How This Device illegally Won $44.9 Million From Las Vegas

Now in Las Vegas, people are always trying to get on lists, whether it's at a club or at a bar. But the one list you never want to be on is the infamous Nevada Black Book. Think of it as a naughty list. Now it's filled with criminals, scam artist, hucksters, mobsters, and it bars you from entering any casino in the state of Nevada for life. Now, it's not just for your common thief. It's for the worst of the worst criminals who have stolen millions from casinos. Now it's only 36 pages long with only 35 names. But the one name that stands above them all is the man that stole from Vegas for over two decades, invented tens of dozens of tools that cheat slot machines, and took a reported $45 million from casinos across the world. Tommy Carmichael. Now, Tommy Carmichael's a TV repairman in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But recently he had gone a bit down on his luck. His wife was divorcing him. His business was failing. It seemed like he just couldn't catch a break. But then an old friend, Ray Ming, showed up at his place and he bragged to him about his new cars, new apartment, and how he started making all this money with the cheating device for a slot machine that no one had ever seen. Top and bottom Joint. Now Tommy knew how to cheat slots..as a teenager he used to tie strings to quarters and play for free. But this device was even better because it triggered a jackpot every single time. And better yet, the police or anyone else had no idea what it was. And Ray just happened to be selling it for the low price of $4,000. But was Ray making money from actually using this or actually selling it? Was the whole thing just kind of a scam. So he needs to see it to believe it. So the two fly out to Vegas and on his first slot, he puts in the device and he cleans out 75 bucks. Doing the math, easily he could make about a thousand bucks a day, which was all that Tommy really needed. Now, triggering the payout was a crude operation. Piece of metal wire was put in the side of the machine, and then a metal tool was put in the coin slot. And essentially you're just hot wire in the machine to trigger a jackpot. And Tommy was sold. The thing worked flawlessly, so he bought one and headed back home to Tulsa, Oklahoma. But he had big dreams of all the riches he would make the next time he was in Vegas. But by the end of the year, the casino started to fight back and upgraded all their slot machines with a little device that would stop every cheater in their track...a fuse... essentially if you used the top and bottom joint. The fuse would blow, the machine would shut down and you couldn't cheat it anymore. And by Tommy's next trip to Vegas, there were only a handful at slot machines that he could even cheat. And he had no idea why. And he would have to drive further and further from the strip, to find old slot machines. And it leads him to play at a Denny's at three in the morning. He's cleaning out the slot machine real hard. Three cops walk in, he pulls it out, puts it in his pocket, He thinks he's busted... and the cops do bust him. They find 35 bucks and quarters and that top and bottom joint. Now, Ray told him this device was so new, the cops had no idea what it was, so he could never really be caught. But Ray had straight up lied because this device had been out for 20 years and Vegas PD was very well aware of how this thing worked. So he'd sentenced to five years in state prison for cheating a slot machine for 35 bucks. Locked up. Tommy thought of all the ways he could have avoided being caught, but mainly he was pissed that he was caught using this ancient cheating device that his friend had lied to him about, and only one person inside understood his pain and would also help him out with his next big scam. Michael Balsamo. Michael was in out of prison his whole life. He was a dedicated slot Cheat, a man of the streets, and the two decide to work together and break Vegas once they both get out. Now, Tommy was released first, and even though his parole mandated, he had to go back Tulsa, well Sh%% he didn't want to go back there. He stopped his business, divorced his wife. Vegas was his calling. So while he waits for Michael to get out of jail, he starts casing out all of the casinos and quickly finds that all of his old cheats. They aren't going to work on any of these new slot machines because while they were locked up, the world had become computerized and slot machines were a part of it. So when his biggest con yet he impersonates a casino owner, makes a fake business, writes a bad check and gets the brand new computerized slot machine that was considered unhackable. Tommy gets home, he takes it apart, and deep within the machine, he finds a tiny, tiny switch that once he hit it, it triggers the jackpot. But the only problem was Tommy couldn't hit that switch with the machine closed up, and for six months, he's banging his head