ARTICLE: N.J. casinos fight slot cheaters

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N.J. casinos fight slot cheaters

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Thieves seek ways to beat machines amid constantly changing technology
By WILLIAM H. SOKOLIC
Courier-Post Staff
ATLANTIC CITY


For almost two decades, Tommy Glenn Carmichael designed tools to steal millions from slot machines across the United States and the Caribbean.

His arrest here in 1999 put an end to one of the more innovative slot machine cheaters in the annals of gaming.

But it didn't put an end to efforts to beat the slots illegally.

Just as manufacturers and regulators have worked to foil slot bandits, thieves have looked for new ways to beat the machines. It's a battle of wits and technology that Atlantic City regulators believe they're winning.

"Manufacturers take this very seriously. If they get beat, they make the machines better," said Richard Williamson, who oversees slot machines in Atlantic City as director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement's Technical Services Bureau.

Since Carmichael's arrest, Atlantic City regulators believe they've cut down on the number of slot machine scams taking place here - or at least on the number of successes. Arrests totaled 27 last year, down from 66 in 2000.

"I like to think we're moving them out of New Jersey," said Lt. Gerald Stoll of the New Jersey State Police special investigations unit of the Casino Gaming Bureau.

Cheaters succeed by attacking on one of three fronts: the money going in, the money coming out, or the computer programs that control the game

Attacking the computer programs requires an intricate understanding of the operation of slots, and often requires inside help from an employee. The state police assigned to the casinos take a six-month course in slot mechanics to understand games from the inside out as a way to stop cheats.

In the days before computer-controlled machines, cheats used slugs to foil the money-in element. Others used a yo-yo, in which a coin was attached to a string and dropped in far enough to set the reels in motion, then pulled out.

Today's machines, which use light sensors, can sense if a coin is going in the wrong direction, Williamson said.

Money-out devices are inserted up the payout chute in an effort to fool the hopper into delivering more coins, he said.

A kick stand, also known as a monkey's paw, was used when coin drops into the hopper were controlled by a lever, which opened and closed with every coin passing into the hopper. By holding the lever up, coins would keep falling out. Carmichael developed a variation called a slider. The trick was to keep the device in play just long enough to avoid tilting the game, which shuts down the machine and alerts authorities. "Timing was everything," Williamson said.

When casinos got wise, manufacturers replaced the lever with optics, so coins would pass through a light field, breaking the beam with each one until the proper amount fell into the hopper and the coin tray.

Cheaters like Carmichael came up with a device known as a light wand. Simplistic in form, it's little more than a bright light bulb attached to a battery and switch by an arm. But in the hands of a someone with skill it can blind the optical sensor so it never sees the coins. Again, the game would eventually tilt.

"You can't leave it in too long without drawing attention," Williamson said.

A clever cheat can pop a $100 bill into the bill validator and walk off with $700 in coins without a single spin of the reel, Stoll said.

A firm called iGames Entertainment Inc. has invented a device called the Protector. Easy to use and transferable from machine to machine, it prevents entry up the coin chute by sensing something going the wrong way, disabling the game and alerting authorities.

"It installs on the inside of the door. You would not know it was there unless you're familiar with the inside of a slot machine," said Steven Berman, vice president of sales and marketing for the Las Vegas company.

New Jersey's Division of Gaming Enforcement has approved the Protector and it's slated for trials in the resort.

Meanwhile, the emergence of cashless slots will make the wand and its ancestors obsolete.

With cashless slots, players receive a voucher instead of coins. The voucher is redeemed by cashiers or ATM-like machines. Just about every game at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa is cashless. The only time the hoppers come into play is when the ticketing server goes down on occasion.

"In 10 years there will likely be no hoppers left," Williamson said.

Still, even a cashless game requires insertion of bills to play, offering some potential for compromise, said Ed Rogich, vice president of marketing for International Game Technology, one of the largest slot manufacturers.

Cheats can attack the bill acceptors with counterfeit money. But manufacturers, working with the U.S. Mint, have developed programs to combat the practice, so it's easier to pass a fake bill with a cashier than with a slot machine, Rogich said.

More recent scam attempts involve copying the cashless tickets. But the various systems do not allow vouchers to be cashed twice.

"If you try and cash the original ticket after redeeming a copy, it comes up as already redeemed," Williamson said.

Some thieves take advantage of older cabinets by forcing them open and stealing coins. Unlike table games, which have dealers and pit bosses galore, there is far less surveillance in the expansive slot areas. Once a cabinet is opened, legally or not, it sends a signal to authorities, but by the time they arrive, the thief may be gone.

More sophisticated scam artists break into the machines by circumventing the locking system and altering the computer program to trigger a jackpot. While such scams often require the help of a casino employee, a knowledgeable thief can do it. Dennis Nikrasch led a ring of thieves who generated jackpots in minutes in Las Vegas in the late 1990s.

Nikrasch knew how to disable the sensors, which signal an open slot machine door. Then he would download the winning combination into the machine's computer. He was arrested and sentenced to jail in 1999. To the best of anyone's knowledge, he didn't operate in Atlantic City, where surveillance is stricter than in many Las Vegas casinos.

The state Attorney General's office went through hoops to persuade the FBI to share what it knew about how the scam worked, Williamson said.

"Once we knew, we knew what to protect against it," Williamson said. "Machines have since been retrofitted."



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