Slot machines have been around for a long time. It is one of the most lucrative entertainments available in the casinos. They are also known as the money-making machines for their casinos, but at the same time, they also offer the biggest rewards to players. As the popularity of slot machines grew among gamblers, they could not resist but to try out different ways to manipulate the slot machines. Today the slot machines are electronic and do not offer enough ways to cheat unless someone can hack and control the outcomes. The mechanical machines were different. They were easy to mess with and so cheaters tried everything they could to break the system. Here are some tried and tested hacks attempted by cheaters in the past.
Shaved coins
Today the coins used in casinos have chips that get scanned before spinning the wheels. Earlier when it was not the case, people would shave the coins to match the shape and size of the original coins. These coins were used for playing the games without having to spend on the original coins.
Fake coins
People have also attempted to make fake coins for the slot machines in the past. Fake coins were used by the famous con artist Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio. He made his own fake coins to scam casinos before he was arrested in 1998. After his release in 2006, he was caught once again doing the same.
Magnet
There was also a time when cheaters attempted slowing down the slots using magnets. They manipulated the spin of the reels to stop them when they wanted. Cheaters have claimed a lot using a magnet. However, it is not possible to use a magnet today as all the metal-reel slot machines are replaced with digital machines.
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Cheaters used this technique to play with a single coin again and again. They would attack a string to a coin and insert it while holding the string from the other end. They would then just pull out the coin, again and again, to keep playing the games. Even this technique is now invalid due to the newly made coins and scanners.
Light wand
The light wand was one of the most notorious inventions in casino cheating history. It was invented by the legendary Tommy Glenn Carmichael. The light wand would blind the optical sensor of the machine that would manipulate the machine into miscalculating the deposits and payouts. Carmichael used his device to turn small wins into a way bigger payouts.
Top-Bottom Joint
This was another popular method in the past to cheat at slot games. A special tool was invented that had two parts – a metal rod bent at the end like “q” and a long wire. The cheaters used this tool to jam the machines that forced the machine to release all the coins inside. Cheaters did not even need to play a game for this.