come down on online poker cheats can be found in this story from 2011 where three men were arrested for marking cards. Another blackjack cheat was arrested in 2010 and faced 17 counts of misdemeanor cheating, as well as some other felony charges unrelated to cheating.

New Jersey regulations covering cheating

Casinos Cheating Players

The regulations that cover online cheating in New Jersey are extremely comprehensive, but also leave just enough wiggle room in their interpretation to cover just about every form of cheating not specifically mentioned.

Compared to Delaware’s zero mentions of the word “collusion,” a quick look through the NJ regulations turns up multiple uses of the term (I stopped counting after 10), along with several instances of the term “bot.” New Jersey expressly prohibits collusion, the use of poker bots, and goes so far as to prohibit account sharing, which would extend to ghosting and other forms of soft-collusion.

Penalties for cheating in New Jersey

Like Nevada, New Jersey will apply their brick & mortar penalties to online cheaters, which mean pretty stiff penalties for anyone caught cheating or breaking the terms and conditions at a New Jersey online poker site.

Additionally, all New Jersey online casinos will share information on known cheaters, and being banned at one NJ Internet poker site means being banned at all NJ Internet poker rooms.

In New Jersey, cheaters will no longer be able to just jump to the next site and continue their disreputable behavior.