against the wall, trying hundreds of prototypes. Until one night he has a dream. He sees a man cheating a slot. He holds up a device, puts it in the machine, triggers a jackpot. Bingo. He wakes up and he knows exactly what the build. And within a week he had a prototype and he dubs it the Monkey Paw. And luck would have that. Michael Balsamo would be released from prison. The two catch up. They show him how to work the monkey Paw, and they're both ready to break Vegas. But the only question is, could they do it without getting caught? Now, the two had down to a local gentlemen's club to find some female dancers who will act as shades for them. It's people who cover the sides of the machine, so security can't see what you're doing when you're cheating the thing. They find their shades. They hit the streets and they ransack slot after slot. And the monkey paw was working flawlessly. They were making about a thousand bucks an hour each, and the only reason they couldn't make more was because of the speed the quarters came out at. And the two started to live like kings, brand new, Mercedes, champagne at the gentlemen's club VIP suites. Every night it was the American Dream with no end in sight. But the battle between casinos and cheaters is as old as time. It's a cat and mouse game. Whenever a new cheats expose, the casinos work fast to counter it. But by then, it's already too late because they already found the next cheat. And By the 1990s, the casinos realized that these new impenetrable slot machines, well, they weren't as secure as they actually thought. Now, with the casinos changing ownership from the mobs to corporations, more careful accounting was beholden to the shareholders. What's coming in? What are the profits on the machines and who's stealing all the money? So security cameras would be installed every inch eyes in the sky, and within a year they had brand new, un-un-Cheatable slot machines that were put all over Vegas. The casinos were happy, the slot machine companies were happy. But the only problem was Tommy and Michael were back to square one. The monkey paw was now useless. Now, Michael thought that the gig was up at this point, it was time to move on. There was no way they were going to figure out their next cheat. So he gets out of the picture. But Tommy had a bit more faith in himself. If he could just get his hands on one of these new machines. He could figure out a cheat for it. The salesman shows him the latest one, the red, white and blue. He opens up the machine door and tells him it's the Fort Knox of slots. Literally, it's un-cheatable because of the new optical light sensor. Now, this counts the coins electronically versus mechanically. So all those old cheats they ain't gonna work. And then Tommy brings this home and he gets right to work hacking that optical light sensor. And for a moment, he kind of thought the salesman might have been right, because this thing was like Fort Knox. If Tommy could only find a way to fool that light sensor and stop the count, he could beat the machine. (Ad Read) I used to be that guy. You know, that dude with the tough, full of hair looking like he's wearing a bear suit at the pool party. That was me. Well, I'll tell them. My buddies gave me that Manscaped kit. I started looking real good. And more importantly, looking huge. Now, I've been using Manscaped Shavers for the last couple of years. I bought this kit independently three years ago, and I've loved it. So when they told me they wanted to sponsor this video, I was like, Hell yeah, they sent me over this little care package right here, which you can get yourself online. But the lawnmower 4.0, this thing is where it's at. It's got a LED light right there. And see what you're doing in the middle of the night. Got the ceramic blade so you don't nick yourself to go easy, that is. Look, no nicks. I'm not crying. Saint Nicholas. He's living down the road. He ain't here no more. It's good at manscaped dot com today and get 20% off your first order. Plus you get two free special guests when you put in my code a link down below. After 30 prototypes rigging, molding, plastic, miniature lights, batteries, he pops it in and it blinds the sensor, and the coins start to fall out beautifully. Now, he was tricking the machine into thinking that when a payout occurred, the coin never fell, thus making another coin fall. And then all of the coins at the slot machine would come out just within a few minutes. But better yet, this hack didn't just work for the red, white and blue. It worked for any slot machine that uses an optical light sensor, which was practically all of them, and he dubs it the Light Wand Now, remember, Michael's out of the picture and Tommy just couldn't hit Vegas by himself. It's too risky. You need a partner of shade, someone who knows the streets and knows how to keep you safe. So he hires Lisa Luxem and 25 year old exotic dancer, and it gives her a 20% cut. And for the next