WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.500 JACK: [MUSIC] Ah, Vegas; home of swingin’ jazz, drunken mischief, and the dream of getting rich. 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:13.590 Slot machines all around with the constant echo of people winning money everywhere. But the thing 00:00:13.590 --> 00:00:19.200 is the casino always wins. The machines and the games are built in such a way that in the long 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:25.680 run the player will eventually lose. Almost every single bet you can place in Vegas has the odds in 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:31.320 the house’s favor, yet millions of people play, looking for ways they can cheat the system. But 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:37.418 what if you found a way to actually swing the odds in your favor and let you win whenever you wanted? 00:00:37.418 --> 00:00:43.140 JACK (INTRO): [MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side 00:00:43.140 --> 00:01:05.660 of the internet. I’m Jack Rhysider. This is Darknet Diaries. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:01:05.660 --> 00:01:09.410 JACK: For a short while in my life I was a craps dealer in Las Vegas, 00:01:09.410 --> 00:01:13.670 Nevada and it always intrigued me to see the different betting systems people would use, 00:01:13.670 --> 00:01:17.930 thinking they’ve found a method for winning. While walking around the casino floor you can 00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:23.090 see some of these in action. I’ve seen people place a lucky coin on their slot machine or 00:01:23.090 --> 00:01:28.100 wave a special feather in the air on every roll of the dice. I’ve seen people count cards and 00:01:28.100 --> 00:01:32.840 write down all of their spins and outcomes. Each are looking for a way to move that edge 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:37.730 in their favor to give them a long-term winning strategy. Some people take this very seriously. 00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:42.800 Most of the serious slot machine hackers will purchase a machine and try rigging it at home. 00:01:42.800 --> 00:01:47.030 They play around with adding various objects to the machine to attempt to make it malfunction and 00:01:47.030 --> 00:01:50.930 to spit out cash. There are loads of slot machine hacking devices that exist today. 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:55.700 One is called the Monkey Paw and it’s a device that has a little light in it that you stick up 00:01:55.700 --> 00:02:00.080 the coin hopper of the machine. This tricks the machine to think that when the payout occurred, 00:02:00.080 --> 00:02:05.630 the coin never fell, thus making another coin fall. A slot thief can steal all the coins 00:02:05.630 --> 00:02:09.950 of the slot machine in just a few minutes. Another common slot machine hacking tool is 00:02:09.950 --> 00:02:14.780 the old EMP. By placing an electromagnetic pulse around certain slot machines it can 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:19.070 cause the machine to behave abnormally and do things like give you instant credits or 00:02:19.070 --> 00:02:23.630 pay out more than it should. But being caught using devices like this is almost immediate 00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:28.250 prison time. The penalties are harsh and strict and it’s a big risk for thieves. 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:37.630 [PIANO] John Kane is a virtuoso pianist. Now, at fifty years old, 00:02:37.630 --> 00:02:41.770 he’s been an expert pianist for the last forty years playing for large audiences, 00:02:41.770 --> 00:02:47.470 teaching piano, selling his recordings. He lives in Las Vegas and runs a management consulting firm 00:02:47.470 --> 00:02:53.380 which claims to have thirty of the Fortune 100 companies as his clients. By 2005 John’s 00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:57.430 business was lucrative. He was living in a large house in the northeast end of Vegas. 00:02:57.430 --> 00:03:03.850 In it he has three Steinway grand pianos and one of his hobbies was model railroad trains. One of 00:03:03.850 --> 00:03:08.350 his spare bedrooms showcased an entire miniature town with a model train running through it with 00:03:08.350 --> 00:03:13.540 exquisite attention to detail. But besides loving the piano and building model trains, 00:03:13.540 --> 00:03:22.210 he also loved the thrill of gambling. This went on for years but by 2006 he was severely addicted. 