Throughout history, the most infamous players have left their mark on casinos around the world. For the most part they are creative players and their clever and calculated moves have spurred best sellers, best movies, and new casino rules for recognizing tactics. Prominent thinkers have forever changed how casinos work, and how to control games and players.
The dilemmas of the slot
The first criminal is a man who raided a huge $ 100,000 Keno jackpot at an Atlantic City casino. The problem with this guy was the employees who became suspicious as he didn’t jump for joy or show the jubilant emotions of a winning player. He had no identification and simply asked for his winnings in cash. The law required the identification of any winner who won $ 35,000 or more. The gaming officials asked for police assistance, and as they welcomed the man into his own hotel room, they saw him and another man, who eventually turned out to be a computer technician for Nevada Gaming. The technician had a stock of notes and books, and computer equipment to beat the casino’s number generator. He had hacked the Keno number generator legally, because it was his job, and then copied the code. He then informed his partner of the winning numbers before the games were actually played.
Another man produced simple devices that forced slot machines to pay. This guy was a real thinker. He began when slot machines were simple and designed pieces of metal that provided a payout. Then, the casinos increased a random number of slot machines, so he visited the old school casinos, and was eventually hooked.
The prison sentence did not discourage him one bit. His next cheating tools were the Slider and the Monkey’s Paw. These tools triggered the machine’s hopper to pay for it. As casinos progressed to computer-generated machines, the slot genius visited a manufacturer to study the inside of the computer.
The glowing wand was his next cheating tool, which he promptly sold for $ 10,000 a piece to other deceptive players. The light wand consisted of a camera and a light that forced the computer sensor to pay once again. Another prison sentence was in store for him, he was arrested two more times. Now he lends his services to casinos to track down cheaters.
The scandalous third player produced his own coins for the slot, with copper, nickel, zinc and laser tools to replicate coins. His operation included a press in Italy that weighed 150 tons. The coins were so good that even experts were unable to distinguish genuine coins from fake ones. He may have scammed anywhere from $ 100,000 to $ 500,000, but no one will ever know because the authorities have failed to pinpoint his escapades and are ashamed. All they knew was that he cashed in an incredible amount of coins. was able to reach a plea bargain by explaining his operation in detail to law enforcement.
The crooks at the blackjack tables
George, David, Thor and the Belly Telly are computer names created by a man, who designed them for the sole purpose of winning at blackjack . Card counting didn’t work for him, so he focused his attention on computers. George was a bit bulky at 15 pounds, so David was developed, and he brought $ 40,000 to his creator to start. David was so effective that the guy sold several Davids for $ 10,000 each to other players. The sale came with a bonus training session on how to use David. Although David was discovered by the authorities, the man was not charged because the law had no idea how David did it. Next came Thor.
Thor could determine the order of the cards, if the rearrangement was perfect. The Belly Telly was a video camera, small enough to record from a belt buckle. This recorded the counter’s face down card and sent the image to an accomplice outside in the parking lot. The accomplice would let the player know the next card to play. All electronic aids became illegal in the mid-1980s, but this scammer kept winning. Eventually he became a face of gambling through the Blackjack Hall of Fame.
The next Blackjack scammer was a beauty. She was petite, and it was just the right size and physical shape that attracted countless admirers. He had a streak of wins totaling tens of thousands of dollars. Beauty had a system, however, it was her beauty that took everyone by surprise. He was responsible for slipping “coolers” into the deck. The “coolers” are cards that come from the scammer’s hand in order to beat the house. Since she was a woman, no one suspected her. Everyone’s streak ends at some point, and his was abruptly cut short by gaming and FBI officials.
The biggest blackjack scam of all
The next feat is from a group of players who have been profiled for a blockbuster movie. The group, made up of college math students, made over $ 5 million along the way. While most cheaters can work alone, these students had made a science out of the meaning of “team”. Not only did they study card counting late into the night, they took their knowledge off the streets, just to see if their methods worked. They campaigned to find the brightest members with advertising flyers, their questions and math tests. A meeting with the law convinced the founding members to leave the team, however, their winning method was kept alive until it reached the casinos.
The godfather of card counting, who wrote two books on the subject and held a master’s degree in physics and a doctorate in mathematics, was convinced he could beat the game of Blackjack. He was also a professor and his reign of counting led to the use of computers in the school, which at the time occupied an entire room. After studying his theory of card counting, he found that low cards are expressed in favor of the house and high cards benefited players. To his advantage, he was able to calculate a 1-5 percent edge over the house.
One weekend, he is said to have won $ 70,000. He began to win so much, that the officials became skeptical, but they could not find out anything about their suspicions, because the man showed no signs of counting the cards. It was finally headed for the exit doors of the casinos. His book on card counting, published in 1960, is infamous. He was also inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame.
The Tilt of Roulette
Spain can boast a roulette genius. He is the original tester of the roulette error theory. This man believed that the wheels did not turn randomly because they were always slightly inclined, making them imperfect. If a wheel was off-center, it meant that certain numbers would come up more frequently than others. To prove his theory, he studied thousands of spins in casinos in Spain, and recorded his findings on a computer to analyze the results.
He asked for the help of his children for the experiment. All the research was done before betting. When it came time to turn bets into cash, he knew his edge would be 10 percent higher than the house. This guy was intuitive, and he would have left the casinos if he had known he was close to being discovered. He eventually retired with 1.5 million after his face was recognizable by casinos around the world. A Spanish casino tried to sue him, but the court ruled in his favor, ruling that he had done nothing wrong.