Multiple multimillion-dollar cheating scandals have plagued casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere throughout the years.
Even though some fraudsters were able to outwit casino security for long periods of time, the vast majority eventually wound themselves behind bars. A look at nine scandals that caused waves in the gambling world.

For a very long time, gamblers have been the hopeful risk-takers who dared to test their luck. However, dishonest gamblers have occasionally attempted to eliminate chance.

Millions of dollars have been stolen from casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere over the years by cunning thieves who developed ways to “win” large without actually doing so.

It’s true that some of them were able to stay hidden from casino surveillance for quite long time, but ultimately most of them ended up behind bars. Many of them took home substantial gains by cheating the system in some way, whether by counting cards, manipulating machinery, using sleight of hand, or simply leaving with bags full of cash.

A look back at nine scandals that rocked the gambling business due to dishonesty.

Tommy Glenn Carmichael

Tommy Glenn Carmichael stole millions of dollars from casinos over the course of almost two decades by manipulating slot machines.

His “slider” or “monkey’s paw” wire, which he inserted into the machine’s payout chute to trigger the microswitch, was one of his innovations.

Carmichael’s strategies progressed in tandem with the development of more sophisticated slot machines. A camera battery and a miniature light bulb were the basis of his “light wand” slot machine hack, which would blind the machine’s sensor and cause it to dispense cash. The Los Angeles Times said that Carmichael was making hundreds of dollars each day by manipulating slot machines.

Carmichael was apprehended by the FBI in 2001 and sentenced to 326 days in jail and 3 years of probation. Casinos also started denying him entry.

The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and professors who employed card counting to win millions of dollars from casinos in the 1970s through the 1990s.

They were one of the first organizations to adopt structured, scientific strategies to win at blackjack, and they included current and former students from prestigious institutions like MIT and Harvard.

According to Inc., Bill Kaplan, the group’s head, taught more than 100 blackjack players over the years and made $10 million for himself and investor at casinos throughout the world by engaging in card-counting, which is “frowned upon yet legal.”

After casinos learned of the team’s intricate plot, they started denying entry to any of its members. The group largely disbanded by 1993, however a few members kept playing into the 2000s. The team’s story served as a plot point for the 2008 film “21.”

Ron Harris

worked as an anti-cheating software developer for the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the early 1990s.

But behind the scenes, he was programming machines with a secret software switch that triggered massive jackpots when players inserted coins in a specific order.

CNN reports that Harris rigged 30 slot machines and then had his associates play them to win hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One of Harris’s associates was arrested while attempting to rig a keno game in Atlantic City, and so Harris was ultimately apprehended. The Las Vegas Sun reports that Harris was sentenced to seven years in jail after he admitted guilt on four counts of slot-cheating in 1996.

Louis “the Coin” Colavecchio

Louis “the Coin” Colavecchio, a notorious forger, was busted with almost 750 pounds of counterfeit coins for slot machines.

Louis Colavecchio, well known by his nickname “the Coin,” was a notorious forger who became wealthy off of slot machines in Las Vegas without risking a thing.

CoinWeek reports that he was convicted of making the coins in 1997 and sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. When he was apprehended in Atlantic City, the New Haven Register said he had 750 pounds of coins in his car.

According to the Providence Journal, Colavecchio, then 76 years old, was arrested for forging 2,400 $100 bills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, last year.

Using a software flaw present in video poker machines across the country, John Kane was able to win over $500,000 in a single session.

It was reported by Wired that Kane stumbled into a bug in the Game King series of video poker machines that allowed players to retry hands with various basic wagers. This meant that Kane might remain at a machine for hours placing cent bets, and if he hit the jackpot, he could play the hand again with a maximum stake of $10, resulting in a payout of $10,000 or more.

While federal prosecutors attempted to accuse Kane and his friend Andre Nestor with hacking and conspiracy, they ultimately dropped the charges because they could not prove their case.

“All these guys did was just push a succession of buttons that they were lawfully permitted to push,” Kane’s counsel stated.

William John Brennan

William John Brennan, an employee at the casino, disappeared after taking $500,000. He was last seen leaving the building.

Despite the pervasiveness of surveillance cameras in casinos, William John Brennan managed to vanish.

Until its demolition, Brennan worked as a sports book cashier at the Stardust hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Apparently, Brennan left the casino in 1992 carrying $500,000 in cash and chips and was never seen again, as reported by the Las Vegas Sun. According to News 3 Las Vegas, he was tasked with counting money at the sportsbook after a telecast of “Monday Night Football,” packaged it up for deposit, and then vanished.

The fact that no cameras caught his leaving is reportedly the most mysterious part of the reports. Even though an arrest warrant was issued for him about 30 years ago, nothing has been done to bring closure to the case.

Richard Marcus

More than $5 million was stolen from casinos by Richard Marcus using his “past posting” betting fraud and other methods.

Richard Marcus, after arriving in Las Vegas without a home, worked as a blackjack and baccarat dealer. His own website claims that as he became more familiar with the games, he found loopholes through which to deceive the software.

Past posting, or late betting, was one of his most effective cons; he would play small amounts, wait to see whether he had won, and then stealthily exchange low-denomination chips for higher-value ones to pocket large rewards. With a few deft moves, he could double a $300 payout by ten times, giving himself a $10,000 profit.

He allegedly defrauded casinos out of almost $5 million before he was finally discovered by authorities, although CNET reports that he was never convicted of any wrongdoing.

Marcus is now a consultant for casino security who also writes books about his exploits.

In 2016, a dealer at the Bellagio helped a group of pals win over $1 million by lying about predicting a series of dice rolls with odds of 452 billion to 1.

Mark William Branco

Mark William Branco, a craps dealer at the Bellagio, and his two accomplices, Jeffrey Martin and Anthony Grant Granito, were arrested in 2016 and charged with defrauding the casino of more than $1 million. Each man faces at least four years in prison under Nevada state law.

The trio allegedly went to craps tables where Branco and another dealer were working and placed fake, high-stakes “hop bets,” or bets that a certain sequence of numbers would be rolled.

As reported by The Sun, one of the two players “would murmur something that sounded like a hop bet and one of the dealers would pay them as if they had correctly placed on whatever fell.” Officials said that the group attempted their ploy 76 times over the course of two years.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that casino employees became suspicious when they learned the group’s good fortune was incompatible with chances of 452 billion to one.

According to the Reno Gazette Journal, a judge in Clark County District Court has ordered the group to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars. Branco’s sentence is between four and ten years in prison. To make matters worse, he is now listed as No. 36 in the “black book” maintained by the Nevada Gaming Commission, making it illegal for him to visit any casino in the state.

One sportsbook operator

One sportsbook operator was busted in 2016 in a multi-million dollar illegal gambling enterprise and fined $22.5 million.

Cantor Gaming, which ran sportsbooks, was embroiled in a large money-laundering and illicit gambling scandal from 2009 to 2013.

Reuters reports that the company’s former director of risk management, Michael Colbert, and his team accepted substantial illegal deposits from customers in other states and processed the proceeds of those deposits. Two illegal bookies were able to launder money through the business with the help of the employees’ lax security measures.

The Las Vegas Sun stated in 2012 that in the course of an initial investigation, authorities recovered almost $2.8 million and made 25 arrests, including Colbert.

In 2016, the company then known as Cantor Gaming and now called CG Technology agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle the claims. According to Casino.org, after Colbert’s guilty plea in 2013, he faced up to five years in prison, but the charges against him were dismissed as part of a settlement.