How To Cheat Online Slots
As you’d expect many of my friends are avid online slot machine players. One topic of conversation we frequently revisit is whether or not these games can be hacked or cheated in any way. There are often urban legends doing the rounds of a special sequence of button presses or clicks that can be performed on Rainbow Riches Pots of Gold to make it pay out more – or a plug in you can purchase for Cleopatra that puts the pay-out percentage into the plus numbers.
The only known way to hack online casino slot machines is highly illegal: downloading software, which is sometimes programmed for all online slots and sometimes specifically for one slot, and running that software alongside the slot to mess with it. You’re screwing the casino over by invalidating the RNG and tipping it in your own favour. To understand why you can’t cheat online casino slots, you have to understand a little about how these internet sites work. Operators like Sky Vegas, BetVictor and Mr Green have contracts with software houses like Playtech, IGT and Williams Interactive to host their games. The casino and the software houses then both take a cut of the money.
The truth of the matter is that most of these legends are exactly what they purport to be – legends and rumours. However they do have more than just a sprinkling of their origin in a true story, that of Ron Harris. Ron was a worker with the Nevada state gaming commission who had privileged access to some of the source code used by the slot machine development houses. He was able to use this to his advantage to make money from the casinos.
The first trick Harris pulled involved freaking the pay-out percentage of Las Vegas slots. All land-based casinos, just like their online cousins, must publish the payback percentages of all their slots – no matter whether they are made by Bally, WMS or IGT. Engineers like Harris were given a special key that could be used to check these stats on slots – via an interface that’s not too unlike our modern day USB connections.
Harris discovered a way to put extra code onto these keys that could be used to change the payout percentage of slots above 100% – making them profitable for the player and giving the casino a loss over time. He would then employ another player to bet on these slots and split their winnings. Eventually he got caught when he tried to use Bally’s random number generator code to cheat at a National Lottery style game called Keno.
I’m in no doubt that Harris is the origin of all these rumours. Often you’ll hear claims that some junior programmer at Barcrest or one of the other fruit machine manufacturers left a special backdoor into their code and now there are loads of games around that can be cheated by players. I call shenanigans on these claims from on high.
To understand why you can’t cheat online casino slots, you have to understand a little about how these internet sites work. Operators like Sky Vegas, BetVictor and Mr Green have contracts with software houses like Playtech, IGT and Williams Interactive to host their games. The casino and the software houses then both take a cut of the money made by the operator.
If the casinos found out that the software developers had supplied them with faulty software that could be influenced or cheated by players, then this would no doubt be a breach of contract between the two entities. Therefore online slot machines like Gonzo’s Quest and Thunderstruck II are only released when they have passed stringent quality control audits to ensure that they work exactly as they’re supposed to.
Also, just like Ron Harris tested slot machines for the Nevada Gaming Commission, all online slot machines from the old classics like Mermaid’s Millions and the original Tomb Raider game right through to the very latest releases have to be tested to ensure that they operate within the regulations set up by various gaming boards. This all depends on the jurisdiction of the locale in which the companies operate – ranging from the Gambling Boards of Alderney, Gibraltar and Malta. These organisations ensure that all online slots offer players the payback percentages as stated.
At the other end of the spectrum, players often ask if casinos are likely to cheat players. Well, Frank Scoblete, who I interviewed in 2013, had a very good comment about this – he said that there’s only one machine in the entire casino that offers a 100% payback percentage, and it’s called the change machine. All other games in the casino are configured to make casinos money. Therefore casinos don’t need to cheat players or anyone else out of any cash, as they’re already making a ton of money from legitimate means.
So how can you make free money from slot machines? Well I wouldn’t be the Slots Professor if I didn’t have an answer to this question. There is one way in which you get some free money to play slot machine – and that’s by taking advantage of the numerous casino offers on my site. These range from deposit match bonuses, where the operator will match the amount you place in your bankroll through to no deposit bonuses – where casinos will give you free cash just for opening an account. Whichever way you decide to go, there’s a ton of free money out there waiting for you.
Most slots players have dreamed about using slot machine hacks and cheats to bring down the house. I’ll walk you through some of the most successful slot machine cheats, as well as some outdated techniques that will fail every time.
Some of these video slot machine hacks and cheats used to work, but they don’t any longer. Before I begin, let me start with a disclaimer. Hacking slot machines is against the law in most countries. I do not advise it, and LegitGamblingSites.com does not endorse it.
Let’s see how slot machines work and whether you can cheat slots today.
Casino Slot Machine Hacks
There are some slot machine hacks that worked on old-school slots. I don’t recommend trying these today. They won’t work on modern slot machines which have evolved to deal with them. If you try these and get caught, you’ll likely get banned from the casino for life. Nonetheless, they did work once upon a time, and if you happen to find a classic slot machine in a bar, you might be able to try some of these.
The Yo-Yo Slot Hack
I have a confession to make before I tell you about this slot hack. I have used this successfully, but not on slot machines. I pulled it off once or twice on the vending machines in my high school and scored a free bottle of Coca Cola or two.