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:29.680 That year he blew through $500,000 in gambling, often at the Boulder Station Casino. His favorite 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:35.350 game was video poker. Video poker is a simple yet exciting game. You’re given five cards with 00:03:35.350 --> 00:03:39.460 the option of throwing out any of those cards to get a new one. The goal is to get the best hand 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:44.980 possible. One can win anywhere from the one cent you put in the machine to thousands of dollars 00:03:44.980 --> 00:03:50.650 on the jackpot. John spent a large amount of time playing a video poker game called Game King made 00:03:50.650 --> 00:03:56.650 by IGT. This was the most popular video slot in Vegas. It contained such games as Deuces Wild, 00:03:56.650 --> 00:04:01.750 Jacks Are Better, Triple Play, and Bonus Poker. His pianist hands would grace the 00:04:01.750 --> 00:04:05.530 buttons of the machine with style and elegance and he would play for hours at 00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:11.830 a time and thousands of games of poker. But [00:05:00] one day something weird happened. 00:04:11.830 --> 00:04:17.950 In April 2009 he was playing the Game King video poker machine at the Freemont Casino 00:04:17.950 --> 00:04:23.350 in downtown Las Vegas. He was trying to change his bet and hit some wrong buttons. [BEEPING] 00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:28.990 All of a sudden his machine was indicating that he had won over $1,000 without even placing a 00:04:28.990 --> 00:04:33.760 bet. He knew right away this wasn’t right and the game malfunctioned on him. His payout was 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:38.380 so big the casino attendant had to deliver it by hand. He told the attendant he thinks 00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:42.580 that there was an error but the attendant just thought he was joking and paid it anyways. He 00:04:42.580 --> 00:04:47.530 tried replicating the issue. He spent hours more playing and trying to make this strange behavior 00:04:47.530 --> 00:04:55.180 happen again. John phoned a friend. Years earlier John had a gambling friend named Andre Nestor. 00:04:55.180 --> 00:05:00.670 Andre and John met through an AOL chat room for Vegas locals. They shared the same addiction to 00:05:00.670 --> 00:05:05.260 gambling and would often sit side -by-side playing various slots. Andre was thirteen 00:05:05.260 --> 00:05:09.850 years younger than John and worked answering phones for a bank. He made considerably less 00:05:09.850 --> 00:05:14.650 than John but still managed to lose about $20,000 a year gambling for the six years 00:05:14.650 --> 00:05:20.230 he lived in Vegas. After that he called it quits and moved to a quiet town in Pennsylvania where 00:05:20.230 --> 00:05:23.980 he’d only occasionally play the lottery. Andre had been living in Pennsylvania for 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:28.720 the last two years. John called Andre and told him about this bug he found in the video poker 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:34.330 machine and that he thinks he might be able to replicate it. Andre was immediate interested. He 00:05:34.330 --> 00:05:38.230 drove to the airport that night and waited all night until the next flight to Vegas. 00:05:38.230 --> 00:05:42.940 John picked Andre up at McCarran airport, grabbed breakfast, and they went right back 00:05:42.940 --> 00:05:48.430 to the Freemont and sat side-by-side on the two Game King video poker machines. John had 00:05:48.430 --> 00:05:53.380 some ideas on how to trigger the bug but he didn’t know for sure how to reliably do it. He explained 00:05:53.380 --> 00:05:57.400 to Andre what he thought was the method and the two got to work looking for the bug. They would 00:05:57.400 --> 00:06:01.660 try various betting strategies, different games, a combination of button pushing, and different 00:06:01.660 --> 00:06:06.850 bet levels. Every now and then they were able to trigger the bug but it wasn’t consistent. The game 00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:11.860 they were playing would let them bet anywhere from one cent to fifty cents a hand. The bug they found 00:06:11.860 --> 00:06:17.530 would let them change their bet after the win so they could play for hours losing only pennies but 00:06:17.530 --> 00:06:22.030 then when a big hand would show up like four of a kind, they could change their bet to fifty cents 00:06:22.030 --> 00:06:27.100 and immediately they’d get the winnings for a fifty cent wager instead of a one cent wager. 00:06:27.100 --> 00:06:32.440 This would result in thousands of dollars for a win like this. After hours of playing side-by-side 00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:37.510 they figured out the exact sequence that would need to be done for an extra-large payout to 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:45.070 happen. They hit numerous jackpots that night and left to have a celebratory dinner. The two 00:06:45.070 --> 00:06:50.050 started mapping out their plans. Fortunately for them, the Game King video poker machine is very 00:06:50.050 --> 00:06:54.700 popular in Vegas. It’s not only in casinos but it’s also in diners and gas stations 00:06:54.700 --> 00:06:58.450 and pretty much everywhere. They knew if they hit the same machine every night they’d come 00:06:58.450 --> 00:07:03.130 under suspicion. They planned out how they’d make their way across town hitting different casinos. 