11 Ways to Cheat At Slots

Slot machines are one of the most lucrative games on the casino floor for both the players, the house, and cheaters. Although they are electronic, slot easily attracts as many cheaters as classic table games and roulette cheats. Here are 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots.

Slots can rake in the most money from stakes but they can also deliver some of the biggest jackpot payouts. That’s why it’s understandable that these machines can be targeted by slot cheats to earn a big win at the casino.

Let’s find out some of the cheats used by those cheeky scum bags to beat the house. We don’t recommend ever trying them yourself, but there are 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots:

1. Cheat Code

Gambling authorities take care that the gaming industry is operating correctly and fairly.

Engineers design gaming machines so that they can be monitored and audited whilst also delivering quality gameplay. What happens when an engineer decides to rig the codes for their own advantage?

The infamous slots cheat Ronald Dale Harris is what happens. The Nevada Gaming Commission engineer did exactly that – he sure knew how to manipulate a slot machine!

For years, he cheated machines by knowing the source codes. After a big win in the casino of $100,000 on a keno game in 1995 the scam was discovered. This is one of the 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots.

2. Shaved Coins

With the advancement of technology, slot machines began to use a light sensor to register payment. In many machines, the optic sensor worked separately from the physical comparator.

It means that if a shaved coin was sent down at the same time as an object that matched the shape and size of the required stake coin, the shaved coin would be returned whilst the other object would land in the machine and start play. This is one of the 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots.

3. Fake Coins

Fake coins were used by con artist Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio to cheat casinos for years until his arrest in 1998.

He was released in 2006 and quickly re-started his scams. It was a matter of months before he was sussed again.

4. Magnet

Have you thought of cheating a slot machine with a magnet?

It’s not possible to cheat modern day slot machines with a magnet, since they’re all programmed by computer software and aren’t magnetic.

However, people used to be able to cheat with a magnet on the older machines, when they were made of metal.

To cheat at slots using a magnet, you could spin the reels and then use a strong magnet on the outside of the machine to stop them spinning when the reel lands the winning combination. Cheaters would then remove the magnet and claim the payout.

This wasn’t the most subtle cheat but, if done well, people could easily win lots of cash! This is one of the 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots.

5. Yo-Yo

These slots cheat is all about the technique. A thread is attached to the coin, the coin is sent into the machine until it triggers the start of the game, and then the player brings the coin back up using the string. Today, this technique is gone redundant due to technology.

It’s a real classic though and, if it worked, you could see a big win in the casino. This is one of the 11 Ways to Cheat At Slots.

6. Light Wand

Tommy Glenn Carmichael is one of the most notorious slot cheats in gambling history. He is the one liable for the light wand.

Magicians such as David Copperfield, David Blaine, and Dynamo might have the ability to create the illusion of something happening. But Carmichael would use his light wand to make jackpot wins magically materialize out of thin air. He used to manipulate a slot machine to his advantage.

The light wand would blind the optical sensor on slot machines so it would be unable to work out how many coins had been deposited into the machine so would not know when to pay out or how much.

Carmichael could turn small wins into massive payouts.

7. Piano Wire

This is an old one but quite good in the world of slots cheats.

A group of men worked together at the Caesars Boardwalk Regency casino in Atlantic City back in 1982. One man opened the targeted slot machine and attached 20-inch long piano wires to the whirring guts of the game.

Using this wire, the group could manipulate the spins. They hit the $50,000 but, unfortunately, their whole scam had been filmed and the winning player was arrested before he left the premises.

8. Monkey Paw

Carmichael is the creator of the “monkey paw”. After testing out new methods on a video poker machine, he finally built the correct contraption. It was amazingly simple.

He got a guitar string and attached it to a bent metal rod. He would thrust it into the machine’s air vent and wriggle it around until he clicked the trigger switch for the coin hopper.

9. Bill Validator Device

This is easy and effective slots cheat. This is a little device that is wrapped around a bill to fool the slot machine into thinking it is accepting a $100 bill when in reality it is just accepting a humble $1 bill.

This is the scam that was thought up in a seedy bar out in the Nevada desert by Billy-Joe and Uncle Fuzz.

10. Computer Chip Replacement

Dennis Nikrasch changed the slots cheating game with this idea.

He bought a slot machine and messed about with it in his garage to figure out its flaws. He worked out the computer chips inside the machines could be re-programmed to be manipulated to pay out jackpots on tap.

Nikrasch ordered a load of these chips, hired a team of scammers, got hold of a bunch of slot machine keys, and started a reign of scamming that would bleed casinos dry for years. And he did it all just by switching the independent chips for his manipulated chips.

11. Software Glitch

How many times have you seen a casino refuse to pay out a jackpot due to a ‘software glitch’?

The most amazing incident happened in 2015 when 90-year-old grandmother Pauline McKee, from Illinois, won $41 million on a Miss Kitty slot machine at the Isle Casino Hotel Waterloo.

She sued the casino initially in 2012 but her final appeal was rejected three years later. Unfortunately, historical events are the reason for the casino winning this case.

Synopsis

Software glitches have been manipulated by frauds for decades. By playing a certain pattern of stakes and games players could confuse the machine and trigger a glitch that pays out the jackpot.

Many slots cheats benefited from this over the years but now many jackpot winners are also being denied their winnings because of it.