The idea is to tie a thin string around a coin and deposit it. When a deposit is registered, you yank the string and pull it out. If you know anything about modern slot machines, you probably just laughed out loud. Out of all the slot machine hacks and cheats, this most definitely would not work today.
The Counterfeit Coin Trick
Before scanning technology became widespread, slot machines used to accept bets based on the weight of the coin. The question of how to hack slot machines had a real answer: Use fake coins which were the same weight as real ones. They used similar metals or hard material, and they got away with it for a long time.
Again, technology has caught up and rendered this slot machine cheat impotent. Ask any experienced player, and they’ll tell you that it’s difficult enough to get a slot to accept some real coins, never mind counterfeit ones!
Tampering With Payout Switches
Throughout gaming history, slot machine hacks and cheats have brought on some hilarious inventions. A number of them involve guitar strings and metal wires. At one point, players would attach hooks and metal claws to the end of metal wire or strings and feed it through the cooling system of the slot machine. They’d rattle around for a while, and eventually, they’d hit the payout switch.
This hack would never work on an electronic slot machine. To understand why, you should read our report on Random Number Generators (RNG). There are no physical switches which activate payouts in modern slot machines. The only thing tampering with slot machines will get you these days is a place on the sidewalk when the casino security team catches you.
Cheat Code For Slot Machine
Slot Machine Cheat Codes
As slot machines evolved past basic mechanical parts and made use of technology like RNGs and electronic sensors, computer programmers became a key part of keeping them honest.
How To Cheat Online Slots
What happens when the computer programmer who’s supposed to do his job lets temptation get the better of him? Just ask Ronald Dale Harris. He was in charge of finding and fixing software flaws. He was a high-level programmer and worked for the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the 1990s. One day, for whatever reason, he decided to modify some slots so it would pay out when he entered a certain sequence of coins.
Harris got away with this for a long time, but his accomplice got busted when they tried the same thing on keno. Harris was locked up for seven years, but he got out in two for good behavior. I doubt he has ever tried to hack casino slot machines again, especially since all Vegas casinos have banned him.
A Mobile Slot Machine Hack Which Really Worked
How To Cheat Online Casino Slots
What happens when you take cash-rich American casinos, Russian mobsters, high-tech equipment, and a team of jet-setting slot players and put them together? No, this isn’t the plot of a bad B movie, this slot machine hack really happened. In fact, it may still be happening today.
In the summer of 2014, a casino in St. Louis noticed some of its machines had paid out much more than they should have according to their payback averages. After watching the security footage of the casino, they found the same man winning again and again, and they knew he was a slot machine hacker right away. They just had to figure out how he was doing it. They noticed three things:
- He was holding his iPhone close to the screen when playing
- He was winning on Aristocrat slots
- And he was “jabbing” the spin button suddenly after long pauses
It soon became apparent that lots of other casinos had been the victims of slot machine hacking, and the same man was involved in most of the slot machine hacks and cheats. Authorities tracked down Murat Bilev and discovered he was part of a Russian team which had successfully hacked slots from the United States to Macau, bilking the casinos for millions.
After arresting him on a return trip to the US, Bilev spilled the beans. He was part of a Russian slot machine hacking team which figured out the exact timing of how the PRNGs work in Aristocrat slots. His phone was equipped was a slot machine hacking app which told him exactly when to press the spin button, hence the sudden hand movements after long pauses.
Bilev was sentenced to two years in prison and deported from the USA. However, authorities worry that the scam has evolved and there are still teams out there using slot machine hacks and cheats today.
Are slot machine hacking apps available online? Yes, but if you get caught using them, you’ll end up in the slammer like Murat Bilev. I’d strongly advise against it.
What If You Do Discover a Slot Machine Hack?
If you do figure out how to hack casino slot machines, you’ll face a moral and legal choice: to steal or not to steal.
I’d advise you not to. You see, there’s an alternative option, and it could be just as lucrative. Contact the casino slot machine company, tell them you’ve found a bug, and make a contract for a reward if you show them and are proven correct.
Some slots companies will dismiss you as a quack, but believe it or not, lots of them will give you an audience, especially if they suspect there’s a bug in their slot machine software.
Heck, you could even get a job as a consultant. After all, you’ve figured out a slot machine flaw that their coders didn’t recognize.
Can You Really Hack Slot Machines?
If you read the full article on slot machine hacks and cheats above, then you’ll know the answer is yes. But it takes some serious skills and connections. Both of the successful slot machine hackers mentioned here ended up in prison. And you have to ask yourself, is it really worth it?
I personally don’t think so. For me, slot machines are about the thrill of potentially winning a life-changing jackpot. I don’t even particularly want to win by cheating. I’d worry about being found out and having to look over my shoulder for the rest of my days.
Instead, I advise you to relax, have fun, learn all you can about how slots work, and forget slot machine hacks and cheats. If there’s such a thing as karma, you might even get rewarded for deciding not to try slot machine hacks!