The John Vaccaro "Bonus" During the mid-1980’s, a stir involving a gang of slot cheaters surfaced all over the state of Nevada. This gang of slot cheaters was convicted of rigging slot machines, which earning a tidy sum of money that amounted to roughly $1.6 million. This amount was won through winning jackpots from slot machines all over Nevada and New Jersey. The leader of pack of slot cheaters was none other than the notorious John Joseph Vaccaro. Born John Joseph Vaccaro, he also went by the alias Alan Joseph Champagne, and lived in Harmony Court, Las Vegas, Nevada. It was on January 6, 1984 that John Joseph Vaccaro finally pled guilty to swindling charges, as well as cheating at casino games. Allegedly, John Joseph Vaccaro was part of a gang of slot cheaters who operated at a lot of casinos nationwide. The following casinos are included in his list: Harrah’s Marina Hotel/Casino and Caesar’s Boardwalk Regency Hotel/Casino. This was roughly an 8-month stint, starting from April 1982 all the way through December of the same year. Upon his conviction on January 6, 1984, on the counts of violating N.J.S.A. 5:12-113(a), John Joseph Vaccaro was then sentenced to a period of 13 months in prison.  He was also fined an amount of $5,000. Before Vaccaro became the ring leader of the slot cheaters, he was once a carpenter. But that changed when he became part of John Dubecks’ cheating gang. And during this time, he became the mastermind behind the stint that stole millions of dollars from Nevada’s casinos. This went as far as recruiting people from the inside of casinos as well. Vaccaro and his crew would take the rounds, rigging slot machines. They also recruited people working for the casinos themselves, and got them to do inside jobs for the gang. Vaccaro had enough charm to persuade even the managers of different casinos to prepare slots for them, in order to win tournaments and such. The managers were connived into supposedly calling out random numbers representing the people to play certain slot machines. The manager would call out the number of one of Vaccaro’s men, and assign to him the rigged machine. This earned him the right to be known as the first man ever to receive a nomination into Nevada’s Black Book. Talks of Vaccaro’s earnings reaching $20 million surfaced as well. Upon his conviction for such a conspiracy, he was then sentenced to 9 years in prison. Bookmark This: