cutting open a slot machine!

[rickh]

well, maybe its a Honda 750 chopper..... then its ok.

[Jackpot]

I missed this show, I heard about it afterwords, Glad I did, what a bunch of crap. Why not put it in a large band saw and make a nice clean cut. As for that graft or bug in the bally e/m, that was interesting to me. In all my years I have never see or worked on a e/m with a bug like this! I have seen many on them on mechanical and console machines, but not a e/m with this type of reel index. That was a Nice new bug and bolt and nut on it, all new and they say at the end that they had no knowledge of it before hand, BULL CRAP!  I say. But, it looked like a nice job on building this graft and it looked like it worked well. So, even that this show is junk and they should cut themselves in half, the bug was interesting to me. Have any of you ever seen a e/m with a bug or graft or cheater on it?
Jackpot

[Neonkiss]

I found this one on a machine I purchased.
Bally E/M

[Jackpot]

WOW, Way Cool, ATT: MODERATOR We need a new class or discussion board here on GRAFF'S FOUND! everyone has found these and a lot of different ones, this would be a GREAT ON GOING TOPIC with great information for later. HOW DO WE ADD THIS?, if you think it is Worthy of a new separate discussion topic? This graff of yours was nicely done, a welded tab and grind job, how fricken interesting! THANK YOU for shareing!
Jackpot

[Jackpot]

On the older mechanical slots I work on a lot, I see Graff's on the Bar or jackpot symbols, to me that is stupid. The jackpot is a long shot and doesn't pay much anyway on mechanicals, but to bug a cheery would make you money all the time, which is what it looks like they did to yours, bugging a small but constant paying symbol would make you more in the long run as a slot operator cheater, then a none paying jackpot for say 20 bucks on a mechanical machine. They must of got smarter in the later years.
Jackpot

 

[reho33]

I wonder if an electronic version of that exists and could it pass by a gaming lab??

[Neonkiss]

I wonder if an electronic version of that exists and could it pass by a gaming lab??

I would think so, as long as the check sum is the same.

[reho33]

So in the Telenas RNG virtual reel method you would have to have a value "blocked" so that it's corresponding symbol would never come up?

[Jackpot]

I heard a story of route operator who had machines in stores and places like that getting busted in Nevada for his video poker machines, I guess the gaming audited a few of his machines and found that the Royal Flush would not ever show up. I don't know if they compared the checksum, or just ran his programs through a few million plays.
Jackpot

[uniman]

I heard a story of route operator who had machines in stores and places like that getting busted in Nevada for his video poker machines, I guess the gaming audited a few of his machines and found that the Royal Flush would not ever show up. I don't know if they compared the checksum, or just ran his programs through a few million plays.
Jackpot

Oh, now you did it! Here I go again;
The operator was American Coin, run by Rudolpf LaVecchia.
When computer based gaming machines first came on the market the gaming commission lagged behind. All games were first approved by the gaming lab, which in the computer sector was a one man show, Ron Harris. After the game was approved the operator could then distribute it in their machines. The problem was once the game eprom was in the machine out in the public it wasn't checked again. So American Coin put a different eprom in their video poker machines that had the label of an approved game. Story was that the elaborate program would change every other royal flush to a non-winning hand. American Coin had these machines in bars and stores on a profit sharing program. Not sure how, but the gaming commision was tipped off these machines were gaffed. They pulled them and found the checksum didn't match the approved version. Ron Harris read the program but was also stumped because of the complexity. So they brought in Larry Volk, the programmer from American Coin. Larry cooperated and showed Harris the gaff. Volk was also going to testify against his employer. I say was because Larry was shot dead in his driveway before he could. No one ever went to jail for the murder of Larry Volk.
 So the gaming commission then decided (1990) to do spot checks on machines in the field. Ron Harris wrote the program to check these machines in the field. Buuuut, Ron by now was not a happy employee of the gaming commission. It seems he was very unhappy about the Volk case and felt corruption was all around him. So what did he do? He wrote a gaff in the program designed to check machines in the field. He targeted Universal machines as he could write a gaff in an unused area of a Universal eprom. Bad security on Universal's part. The first gaff he did was to play a certain combinations of coins, like 1-coin, 2-coin, 1-coin, 3-coin, etc. and the machine would just add 300 credits. Then he wrote them to hit the jackpot after playing a sequence of coins. I think he used five line games.
In 1994 Harris was caught cheating a $100,000 keno jackpot in New Jersey. He then confessed to the slot gaff. In 1994 the Nevada Gaming Commission required all unused portions of an eprom to be set to zeros to prevent gaffing. A little too late, again!

