TV Repair Humanity's desire to
make risky bets will forever be a part of human nature. Tommy Carmichael wasn’t any different,
except he’s also known as the greatest slot machine hacker to ever live.
Instead of number systems or sleight of hand,
Tommy used his love for technology to go on a cheating spree for the ages.
Just how did a humble TV repairman figure out how to cheat Vegas slot machines for millions?
Tech Boom Tommy was born in 1950's Oklahoma,
right in the middle of the tech boom. He always held an interest in technology and wanted to know
how every intricate electronic piece worked. A young Carmichael spent his childhood learning
everything he could about electronics and tech. As a grown man in the 80s,
Tommy opened a TV repair shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and business was booming.
Tommy's shop, Ace TV Sales And Service, was the first of its kind in his area.
However, as more tech-focused shops opened up, Ace TV Sales and Service fell behind.
Tommy couldn't keep up with the steep rise in modern technology. He also ran into some legal
trouble, adding a few misdemeanor drug charges to his growing list of worries.
Tommy felt lost until, one day, his old friend Ray Ming walked into the shop.
Top-Bottom Joint Ray led Tommy outside and popped his trunk;
inside was a small slot machine and a cheating device known as a Top-Bottom
joint. With nothing left to lose, Tommy's interest was piqued. But how did this cheating tool work?
Old-school slot machines were pretty simple; they were just slotted discs that sat on a
rotating wheel. To get yourself that ever enticing jackpot, all the slots had to line up, triggering
a pay-out. By the time Tommy and his friend were frequenting Vegas, everything went electronic.
These new slots worked off of circuit boards. To win the jackpot,
you had to complete a circuit that triggers the hopper to dispense the coins.
Most people rely on luck to hit the jackpot, but cons like Carmichael had a different idea.
Since all it took was a complete circuit, they needed a wire and some metal to make it work.
Here's where the Top-Bottom joint comes into play. The Bottom is a bent piece of guitar string
stuck into the bottom of the slot machine, where the coins come out. The cheater positions it
against the circuit board to complete one-half of the circuit. Then, the metal Top piece,
which was shaped like a number 9, is stuck in the coin slot to complete the circuit.
Once this happens, the jackpot flows out, leaving the cheat much richer than before they came.
Tulsa to Vegas Carmicheal would go back and
forth from Tulsa to Vegas every couple of months. He would spend months running the Vegas casinos
and robbing their machines before heading back to check on his shop. Unfortunately for Tommy,
every time he went back, the shop made less and less money. Eventually,
he shut the whole thing down to become a full-time cheat. The last piece of the innocent little boy
in love with electronics died with the TV repair shop. A much darker version of Tommy was born.
Tommy now spent all his time in Sin City. He perfected his craft,
getting better and better with each casino left in his wake. On a good day,
he could make a little over $2000. By today's standards, he was making $5000 a day.
Now that cheating was his only source of income, he had to make sure he didn't get caught.
He bounced between Casinos and never let greed make a fool of him. He always understood the most
fundamental fact of cheating a casino—you're not just trying to fool the machines.
The most challenging part of Tommy's line of work is misleading the people meant to stop you.
Luckily for him, surveillance cameras weren't a thing yet, or his run would have been cut short.
Reverse Engineering In 1985, a significant
change to how slot machines are manufactured threw a wrench into
Tommy's career. Casino security caught some sloppy crooks using the "top-bottom joint,
causing the manufacturers to brainstorm ways to prevent this method of cheating.
When they learned how the device worked, it was easy to reverse-engineer a work-around. These
new machines were developed to detect the surge of electricity created by the device.
If the current were detected, the machine would blow a fuse and shut
down. If you've ever blown a fuse in your home, you know how this works.
This made it much harder for Tommy to cash in on his cons. Instead of picking any slot machine,
he was forced to look for the older models. This new difficulty in his game
caused Tommy to break one of his cardinal rules and spend far too long at one spot. He would stay
at a machine until it was cleaned out, only coming away with $500 a day, a far cry from
the $2000 that it once was. Desperation led to mistakes; mistakes landed him behind bars.
Arrested Tommy's luck ran out in July of 1985 after Casino
security and Las Vegas police had been tailing him for weeks. Rumors say he was arrested in a Denny's
parking lot, assumingly celebrating a big score with some late-night breakfast. Nevertheless,
he was caught red-handed with a Top-Bottom joint in his pocket. Authorities asked, "What is this?"
in reference to the tool. Tommy smirked and responded with, "Well, I believe you know."
Tommy was in a lot of trouble, and he knew it. Cheating with a device is a felony punishable
by up to six years for your first offense. On top of this, he was still on probation
for his misdemeanor charges. All this together earned him a five-year prison sentence. You'd
imagine this would be the end of Tommy's cheating career, but you would be wrong.
Doubling Down Like most gamblers,
Tommy couldn't help but try his luck and doubled down on his cheating ways. Micheal Balsamo,
a career criminal who specialized in cheating casinos, became friends with Tommy in prison.
Together they plotted ways to beat the new systems the casino had in place.
They decided to meet up when they were released to wreak havoc together.