00:07:03.130 --> 00:07:08.950 John was worried about Andre though. He feared that even if Andre had won a lot of money he’d 00:07:08.950 --> 00:07:13.030 just give it right back on the roulette or blackjack tables. So John asked Andre, 00:07:13.030 --> 00:07:17.320 if you had a million dollars what ten things would you do? And asked Andre to 00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:22.990 really think about it. The two went back to John’s house for the night. They spent 00:07:22.990 --> 00:07:25.840 another day at the Freemont to make sure their strategy worked and sure enough, 00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:31.750 it worked great. [MUSIC] Then they made their way to another casino. Same game, 00:07:31.750 --> 00:07:37.300 same strategy but the exploit didn’t work. They tried numerous other casinos; the Hilton, 00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:42.880 Hard Rock, Luxor, Stratosphere, and Tropicana. None of the Game King video poker games would 00:07:42.880 --> 00:07:47.710 produce the same exploit. They went back to the Freemont but sure enough, it worked great there. 00:07:47.710 --> 00:07:54.040 The two were baffled so Andre decided to head back to the airport and fly back home to Pennsylvania. 00:07:54.040 --> 00:07:58.600 At the airport, Andre lost another $700 gambling at the video poker machines there, 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:04.510 but Andre still left with $8,000 more than what he came with. John went back to the Freemont and 00:08:04.510 --> 00:08:09.040 sat under the neon signs with the 90s Top 40 music playing and smoke swirling all around, 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:16.570 and he continued playing poker. He kept winning and kept playing. He kept winning and the slot 00:08:16.570 --> 00:08:20.470 manager noticed the Game King video poker machines were all losing a lot of money 00:08:20.470 --> 00:08:25.330 for the casino. The slot manager told John that they are disabling the Double Up feature on these 00:08:25.330 --> 00:08:29.770 machines. This feature allowed players to double their winnings or lose everything. John was using 00:08:29.770 --> 00:08:34.540 this feature every time he could and the slot manager knew it. John was not too worried that 00:08:34.540 --> 00:08:38.725 the feature would be disabled since it was the bug that would let him win and not the Double 00:08:38.725 --> 00:08:44.230 Up feature but when John returned the next day to play at the Freemont, the bug wouldn’t work. 00:08:44.230 --> 00:08:50.260 John was baffled and he called Andre up to explain. Andre immediately realized the missing 00:08:50.260 --> 00:08:55.240 link to their exploit was the Double Up feature. With it on, the exploit worked and with it off, 00:08:55.240 --> 00:09:02.910 it didn’t. Andre jumped on another plane and headed back to Vegas. The Double Up feature 00:09:02.910 --> 00:09:07.320 on these games had been turned off because many players don’t like that feature but you could 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:11.340 ask the gaming attendant to enable the feature and [00:10:00] sometimes they’ll do it for you. 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:15.600 John and Andre went to a new casino and asked the attendant to enable the Double Up feature 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:21.630 and away they went. Andre started playing and he had four of a kind which awarded him $500. 00:09:21.630 --> 00:09:28.500 He tapped the magic button sequence and shazam, his $500 instantly became a $10,000 jackpot. They 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:33.570 cracked the code and realized they could go to any casino now and make their money. Their plan 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:37.740 was working. They were unstoppable. They had almost endless amounts of machines they could 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:42.420 exploit now, with tens of thousands in jackpot winnings to be had. Andre was looking at a 00:09:42.420 --> 00:09:46.530 whole new life. He had been living on welfare checks and was now dreaming of owning a home, 00:09:46.530 --> 00:09:50.880 buying nice clothes, and giving gifts to his friends. They kept exploiting the 00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:54.600 bug all around town when they stumbled upon an even better version of the bug; 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:58.890 they found they could trigger the payout twice with the same hand. In fact, 00:09:58.890 --> 00:10:03.390 they could trigger the payout over and over with the same hand without even drawing more cards. 