Several establishments in Butte were hit in May by criminals who counterfeited video gaming machine receipts, according to Natalie Kenneally, owner of Nickel Annie's in Butte and Anaconda.
The counterfeiters were able to reproduce authentic game receipts with look-alikes that had large winning totals, said Kenneally. In one case, they altered a receipt for 25 cents to one that posted a winning of $525.25, she said.
It isn't clear how the thieves accomplished the changes, since the fake receipts were extremely authentic looking and were printed on the same kind of paper used in the machines, Kenneally said.
"The tickets look good," she said. "They're scanning it and changing it."
Both machine vendors and representatives of the state's Gambling Control Division have seen the altered receipts, and have told her they saw nothing that would have kept them from cashing them in themselves, Kenneally said.
More than a half dozen establishments have been hit by the thieves, all of them in Butte, she said. Besides Nickel Annie's, other businesses included Strike It Rich, Silver Bow Pizza, Magic Diamond and Diamond Jim's, among others, she said.
The perpetrators were taking winning tickets with small payout totals, scanning and altering them to larger totals, and then coming back to the establishments, playing machines to small payouts, and then cashing in the bogus receipts, Kenneally said.
The thieves were sophisticated enough to gauge the situation at the establishments and conduct their fraudulent activities when it was busy, she noted. Normally, big hits on the machines are obvious, creating plenty of sound and commotion, she added.
"Usually, you'd hear the meters clicking and the numbers adding up," she said.
Since the thefts, clerks are now told to open up the machine and check the audit printout to confirm any winnings over $100, said Kenneally.
The largest theft of which she is aware was for $1,100, Kenneally added.
She suggested several measures for businesses to prevent such thefts:
• Use a good security machine paper.
• Make sure employees circulate and pay attention to what people are playing and what they're betting.
• Listen for meters on the machines to ring up credits, and also listen for meters after a machine ticket has printed.
• Listen for the machine printing out a ticket.
• Feel the texture of the tickets printed (some of the falsified tickets have been on lighter paper, while others have been on thicker paper).
• Be sure to check the date, time, amount, sequence and validation numbers on the tickets.
• Pay attention to customers who are not regulars in the establishment.
• Never leave audit slips laying around or in trash cans where customers have access.
• Keep machine paper in a secure location accessible only by employees.
• If necessary, have employees open up machines after cash outs to verify the amount on the audit roll, especially on larger amounts.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, July, 2005, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.