Tommy was let out of prison in 1987 under one condition—
he was to return to Tulsa and stay far away from Vegas. However, Tommy never had any
intentions to follow his orders and devised a strategy to play his favorite game called
"cheat the system." He struck a deal with a Tulsa contractor who "hired" Tommy as a
salesman on a construction site. The Contractor would write him a check, and Tommy turned it into
his parole officer as proof of income while living in Tulsa. However, the only time he
ever came back to Tulsa was to see his parole officer. He spent the rest of his time in Vegas.
One thing the con man never expected was the continuing rise of slot machine technology.
This was barely enough to slow the man down as he seemingly had an answer for everything.
He impersonated a casino owner and went to the manufacturers that made the machines.
There he had them explain to him exactly how everything worked. All this research
made him realize that he would have to buy one of these machines to figure them out.
Micheal Balsamo was soon released and joined Tommy to buy one of these new $1000
slot machines. Their only option was to do what they do best. They went back to the old
Casinos and used the Top Bottom joint to scam enough money to buy a machine for themselves.
This little purchase gave Tommy the knowledge to create the next weapon in his war against casinos.
The Slider With his love for electronics and a brand new
slot machine, Tommy had everything he needed. His primary focus was to build a tool to beat these
machines. After a lot of studying, he finally discovered a weakness. The counter that regulated
all the pay-outs could be overridden, causing the hopper to spit out streams of winnings.
With this information in hand, he created a tool called The Slider. This was a thin piece of metal,
about 11 inches long, with an attached piece of piano wire to manipulate it once it was
inside the machine. The way it worked was the gambler would slip it inside an air hole,
keeping it straight to avoid the wires. Then they would pull back
on the string to override the counter switch, and voila—money, money, money.
The gambling industry is constantly evolving and, once again, upgraded their machines to beat
The Slider. This time, they added a laser that would count the coins as they passed through.
Once it counted the correct number of coins, it shut the hopper down.
Tommy responded right back with a new invention of his own called The Light Wand.
This wand allowed him to trick the machine
by producing light to block the laser. Once blocked, the machine couldn't count the coins,
thus continuously spitting them out until it was empty. The Light Wand was Tommy's most
profitable invention, and it wasn't just for the amount of money he cheated from Casinos.
Tommy started selling Light Wands to cheaters up and down the Vegas strip.
They only cost him $3 to make, but he'd sell them for $10,000 each!
Team Effort With all this new success,
Tommy and Balsamo were riding high, so high, that they decided to form a cheating team. They were
pulling in millions and spent most of their time partying or cheating. The team was very organized,
with different roles for everyone. Some people were cheats while others played the lookouts.
Once cameras became more popular, some team members were positioned to block surveillance.
Cheaters will always get caught eventually,
and Tommy had another scare in 1996 when security guards caught him on camera. Tommy,
however, was smart enough to fling his Light Wand across the casino before guards swarmed
him. His lawyer argued that they couldn't prove the tool was his since they didn't find
it in his possession. Furthermore, Tommy's Vegas ban and parole had expired in 1992.
Tommy's booming business only led to more risk. With every cheater in Vegas using a Light Wand,
it was bound to be found and countered by slot machine manufacturers. Old coin-op slot machines
are long gone. They've since been replaced, thanks to Tommy, by Ticket-in-Ticket-Out Machines.
Ticket-in Ticket-Out rendered all of Tommy's tools obsolete, but still, he never gave up. He answered
back with a tool called The Tongue, a simple tool that takes advantage of another fatal flaw in the
system. These new machines would count how many coins you were putting in with a series of lights.
Tommy realized that by triggering the middle light with his tongue depressor-like tool,
he could trick the machine into thinking he'd inserted hundreds of coins. One simple
press of the Cash-out button printed a voucher for however many coins the machine thinks he'd put in.
FBI In 1999,
Balsamo was arrested with a light wand in his pocket, and it was sent to the FBI. They opened
an investigation and began combing through Michael's phone records. They discovered
several phone calls made to Tommy's number, and since he was a known cheat, a warrant to
tap his phone was easy to get. They listened in for weeks and built a case against Tommy.
He called around to his fellow cheats to get them to test out his new tool.
Little did he know the FBI was listening. They recorded his calls and followed the cheaters.
After enough evidence was gathered, Tommy was picked up and arrested once again.
Although, we can say for certain it was outside of a Denny's this time. He divulges all his cheating
secrets to the FBI to reduce his sentence, and it pays off. Tommy only spends 11 months in jail.
Carmichael Now Near the end of his time,
Tommy decided to "right a wrong" and create an anti-cheating device. This object was called
The Protector and would shut the machine down if any foreign light was shining inside. The
Protector passed all the necessary tests and was well on its way to being bought.
Then, Casinos learned Tommy was the inventor and wanted nothing to
do with it. They saw it as Tommy's last effort to rig the machines for himself.
Carmichael was officially blacklisted in Nevada, meaning he'd never be allowed to legally set foot
in a casino ever again. He lived out the rest of his days, shooting pool in Tulsa, Oklahoma until
he passed in 2019 at 68 years old. Carmichael was one of the greats at gaming casinos. But it
probably goes without saying the greatest casino cheat is the one that we have no clue about!
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