[ Home ]

[ Slots News ]

Stealing From the Slots

It is possible to steal from slot machines, especially if you work for the casino. It turns out that it used to happen quite often, before all the checks and balances that casinos use today to ensure that their slots are not being tampered with. But what if it is the casino itself doing the stealing, so that they don’t have to pay the state as much tax as they actually make? Well, eventually you will get caught, just ask Dennis Gomes.

Gomes is a former top investigator for the Nevada Gaming Commission, and he tells first hand how not only a casino can steal slot machine revenue, but how easy it is to get caught up in it. He says that he was aware of it happening at the Stardust Casino in 1976 and conducted a raid there catching many in the act.

He told only one trusted employee that they were going to raid the place, as he had discovered that many of them were already corrupted and could not be trusted. He realized that the casino was skimming large amounts of money through their slot machines, and getting away with it. They had a scale in their counting room that had a switch that could change the way how the coins were weighed.

Back then, they did not count the change from the slot machines as it would have taken them too long – instead they weighed it on a scale. They would use the switch to show that the coins were lighter than they actually were, and through the accounting would literally walk right out the front door with additional slot machine money that the regulators were not aware of.

The one thing they didn’t count on was Gomes figuring it out, and making sure that the slot machine skimming stopped. His first clue? George Jay Vandermark – the man in charge of the slot machine operations – was a top thief at stealing money from slot machines.

Back to August 2007 Archive.