few years, Lisa and Tommy start hitting the streets and they're you're hitting it hard of living like VIP kings. He gets a mansion in Las Vegas. He gets an estate in Bel Air, a half a million dollar RV starts road tripping across the USA. They even go on cruise ships, vacations and just clean out the entire ship. But better yet, Lisa and Tommy start to fall in love. In 1992, Agent Flaumer mayor of the New Jersey casino enforcement, is following another cheat across the country and it brought him to Las Vegas where the cheats finally arrested. And when he searched the agent find something he had never seen before. A light Wand. Now during the interrogation, the cheat begs the agent to let him off easy. Because you know what? He'll give the name of the guy who's really hurting the casinos. The guy who sold them the light Wand... Tommy Carmichael. But how the hell did this guy get his hands on a light Wand? Well, earlier that year, security at the MGM Grand noticed Tommy acting a bit suspicious on the slots, winning a bit too much. It was truly more. Suss, Than a character from AMOGUS. They call in the Nevada Gaming Agents. And When Tommy got home, he noticed they were staked outside of his house. Now he knows they're waiting for him to enter that casino and catch him in the act. But in some act of God, the agents get another call, leave the house. And by the time they came back, the next day, Tommy skipped out of town. He got a new identity and started living off of the grid. Now, this was the reality check he needed because instead of risking prison every time he used the light Wand. Why not sell the tools during the gold rush? Sell them to other people and make the money there. Much like how his friend Ray Ming sold him his original top and bottom joint. So he would be in his RV manufacturing them, selling them underground across the country because, you know, people were watching him. So for one light Wand, he would sell it for $30,000 and it only cost them three bucks to make. But the price was worth it. I mean, easily you could make $10,000 a day with this thing. And the light Wand was such a hit that an entire black black market of counterfeit light wands started appearing all across the United States. So now there were hundreds of people across the country using the light wand, taking millions from casinos. But now Agent Flaumer had his sights on the one man he needed to take down, Tommy Carmichael. Now, to understand this light Wand blindsided the entire gaming industry because slot machines had become cash cows of casinos accounting for nearly 70% of the revenue compared to the decade before, when it was only 40%. But it wasn't all positive because more Light Wands in the wild, some people started leaving them in the machines, and some got stuck. And pretty soon the Nevada Gaming Commission put the best brains in the world to develop a revolutionary anti-cheat against the light Wand...they add a Delay. Now if you watch a slot machine pay out coins, you'll notice that it's not a constant stream of coins coming out. It comes out in these like spurts you see here. Now, in between those spurts, if there's a light beam hitting the sensor AKA like from the Light Wand, the entire machine shuts down. (Coins rattling) and immediately these delays were added to thousands of slots across the country, essentially making this light wand pretty useless. But Tommy didn't give up. There was a solution that required complex engineering, theoretical physics, quantum mechanics. He put a switch in the light to turn it off during the delay, and it worked beautifully. People. Tommy then started manufacturing those and he started selling the light Wand gen2 for now, $40,000 across the country all over again, selling them to hundreds and hundreds of people. And eventually word got around in town of this new cheat to his old friend, Michael Balsamo. Now, Michael was a fickle guy. He got out of the picture when he didn't believe Tommy had it in him, that there was no more slot cheating. But when word got around to this new great light Wand well, he called them up and picked one up. But for Tommy, dealing with Michael Balsamo again would become one of the biggest regrets in his life. So Michael's hitting the casinos hard with the light Wand Gen2 making thousands of dollars. But he's incredibly reckless during this time. He's cheating out in the open, middle of the day, drunk off Mai Tai's getting that gnarly adrenaline rush from making free money. And then security catches him in the act red handed. And when they find out it's a light Wand well, things get kind of serious. They hand him over to the FBI because the casinos were losing so much money because of this at the time. They decide to make a deal. They'll let him go, If he gives up the man who brought him into the game, the man who made the light Wand... Tommy Carmichael's information. But more importantly, the FBI wants to know, where's Tommy at? Because he lived