Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Prolific former slot cheat recounts how he honed spurious skills

Mob Museum, introduces panelists during a panel discussion on slot cheats at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, June 28, 2016.

Steve Marcus

Former slot cheat Dick Charlesworth speaks during a panel discussion on slot cheats at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, June 28, 2016.

Slot Cheats Panel Discussion at Mob Museum

Photos of cheating devices are shown during a panel discussion on slot cheats at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, June 28, 2016. Launch slideshow »

For every security feature built into slot machines over the years, there has always been a “genius” gambler who has found a way to cheat the technology and rip off the house.

This was underlined Tuesday evening at the Mob Museum during the “Stolen Jackpots: How Slot Cheating Rings Raked in Millions” panel.

Panelists educated and entertained about 40 people gathered in the museum’s showroom, often drawing robust applause and laughter.

One of the featured speakers was Dick Charlesworth.

On Tuesday he appeared as a retiree — in fact, he says he’s been away from the racket for 20 years after a career as “one of the most prolific slot cheats in Las Vegas history,” according to the museum.

In an interview he said the event was meant to be “strict entertainment,” and entertaining it was.

James Taylor, deputy chief of special investigations for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, demonstrated some of the devices cheats have used over the years:

The yo-yo: Offenders tie a string around a coin so the machine registers multiple credits with a single coin as it is manipulated after insertion.

Shaved coins: These are rejected by the machine and returned but not until after registering credits.

Monkey paw: A bent metal paw with a guitar string attached that is inserted into the machine to release coins.

The audience got an initial chuckle from surveillance videos of cheats in action, especially one that showed a man being tackled by authorities while he was employing a light optic rod, which tricks a machine's optical sensor into awarding a jackpot.

But most of the event's comic relief was provided by Charlesworth, who starred in a presentation slideshow in various mug shots.

“I think I still have that shirt,” Charlesworth said, laughing at one of the photos.

His career of cheating machines began as a teenager, he said. After being pressed by his father about his future, the young Charlesworth remembers telling him, “Maybe I want to be a burglar.”

From there, his father, who owned slot machines, introduced him to “the right people to teach him” how to cheat. His children did not follow his footsteps, he said.

His rendezvous took him around the country and he has been arrested many times.

For about an hour and a half, Charlesworth, Taylor, Bruce Gates, a retired agent with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and Beverly Griffin, president of a company that tracks subjects and scams, shared stories from both sides of the law spectrum that mostly circled back to Charlesworth and some of the cases he was involved in, including his ties to the Nikrasch clan, one of the most prominent cheat rings in Nevada history.

The stories mostly dated back to the 1980s and '90s.

Charlesworth shared a tale about how his ring at one point cheated its way into winning brand-new car jackpots — a car from every Las Vegas casino once every six weeks. He had so many cars at one point that one time after crashing one in a parking lot, he left it behind.

“It’s amazing the moxie that people have,” Cynthia Montoya said about Charlesworth and his quips. “No remorse after they committed the crimes.”

Cynthia and her husband, Rudy, attended the panel together. Cynthia admitted the panel was entertaining and that Charlesworth is funny, but that he’s still a “bad guy,” she said. “Even though he’s funny.”

College of Southern Nevada student David Barker, 28, said the panel was “one of the funnier” ones he’s been to at the museum. “There are a lot of stories that you can’t find in any of the books about this town.”

To stream the presentation, visit here.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy