There have been several memorable casino scandals throughout history. Here are five you might not have heard about.
It’s no surprise that an industry built on winning large sums of money would attract people willing to do anything for their big break. We’ve had a few casino scandals throughout history, some of which you might not have heard of.
From rogue programmers to vanishing employees to unsolvable heists, casinos have pretty much seen it all. We likely haven’t seen the last of casino scandals, but gambling cheating used to be easier to pull off.
Security has increased both online and in-person, which means the following scandals could be the last of a dying breed.
The Russ Hamilton Ultimate Bet Scandal
First, we have one of the ultimate (no pun intended) online casino scandals. This scandal resulted in a whopping $22 million in the pocket of the online poker scammer Russ Hamilton.
Before Hamilton was cheating in online poker, he had made a name for himself in the poker world by winning the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1994.
Hamilton used a “superuser” account to cheat players out of millions on the Ultimate Bet platform. By using the “God Mode” on the account, he was able to view his opponent’s hole cards.
Since then, the best online casinos have upped their security.
The Disappearance of William John Brennan
One mysterious casino scandal involved William John Brennan, an employee at Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, who managed to vanish along with $500,000 worth of cash and chips. Brennan was never seen again, nor was the money ever located.
Fellow employees of Brennan described him as generally mild-mannered and unassuming, though there is speculation he got involved in a seedy gambler during his time at the Stardust.
The fact that Brennan seemingly never contacted his friends or family again after the heist leads some investigators to believe he may have been murdered for the money, but without any concrete proof, all theories are just speculation.
The Rogue Casino Security Expert Ronald Dale Harris
Ronald Dale Harris was hired by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the early 1990s and given a simple task: write anti-cheating software for slot machines.
With knowledge comes power, and Harris quickly discovered he could use this power for personal gain. By using erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), Harris could control how much money a machine would pay out.
By creating a code that would dispense the cash when coins were inserted in a certain sequence, he was able to share his code with accomplices.
Overall, the scam cheated casinos all over Vegas out of hundreds of thousands of dollars before one of his cronies ultimately told the police everything.
The Horizon Casino Heist
A masked figure with a gun forced his way into the Horizon Casino and told employees if they did not open the cash box, he would detonate two bombs he had hidden somewhere in the casino. The employees complied, and he made away with an estimated $60,000.
To keep the police off his trail, he called in multiple bomb threats to nearby establishments and even set a local elementary school on fire.
With that level of commitment, it’s no wonder the 2003 case remains unsolved.
The MIT Blackjack Team
Finally, we have a scandal that proves it may be worth going to college.
In the 1990s, a group of students and alumni from institutions such as MIT, Harvard, and other prestigious universities used their superior intellect to win millions of dollars at casinos. And, somehow, they managed to do it legally.
The team would rotate through a group of players who had been trained specifically in card counting and shuffle tracking, something their math-wired brains could do much easier than the average gambler.
Eventually, the small team of students grew to around 80 players and disbanded as casinos began to ban card counters.
