The Four Russian Men Cheated Casinos in California, Illinois, and Missouri
Four Russian nationals have been indicted on federal charges for their casino-based crime spree that covered 3 U.S. states. The Russians cheated casinos in Missouri, California, and Illinois before they were caught.
The men were indicted on the federal charges “traveling in interstate and foreign commerce in furtherance of [a] conspiracy.” At each stop along the way, the men are alleged to have cheated at the slot machines.
Used Foreign Server to Cheat
The four men used electronic devices to help them cheat the slot machines. According to KSDK out of St. Louis, the men used their electronic devices to connect to a foreign server. The news source claimed this device allowed the men to predict winners, though this does not seem to bear the weight of logic. More details will emerge after the men’s case goes to trial.
The four men charged with crimes were Murat Bliev, 36, Ivan Gudalov, 32, Igor Lavrenov, 28, and Yevgeniy Nazarov, 38. No details have been given about the men, except they are Russian nationals.
Each man faces a maximum charge which could land him in federal prison for many years. Each also faces a maximum $250,000 fine.
Slot Machine Cheats
Cheating at the slot machines has become harder with each successive year. In the days of mechanical slots, players could cheat using old fashioned mechanics along with some tactics to rob the machines. Still, the payouts on the one-armed bandits were only in the hundreds of dollars at the time, so most cheaters assumed it was not worth the risk of being prosecuted.
When the electronic slots came on the market, whole new tactics had to be devised to cheat at slots. This included some rudimentary tactics, such as placing a coin on a string attached to the finger, so one could fool the electronic sense. It could include more elaborate cheats, such as using an electronic beam to fool the sensor. In either case, one was still trying to fool the mechanical aspect and not the random number generator.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael
Tommy Glenn Carmichael is seen as the most successful slots cheat of all time, though experts sometimes say the best are the ones you never hear about. Jerry Criner, another slots cheat, once said Carmichael had “the greatest mind” for designing slots-cheating tools.
Tommy Carmichael spent 20 years developing tools to beat the casinos, including the kick stand, the monkey paw or slider, and the light wand. He was on an amazing run in the mid-1980s, until the police caught up to him playing the slots at Denny’s in Las Vegas. Carmichael went away for his crimes, but was out in a few years.
His next run is seen as legendary by the slots cheats. He developed the slider, which allowed him to defeat the electronic eye on slot machines. He kept playing until he won, and that winning streak helped found a legend. But game designers soon realize something is wrong, so the deficiency in machine security was fixed by 1991.
Improvements in Technology
That’s how casinos hit by scam artists and cheaters stay in business: improving security techniques to beat the cheats. Game designers fix whatever problems exist, so the technology of slot machines is evolving all the time. With the rapid advancement in computer technology over the past 20 years, the problems with the original electronic slot machines no longer exist.
That is why it is such a mystery that the Murat Bliev slot-cheating syndicate used a foreign server to beat American casinos. Even if someone could predict the outcome of a spin after one hit the “Spin” button, no mechanism exists to allow one to affect the outcome of the game. Therefore, a foreign server would have to be used to manipulate the results of the game, presumably by altering the results sent to the gaming machine’s RNG.
Such a method would have grave implications for the American slot machine industry. When more information becomes available, it is possible a far less groundbreaking explanation of the crimes will be offered. As it is, the casinos must have had some way to know their system was being subverted or cheated in some way, because the men were caught and now face a legal nightmare.
Public Disclaimer
Readers should not attempt to cheat the casinos. These are businesses just the same as Wal-Mart or McDonald’s. The business owners, law enforcement officials, and the legal system view attempts to rob the casinos in the same way as they would view a person taking merchandise out of Wal-Mart. It is illegal and you’ll spend time in incarceration, if you get caught.