[Jackpot]

Atta-boy

Now we are getting the juicy stuff. I love to hear about all those cheating ways...........

Thanks for that information~   

Jackpot

[CommTech]

I seen the Ron Harris Story on the History Channel "Breaking Vegas" show. But the show did not cover so much detail as you did Uniman! 
I had no idea that it was only the Universal Machines that were being gaffed, or the fact that it was possible due to the fact that the programmers left open memory in the EPROMS which would allow the Gaff to be written.

I agree that this is a very interesting topic!! 

[uniman]

I seen the Ron Harris Story on the History Channel "Breaking Vegas" show. But the show did not cover so much detail as you did Uniman! 
I had no idea that it was only the Universal Machines that were being gaffed, or the fact that it was possible due to the fact that the programmers left open memory in the EPROMS which would allow the Gaff to be written.

I agree that this is a very interesting topic!! 

I am not totally sure that only Universal's were targeted. But I do remember Harris admitting that a 5-line Universal was gaffed at The Westward Ho. He had his exwife play it and win. Of course she later testified against him. 
I believe that the other slot manufactures had better security measures in place to prevent such an act.

[rickh]

Interesting.. thanks! +1

[Jackpot]

RE: In 1994 Harris was caught cheating a $100,000 keno jackpot in New Jersey.

New Jersey? I wonder how this cam about, did he do most of this gaffing in Nevada, i wonder if he was doing something else or and some on on the inside there also?

GREAT STUFF! and thanks for sharing the whole correct story on this, I only picked up bit and peaces of it. BUT I have another story, a long one but I'll shorten it up and tell it in awhile. Stay tuned..............

Jackpot

[uniman]

RE: In 1994 Harris was caught cheating a $100,000 keno jackpot in New Jersey.

New Jersey? I wonder how this cam about, did he do most of this gaffing in Nevada, i wonder if he was doing something else or and some on on the inside there also?

GREAT STUFF! and thanks for sharing the whole correct story on this, I only picked up bit and peaces of it. BUT I have another story, a long one but I'll shorten it up and tell it in awhile. Stay tuned..............

Jackpot

The keno game in New Jersey was a casino house game. I guess that's what it is called. It's the game where players fill out the bet slip and can watch on tv's throughout the casino including the hotel rooms. Harris had approved this game back in Nevada and had noticed a problem with it and didn't report it. I'm guessing that the problem was the RNG was not continually running between games. The reason I believe that is Harris, after seeing a game, could enter the chosen numbers into a program he wrote and his computer would spit out thirty possible outcomes for the next game. Of which, one was correct. He sat in the room and his accomplice played the game in the casino. They communicated by a one-way radio. Harris gave out ten of the combo's and they had a 33% chance of winning. Which they did on the first try.

[Jackpot]

WOW!! I wonder how many storys Harris could tell that no one knows about? This guy could make it now just by writeing a tell all book. If he got caught for two, how many did he get away with? Time to go dump combinations of coins into the home slots to see if you have one* "A Harris Special"

THANK YOU!
Jackpot

[uniman]

Harris cooperated with the authorities and supposedly told all. I'm sure they backtracked and found the gaffed machines. Still would be cool to find one!!

[Jackpot]

But I bet there were some things he never told, he sounds like a Sharp cookie to me.

OK, Poor yourself a Crown Royal on the Rocks as it's Story Time.....

