Early, low-tech attempts at cheating slot machines included the classic coin-on-a-string trick, in which a coin, drilled with a small hole and tied with nylon string, was dropped into the slot and pulled out again once it had been registered by the coin detector. The first modern slot machine – that is, a coin-operated gambling machine – was invented in the late nineteenth century but, ever since, unscrupulous gamblers have been trying, by fair means or foul, to shift the odds in their favour.
