Five of the Biggest Casino Cheaters Ever
By
Jane Shaw
Senior Editor Updated: 08/16/2023
We count on Jane to inform our readers about the latest slot games in the US market. With her passion for video games and a degree in engineering, she’s our gambling tech expert. Jane’s also active in our blog section, where she tackles the curiosities and changes in the industry.
Biggest Casino Cheaters Ever
- Cheating in Casinos: An Overview
- Casino Cheaters List: Notorious Names
- Tommy Glenn Carmichael: The Slot Machine Whiz
- Richard Marcus: Master of Deception
- Dominic LoRiggio: The Dice Dominator
- Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo: Roulette’s Worst Nightmare
- MIT Blackjack Team: Card Counting Pros
- Frequently Asked Questions
Casinos are designed to always have the edge over players, yet some daring gamblers have managed to beat the house using sneaky tricks, cheats, and clever schemes. Though casino cheaters date back pretty much to the first casinos, there are some names that stand out more than others. Today’s blog looks at some of the biggest casino cheats, from old-school crooks to modern-day online geniuses.
Cheating in Casinos: An Overview
Cheating in casinos has a long history, with some very smart individuals discovering ways to beat the odds and do the casinos out of significant amounts of money.
Today’s blog looks at some of the different ways casino cheaters have exploited vulnerabilities in games of chance and scammed casinos worldwide. Whether it’s basic sleight of hand or developing high-tech cheating devices, casino cheats have shown they’re willing to take huge risks and go to great lengths for the chance of outwitting casinos and walking away with a profit.
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Casino Cheaters List: Notorious Names
In today’s blog we’ll be talking about four individuals and one team. However, to kick things off, we’re going to look at a casino cheaters list. These are individuals we’re not covering today, but who remain notable in the world of casino cheats.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Ida Summers | Known as the “Vegas Vixen,” this infamous cheat teamed up with her son to rack up big winnings in the 1960s and 70s using hand mucking tricks with targeted playing cards. |
| Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio | He built precision tools that could manufacture exact replicas of slot machine coins, allowing him to accumulate massive slot jackpots before finally getting arrested in the late 90s. |
| Mike Anderson | This progressive slots expert won millions in the early 2000s by determining hidden patterns in slot cycles that allowed him to predict winning plays. Casinos eventually caught on and changed their algorithms. |
| Monique Laurent | This French roulette croupier scammed over $1 million in the 1970s by stealthily using a computerized partner’s watch to time and record winning spins at the wheel before betting big. |
Tommy Glenn Carmichael: The Slot Machine Whiz
Tommy Glenn Carmichael is one of the most notorious slot machine cheaters of all time. Over a decades-long career of scams starting in the 1980s, he stole millions from casinos by designing innovative cheating devices that exploited slot machine vulnerabilities. Carmichael’s interest in slot cheating began after he was released from prison in 1980 for an earlier electronics scam. While visiting Vegas, he realized slots were vulnerable to manipulation via the instrument panel on their sides.
With this knowledge, he was able to develop early prototypes of his cheating devices that used jamming technology to block sensors and trigger jackpots, landing him in jail again.
After release, he designed the revolutionary “top-bottom joint” tool for tricking reel sensors on newer slots. It enabled him to gradually scam large jackpots from multiple casinos until he was once again caught in 1985, earning him the “Slot Machine Bandit” nickname.
Undeterred, in the 1990s Carmichael invented an even more advanced device called the “monkey paw”, which used a guitar string to trigger slot payouts remotely. With video slots exploding in popularity, the monkey paw allowed Carmichael to cheat machines across Vegas and Atlantic City without raising suspicions – something he took full advantage of.
He also teamed up with other casino cheats like Dennis Nikrasch who exploited computer chips and software to defraud online casinos of millions of dollars. Carmichael proved a master at staying a step ahead of new slot security measures and technologies, though he was again arrested in 1998.
Despite multiple stints behind bars, Carmichael cemented his legacy as one of the most inventive and respected slot cheats of all time. Today, he’s retired from the world of casino cheating, although he’s said to be a fan of playing poker at the few casinos he can still enter!
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Richard Marcus: Master of Deception
Richard Marcus honed his sleight of hand skills to become one of the most successful past posters in casino cheating history. His specialty was modifying bets once the result of a round was already known. The game he played most frequently was baccarat. He’d slide extra chips onto winning hands using sleight of hand techniques, and this allowed him to cheat casinos out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Marcus could also be found at the roulette table, where he’d quickly place bets on winning numbers as the ball was dropping. His smooth technique allowed him to steal millions of dollars from Vegas casinos in the 90s and 2000s before he was eventually caught.
However, Marcus didn’t just use sleight of hand techniques to defraud casinos. He also exploited dealer vulnerabilities, building close relationships with certain croupiers to allow him to distract them and place additional chips onto his winning hands.
Despite frequent casino bans, Marcus always managed to sneak back in using disguises. His bold and brash style made him a legendary figure among cheaters who admired his devious tactics and nerve in scamming top Vegas spots for almost two decades!
Dominic LoRiggio: The Dice Dominator
Dominic “The Dominator” LoRiggio is one of the best online craps players, who made history by developing a method to roll dice that could consistently beat the house edge. His technique involved controlled wrist throws that would get specific numbers to land face up on demand. After practicing thousands of rolls – even earning a science degree in the process – LoRiggio could reliably roll 6s and 8s at above average rates, which was enough to tilt the odds in his favor and reduce the casino’s house edge!
This gave him a major advantage on craps bets like the 6 & 8 Place that paid off when these numbers were rolled. His technique was to make big bets then roll the dice in a controlled way to win.
While what he was doing wasn’t illegal, he was ultimately banned after the casinos caught onto what he was doing.
Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo: Roulette’s Worst Nightmare
Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo used his engineering background to crack roulette and expose its lack of true randomness. After analyzing thousands of roulette results, he discovered small flaws caused by a consistent wheel bias. His research found that due to imperfections, some numbers hit slightly more frequently on specific wheels from certain manufacturers.
Armed with this data, he could place targeted bets on those hot numbers and, in the long run, gain a significant edge over the casinos he played at. Towards the end of the 90s, when computer technology was evolving, Garcia also started to develop software to process biased results automatically. This technology fed him information in real time, telling him which area of the wheel the ball was likely to land in.
His system enabled him to cheat roulette games across Europe and win over $1 million before he was eventually caught and banned from every casino in Europe! His findings caused roulette wheel manufacturers to make significant changes to their wheels.
MIT Blackjack Team: Card Counting Pros
The MIT Blackjack Team is the most famous example of cheating in casinos, and there have even been movies made about them. The team began learning how to count cards back in 1979, and, in the process, legally won millions from casinos.
The team used mathematical modeling to gain edges, mentally tracking cards during blackjack shoes. Their methods like “Hi-Opt I” assigned point values to cards and players covertly signaled when decks became rich in face cards or aces. Such “high count” shoes boosted odds in their favor, allowing large targeted bets with relative impunity.
At its height, the team had over 70 players around the world, and it became one of the biggest threats for casinos they’d ever seen. Card counting isn’t illegal, and provided the players aren’t greedy, it’s also incredibly hard to catch on to.
If you fancy your chances at blackjack, you may not be able to be like these guys – online casino cheaters are very rare – but there are some great places to enjoy a legal game of blackjack. Best of all, we’ve researched the best sign-up-bonuses for you, so you can simply select the one you like the look of and begin playing with bonus funds!