 A Slot cheat story, told by me….Jackpot. I knew a guy once that worked for Bally Slots in Reno and later also worked as a slot tech in the Boom City Casino along with other places and casinos in Reno Nevada, his name was Don Ring. He told me that as a slot tech on the floor, they were told that when they opened slots that players were playing to fix something, if they seen slugs in the hopper to say nothing to the player and to contact security so they could watch the person. One day this happen, and they watched and notified the police in the process. Once the guy left the casino and got into his car they tailed him, and noticed that his car was low in the rear like something heavy was in the truck. When the teams assembled and they were ready, they pulled this guy over. This guy was a young Air Force guy, and after arresting him they were allowed to open his trunk. Inside were bags of silver dollar sized metal slugs. His Air Force commander was also called about this guy they arrested and somehow got out there and had a look at some of these round metal objects that this guy had sacks of. After further investigating this incidence, the Air Force commander reported that these slugs were not slugs, but some kind of hole covers that plugged something around the landing gears of Jets like the FA-18 and the Air Force was aware that the stock pile of these were being used up, so they were calling in someone, or about to call in someone, to figure out why these were falling out of the Jets and to see if they needed to redesign these, or the Jets, when they just happen to find out why they were missing, and who was taking them. This is how the story was told to me, and I loved the way he was able to tell a good story to me, I laughed my ass off when I heard it. I could just picture this scenario playing out. I wonder how much the tax payers had to pay for these silver dollar sized Jet parts that were used for dollar slugs on the slots? Knowing how Uncle Sam likes to spend…….. Maybe $10,000 each or more??

Jackpot

This is my story and I am sticking to it as someone once said, or was it: It's my story and I can tell it anyway I want!

[uniman]

Nice story.
There's no end to how far some people will go. I'm sure one of those slugs cost more than the slot machine he was playing.

[Jackpot]

 I have a gift for those of you interested here,

I found that magazine article about slot cheating, a company called American Coin, from 1986 to 1989 was using or rigging there slot machines in Las Vegas and got caught my the gaming commission. The gaming commission seized about 1,000 of their slot machines. Great story with photo's, and even photo's of the machines and boards. It about a 9 page article about all this from 1990. It's great reading if you like to read about how the cheaters did things. I scanned it in PDF Adobe for the reader and if you would like a copy just email me with "slot cheating" in the subject line and I'll email it back to you. I wish I could just upload it to my favorite file upload page here but hmmmmm , I think that page is still on the Honey Do list, at the bottom??  :58-Maybe if we all donate a little more to our favorite web site here at NLG we could get it working again or buy or own server and internet!  :89-Just email me and I'll be more then happy to attaché and send you back this really great bit of slot machine history.

Thanks

Att: Here is the download link for this story, it's 6.59 megs but this site is fast!, be carefull and look for the little red arrow down at the bottom of the page, it will say: "Slot Cheating in Las Vegas by American Coin Company" and just click on that, advertisers are all over this free file download site so don't be fooled, this site works well, but look for the Slot Cheaters name and click on that download only. It's at: http://www.sendspace.com/file/rdukbf
Jackpot

Jackpot
 

[knagl]

Aah, yes, the thing where they rigged their route machines to not hit Royal Flushes.  I'd be very interested in reading it.

You can attach .pdf documents (up to 3000k) to your posts here in the forum -- is the file larger than that?

[Brianzz]

You can zip 'em up to make them smaller if needed.. or put them on a site like filedropper.com and upload them and post the link here.

[StatFreak]

Unfortunately, Zipping .pdf's rarely saves much space because .pdf files are already compressed.

In addition to filedropper.com, you might try toofiles.com I like them because there are no limits and many types of files can be uploaded.

I found them when searching for a site to upload sound files. The internet seems to be hip deep in free video upload sites, but not free sound file upload sites. I've seen people post youtube videos with no picture or a static image just to get sound files out there.

[uniman]

I'd like to see that story! Will email you. 

I have heard two stories. The first is that the video poker machines never had a royal and the other was that every other royal was eliminated/changed. On 9/6 jacks or better I believe the royal represents about 1.98% of the payback. (Stat can verify that!) So every other royal would be a 0.99% increase in take.

Larry Volk was the software engineer who rigged the programs at the direction of his boss(es). When he agreed to testify before a grand jury he was shot dead in his driveway. No one was ever convicted for that murder.