00:10:03.390 --> 00:10:08.850 This would be risky to exploit though, since having the attendant pay out $4,000 over and 00:10:08.850 --> 00:10:13.530 over on the same hand would surely be noticed. They would swap seats when one would hit the 00:10:13.530 --> 00:10:18.750 jackpot like that and then leave the casino. Andre and John had mastered their system. They 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:22.860 didn’t even see it as gambling anymore. They basically were able to win however much they 00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:29.850 wanted whenever they wanted. Andre worked out he could make $500,000 a day if he really wanted. The 00:10:29.850 --> 00:10:36.630 exploit worked like this; step one, find a Game King video poker machine that allowed different 00:10:36.630 --> 00:10:41.940 betting levels. Step two, ask the slot attendant to enable the Double Up option and be polite and 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:46.710 courteous as they make the changes. Step three, add money to the machine and select the lowest 00:10:46.710 --> 00:10:52.140 bet level you can. Step four, play with the lowest bet level until you win a big hand, 00:10:52.140 --> 00:10:57.780 say four of a kind or a royal flush. Step five, when the royal flush is showing on the screen, 00:10:57.780 --> 00:11:01.620 don’t cash out. Instead, hit the More Games button and select a different 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:07.260 game variant. Play it until you win there, any win. This sets up the Double Up option. 00:11:07.260 --> 00:11:14.230 Now your next win will be double than normal. Step six, add more money to the machine. Step seven, 00:11:14.230 --> 00:11:19.120 touch the More Games button again. Now select Maximum Bet Level and go back to 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:25.210 the game variant you hit the royal flush on. Step eight, hit he Cash Out button and bingo. 00:11:25.210 --> 00:11:33.160 Jackpot. You win up to ten times more than what your original royal flush had awarded you. John 00:11:33.160 --> 00:11:38.770 wanted a cut of the earnings since he told Andre about the exploit. The two argued over this and 00:11:38.770 --> 00:11:43.450 eventually made Andre go out and play on his own. Over the course of his few days in Vegas, 00:11:43.450 --> 00:11:50.740 Andre pulled in $152,000 from places like the Wynn and the Rio. Andre flew back to 00:11:50.740 --> 00:11:55.960 Pennsylvania. John went on a winning streak of his own, visiting eight different casinos 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:02.110 and pulling in over $500,000 hitting jackpot after jackpot night after night. 00:12:02.110 --> 00:12:08.230 John played with a straight-faced business type of attitude. Back home in Pennsylvania Andre 00:12:08.230 --> 00:12:13.510 found a nearby casino that had the Game King video poker game. [MUSIC] Andre would bring an 00:12:13.510 --> 00:12:19.330 entourage with him to the casino. First would be the bodyguard; retired cop to watch over Andre. 00:12:19.330 --> 00:12:24.370 Second would be a friend of his that was a server at Red Lobster to sit and collect the winnings 00:12:24.370 --> 00:12:30.700 so it would go on his taxes and not Andre’s. Andre continued to win another $50,000 in the 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:35.770 casino. John had continued his exploits across Vegas. He went over to the Silverton Casino, 00:12:35.770 --> 00:12:40.570 the one that has the mermaid swimming in the aquarium. He went into the high-limit room and 00:12:40.570 --> 00:12:45.100 found a Game King video poker machine. He got the attendant to enable the Double Up feature 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:54.790 and began hitting jackpot after jackpot. First $4,300, then $2,800, then $4,100, then a few more. 00:12:54.790 --> 00:12:59.920 Each win required an attendant to come and pay the jackpot in cash and fill out an IRS 00:12:59.920 --> 00:13:05.020 form to [00:15:00] declare the winnings. Then he hit a seventh jackpot of $10,400 00:13:05.020 --> 00:13:12.970 and then an eighth jackpot of $8,200. But this time the attendant didn’t come right 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:18.850 away. John waited impatiently. An attendant came but told John to wait. John complained. 00:13:18.850 --> 00:13:23.580 John’s winning streak had caught the attention of the casino’s surveillance. 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:28.620 It thought this guy was either incredibly lucky or was cheating so they had security 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:34.350 come and whisk him away into the back room. He was handcuffed and they froze his machine. John 00:13:34.350 --> 00:13:41.730 was taken to the Clark County Detention Center on suspension of theft and spent the night in jail. 00:13:41.730 --> 00:13:46.350 Next day, he was released and immediately called Andre to warn him not to go back to the casino as 00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:51.150 they know about the bug now, but Andre didn’t listen, thinking John was just trying to keep 00:13:51.150 --> 00:13:56.160 the bug to himself so he continued to visit his local casino with his entourage and kept 00:13:56.160 --> 00:14:01.230 winning. A few days later the Nevada gaming control board visited the Silverton Casino. 