off of the grid. No one knew his phone number where he was at. And Michael just gives up everything completely ratting on Tommy. Saying he met with them the weeks before. Here's his phone number, here's his car. Everything about him. It was so f**ed. And the feds start tapping Tommy Carmichael's phone. Now, you see, he remained underground. There wasn't enough evidence to tie him to the Kingpin of the Light Wand game. But listening in on those phone calls, it really sealed the deal. Tommy gave play by plays of the whole game, who he's selling to, what he's doing, how much he could make in a day. The FBI said, quote, I couldn't have written a more perfect script, but what scared the FBI the most was that Tommy had a new cheat he was working on. And if released, this could literally bankrupt the casinos. It was called the tongue. And he could make $12,000 a minute. See, the tongue exploited a new security system the casinos had rolled out, ticket in, Ticket out system. Instead of spitting out coins from the slot, it prints out a ticket. Those get cashed out much like what slots use today. And while these didn't give you coins, they still accepted coins. Now, the tongue was a complex microcomputer inserted into the coin slot. And the slot would think it had hundreds of thousands of tokens put in. It could add 40 credits a second to the machine, not a $5 machine. That's $200 a second, $12,000 a minute or $720,000 an hour. Now whats sneaky is someone could add and thousands of credits in the slot walk away another person comes by, cashes it out and all without there being the jackpot lights and sounds going off so you just keep a low profile...and security wouldn't notice. This was truly Tommy's greatest invention because he had a finally beat Vegas at its own game. His plan was to take millions and then finally retire. But he would just do one last deal. He flies out to Atlantic City. He's going to sell the Tongue to about a dozen friends. $1.2 million cash, $100,000 each. But as he landed, the FBI was waiting for him busted. While he was in custody, he thought about how he had spent the last 20 years of his life learning how to break slots and that he wanted to pass on some of that knowledge to the casinos, maybe for some leniency. So they arranged deal. Now, remember, Tommy had an ancient cheating device in 1985 and got five years in prison. But for manufacturing, a device that hundreds of people used to cheat, an estimated $45 million from casinos. Tommy was sentenced to 11 months and he was placed in Nevada's notorious black Book, where it makes it a felony to ever enter a casino (In the state of Nevada) again. And the only way out of this book is death. It's important for later, but this story is far from over because there were still thousands of light Wand cheaters out there in the wild, Michael Balsamo included. Now, remember, he ratted on Tommy and he got off scot free. And then guess what he did? Oh, my God. He went back to cheating. Oh, Michael just taught his entire family, including his in-laws, how to use the light Wand. We're talking his mother in law's wife, his daughters daughter in law, his sons would act as shades for him. And for years, they're hitting casinos hard, literally a crime family. But in 2006, the family hit three casinos within one hour. Security sees They never lost the bet. Immediately they'd be arrested and charged for possessing an illegal cheating device. The mother in law is given probation. The wife is sentenced to two years and the sons and daughters, they're just let off. But the one person who never made it the trial was Michael Balsamo because while he was out on bail, Michael Balsamo ditched his entire family and fled to Argentina, where he was never seen again and the police are still looking for him. And then randomly in 2009, Michael Balsamo just happened to die in Argentina. His family put an obituary online. Oh, my God. So tragic. Now, I think it's his family trying to take all the heat off of him. But the police still think he's alive because there's no death certificate. He's still in that Nevada black book. But what happened to Tommy now, a year later when he was released, he had lost everything. His houses were gone. His cars and sadly, even Lisa Luxem. So he moved back home to Tulsa to live more of a quiet life. Now, at the time, it was estimated that Tommy was responsible for 90% of the slot cheats in circulation, and he wanted to write that wrong. So in a workshop, he invented The Protector, an anti cheating device for slot machines. And he said this was a device that he was afraid the slot machine companies would invent themselves. And then in a weird turn of events, he sold the patent to the slot machine company he had exploited for the last two decades. Now, today there are still people whose lives are dedicated to figuring out cheats in casinos. But as long as the casino is all about odds, people will always try to put those in their favor.