Who doesn’t love a good scandalous story? Every Hollywood movie regarding casinos features some or other scandal and being casino related it just about always involves money being stolen. The suspense of whether or not the movie character will get away with their scam is what keeps us glued to the screen. Movie after movie the pattern carries on and somehow, we keep on watching. As humans we love to watch all about the scammers and what happens to them
Surely some of those scandals and scams that made it onto the silver screen comes from events that possibly happened in real life. Maybe the real-life events that took place were not exactly like the events in the movie, but you can be sure real life casino scams are a thing. Here are two of the events that have probably inspired Hollywood’s best writers for countless of years.
The Monkey’s Paw
During the mid-1990’s Tommy Glenn Carmichael invented a machine of sorts that allowed him to cheat the slot machines. He called it ‘The Monkey’s Paw’. A sort of fake coin that was thrown into the slot machine that would read as money. However, it could be used over and over again. In this way he was able to play online pokies, and win from them, without ever having fed any money into it.
But of course, the casinos are not that easily fooled. They soon enough caught on to the scam and changed their systems to become coinless. Carmichael also decided adapted his ways and invented a sort of laser that could manipulate the slot machines into thinking that a money card had been placed into it. Carmichael’s downfall was when he became greedy and started selling his device. He was caught in 2001 and now works with the government to try and catch scammers.
Card Counting
Card counting is one of the most commonly known ‘illegal’ acts that can easily be done. The interesting thing about card counting is that even though it probably isn’t morally correct and it is heavily frowned upon, it is not illegal. There is no law that states that you are not allowed to do it. Therefor whoever is caught counting cards, cannot be prosecuted and trialled. The worst the casino can really do is to ban you.
A group of alumni Led by Bill Kaplan, in the 1980’s conned the casinos out of millions and millions of dollars. Kaplan trained his fellow highly intelligent MIT students to count cards. It went beyond card counting however. Systems were designed to determine the play of cards based on cards already played. This scam lasted for almost 20 years. Kaplan made over $10 million just by kickbacks that he received from training fellow students.
Justice For All
In most of the cases recorded, when the scammers are eventually caught, they do end up working with the authorities to prevent future scammers from scamming. Generally, this is part of a plea bargain. In the end, generally everyone wins by the outcome of the case.