00:14:01.230 --> 00:14:05.760 They examined the game and found no evidence of tampering. They pulled the game’s memory 00:14:05.760 --> 00:14:09.660 and took the surveillance tapes. They went back to the lab with the surveillance tapes 00:14:09.660 --> 00:14:15.990 and they were able to duplicate the bug. This would be the first bug like this found on Game 00:14:15.990 --> 00:14:21.870 King. The Gaming Control Board immediately notified IGT, the makers of Game King. IGT 00:14:21.870 --> 00:14:26.280 had a long reputation of having reliable and bug-free games. Both the Gaming Control Board 00:14:26.280 --> 00:14:31.260 and the IGT have strict audits to make sure nothing like this ever gets into the wild. 00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:36.510 After further review IGT had discovered this bug was present for seven years and nobody 00:14:36.510 --> 00:14:41.850 knew it was there on thousands of games around the world. IGT immediately issued a notification 00:14:41.850 --> 00:14:46.980 to all its customers indicating to disable the Double Up feature immediately and that 00:14:46.980 --> 00:14:52.350 the patch would be available soon. Andre had no idea how much the gaming board knew and thought 00:14:52.350 --> 00:14:57.420 John was just telling a lie in order to keep the exploit to himself. Andre continued visiting his 00:14:57.420 --> 00:15:03.900 local casino and was able to win more than $480,000. Eventually the casino refused to 00:15:03.900 --> 00:15:09.930 pay a jackpot and Andre left. When he got to the parking garage he ran outta there. 00:15:09.930 --> 00:15:15.960 [MUSIC] At 1:00 p.m. on August 6th, 2009, Andre was sleeping on the couch in his 00:15:15.960 --> 00:15:21.270 condo and all of a sudden there were shouts at the door. ‘State Police, open up!’ A battering 00:15:21.270 --> 00:15:25.770 ram started hitting the front door. The door splintered open and the police raided his condo. 00:15:25.770 --> 00:15:30.150 Andre started for the stairs which is when he saw a trooper in full riot gear pointing an 00:15:30.150 --> 00:15:35.520 AR-15 rifle at Andre shouting ‘Get on the floor!’ Andre laid on the floor. The cops grabbed him, 00:15:35.520 --> 00:15:40.350 lifted him up, and handcuffed him to a chair. Andre watched for two hours as the troopers 00:15:40.350 --> 00:15:43.980 turned everything over in his house. They flipped the mattresses, opened drawers, 00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:48.690 tore down parts of the ceiling, and went through his PC. Andre’s friend, who was part 00:15:48.690 --> 00:15:52.950 of his entourage, came over to see Andre but was immediately arrested too for being an accomplice. 00:15:52.950 --> 00:15:57.060 The cops seized every penny they found in the condo and turned it over to the 00:15:57.060 --> 00:16:03.780 District Attorney. Andre was charged with 698 felony counts ranging from theft to criminal 00:16:03.780 --> 00:16:08.970 conspiracy. Andre spent ten days in jail and he was determined to fight this case, 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:13.980 thinking the jury would surely side with him. That’s when the FBI stepped in. They took him 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:19.500 out of the Pennsylvania court room he was in and extradited him to Las Vegas. Him and John were 00:16:19.500 --> 00:16:24.000 now being charged with federal offences. As the FBI agents walked him to the car, 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:28.170 a local news crew had a chance to interview Andre. Here’s a clip from that interview. 00:16:28.170 --> 00:16:34.500 ANDRE: I’m being arrested federally now for winning on a slot machine. Let everybody see 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:39.720 the surveillance tapes. I pressed buttons on the machine on the casino. That’s all 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:46.770 I did. Now winning is apparently illegal. It’s unbelievable. I have 00:16:46.770 --> 00:16:51.990 700 felonies. A message is being sent to everybody that if you play and you 00:16:51.990 --> 00:16:56.190 win at the casino and then they later determine that their machines weren’t 00:16:56.190 --> 00:17:01.500 completely set up to take your money and you win, then you’re going to be arrested. 00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:07.950 It’s not right and I think the people really need to hear everything that I said today. I talked to 00:17:07.950 --> 00:17:14.040 gaming attorneys in Nevada. They say I didn’t do anything wrong. The philosophy is if a casino puts 00:17:14.040 --> 00:17:21.180 a machine on the floor that pays out more than what is normally expected and a person figures it 00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:26.310 out and takes advantage of it, as long as they don’t use devices or counterfeit money of any 00:17:26.310 --> 00:17:31.470 kind then there’s nothing illegal. It’s a matter between the casino and the maker of that machine. 