Sophisticated gangs cheating slot machines across country

Oliver Staley

Friday, Nov. 26, 2004 | 9:13 a.m.

Mississippi state gaming authorities have reported a rash of cheating at Tunica's slot machines, with at least six arrests this year of increasingly sophisticated criminals.

"We've really been hit hard by it since the first of the year," said Pat Hawkins, an enforcement agent with the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

It's a problem casino operators are all too aware of.

Many thieves are armed with custom-made devices used to disrupt the inner workings of the slot machines and trick them into paying out when there is no winner.

Called "kickstands," "magic wands" and "monkey paws," the devices are sold on the black market for $20,000 to $25,000 to aspiring criminals who also receive a tutorial on how to cheat the machines, said Jay Ledbetter, director of criminal investigations of the gaming commission.

"We're seeing a lot of the same people getting arrested all over the country," Ledbetter said. "They may be more organized than we thought."

The slot cheats will typically work in pairs or small groups and move from machine to machine, unloading a few hundred dollars from each one.

"They don't want to get too greedy, so they'll take a casino for $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 a night," Ledbetter said.

Slot thieves are usually caught when a machine is completely emptied or locks up and a slot attendant, suspecting something is amiss, alerts surveillance, said Tripp Murray, director of surveillance at the Horseshoe in Tunica.

That's what happened to a gang of three alleged thieves caught at the Hollywood Casino in August.

The suspected ringleader, William Drew, 61, was caught with a magic wand, a device with a tiny light that blinds the internal optical readers of slot machines, inducing them to pay out.

Drew and two others were charged with three counts of violating the state's gaming statutes, all felonies, and were released on a $15,000 bond pending their appearance before a grand jury.

Ledbetter said gaming officials had been keeping track of Drew and his gang for two months. They may be part of a larger ring, he said, which could lead to federal prosecution under racketeering statutes.

Drew and one of his companions, Catalina Hartsell, are from Tulsa, Okla., which may be the ground zero of slot machine cheating.

That's because the recognized master of the craft, Tommy Glenn Carmichael, lived in Tulsa and sold his devices there.

Carmichael, who divulged his secrets in an interview with The Associated Press last year, said he would buy slot machines from the manufacturers and reverse-engineer them, to figure out how to beat them. In one instance, posing as a casino purchaser at an expo, he got a slot salesman to give him a complete demonstration of how the machines work.

On a good night, Carmichael said, he would make $1,000 an hour bilking slot machines.