00:17:31.470 --> 00:17:37.140 JACK: John and Andre were charged with conspiracy and violation of The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:43.800 of 1986. The CFAA was enacted to punish hackers who illegally broke into government and banks. 00:17:43.800 --> 00:17:48.510 The FBI was stating they knowingly exploited a bug that went beyond their allowable level 00:17:48.510 --> 00:17:53.370 to access the video poker machine and that it was contrary to the rules of poker. However, 00:17:53.370 --> 00:17:57.720 their defense attorney argued that anything the game allowed them to do should be considered 00:17:57.720 --> 00:18:02.670 allowable access. Most slot machine hacking is [00:20:00] done using extra devices like magnets 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:07.800 or electrical pulses but Andre and John only used the in-game features to manipulate the game 00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:13.560 to play how they wanted. The defense attorney stated all these guys did is push a sequence 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:17.850 of buttons that they were legally entitled to push. The case dragged on for eighteen months. 00:18:17.850 --> 00:18:23.970 During that time a few other cases of violations of the CFAA came before the courts. One was Aaron 00:18:23.970 --> 00:18:28.320 Swartz, who was arrested for downloading academic articles without permission. The 00:18:28.320 --> 00:18:33.150 other was about leaking a database to another employee. The prosecution didn’t win either of 00:18:33.150 --> 00:18:38.520 these cases and the CFAA was not looking like a strong law, so with John and Andre’s case 00:18:38.520 --> 00:18:44.100 the CFAA law was being scrutinized heavily. The courts were unsure if this law would even cover 00:18:44.100 --> 00:18:51.360 their behavior. On December 3rd, 2013, the feds gave them both the same deal; one was to testify 00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:56.430 against the other, they’d get no jail time, and only probation. The deal was only for the first to 00:18:56.430 --> 00:19:01.290 testify. This is known as the prisoner’s dilemma. John and Andre weren’t able to speak to each other 00:19:01.290 --> 00:19:06.660 so they had to take the only option you can in this situation and they decided not to testify. 00:19:06.660 --> 00:19:09.720 The prosecution didn’t have much to use against 00:19:09.720 --> 00:19:21.560 the two so they ultimately dropped the charges and let them both go free. 00:19:21.560 --> 00:19:25.460 [MUSIC] Andre’s money was seized and returned back to the casino in Pennsylvania where they 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:31.190 won it, however the IRS is stating he owes $239,000 in back taxes from his winnings, 00:19:31.190 --> 00:19:35.990 which he doesn’t have. Andre feels bad that the money got between John and him caused 00:19:35.990 --> 00:19:41.480 arguments. John and Andre haven’t spoken much since they were arrested in 2009 and they were 00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:46.130 both banned from the casinos they’ve won in, but there was no court evidence that suggests John’s 00:19:46.130 --> 00:19:50.090 winnings were confiscated or returned. It’s unknown what happened to his money. 00:19:50.090 --> 00:19:56.300 John went back to playing piano and recording songs. Vulnerable slot machines are still being 00:19:56.300 --> 00:20:01.340 patched to this day. It’s not as easy as simply clicking Update because the systems aren’t 00:20:01.340 --> 00:20:06.260 connected to the internet. Applying patches to them is more complicated and there are thousands 00:20:06.260 --> 00:20:10.940 of these games spread all across the world. Not all of them are managed by a casino which 00:20:10.940 --> 00:20:15.440 applies the latest patches. There’s a good chance that most of the machines are patched though, 00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:20.180 so it’s best to keep your quarters in your pocket. In the end the casinos were hardly 00:20:20.180 --> 00:20:24.920 bothered by the winning streak John and Andre hit because it was just dozes of casinos and 00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:29.390 only hit by two guys. If this exploit had leaked into the wild where hundreds 00:20:29.390 --> 00:20:33.140 of people all heard about it at once, it would have been a terrible nightmare for 00:20:33.140 --> 00:20:38.692 casinos around the world. It’s lucky for the casino that these two kept this exploit secret. 00:20:38.692 --> 00:20:46.070 JACK (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] You’ve been listening to Darknet Diaries. Big thanks 00:20:46.070 --> 00:20:49.850 to Kevin Poulsen over at Wired Magazine for covering this story in-depth and getting all 00:20:49.850 --> 00:21:18.920 the juicy details. Find links to his articles at darknetdiaries.com. This episode is made by me, 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:24.170 Jack Rhysider. Theme music is created by the mysterious and talented Breakmaster Cylinder.