Two guys who cheated casinos got lucky when the federal charges against them were dismissed.

In my opinion, they were fortunate that federal prosecutors pursued the wrong charges against them.

Andre Nestor and John Kane found a bug in Game King video poker machines in 2009 that allowed them to get paid 10x what they were supposed to. Basically, they found that any Game King machine with the "double up" option allowed them to change limits and get re-awarded their original prize at the higher limits. It was a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically what they did. They were able to not only get paid twice for the same winning hand, but get paid 10x the amount on the re-pay.

Article from May, 2013: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/game-king/

Article from yesterday: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...eo-poker-case/

Interestingly, both articles were written by renowned '80s hacker (and convicted criminal) Kevin Poulsen.

Anyway, the feds stupidly attempted to charge them with hacking and wire fraud. The charges were dismissed. The "hacking" charge stemmed from the complicated sequence of buttons they had to press in order to exploit the bug.

I think they should have been charged and convicted -- but not of either hacking or wire fraud.

They should have been convicted of theft.

Indeed, they were not "hacking" anything. That charge was ridiculous.

Wire fraud was also ridiculous, as the fraud did not occur through mail or telephone communication.

They were guilty of theft, as they were knowingly using a glitch in a machine to cause it to pay out 10x the intended amount. Similarly, if you notice an ATM is spitting out $200 when you try to withdraw $20 (and only removing $20 from your account), you are committing a crime by repeatedly going to that ATM and requesting $20, knowing you'll receive $200.

That's basically what these guys did. They didn't create the bug, but they definitely took advantage of it in order to steal.

This is MUCH different than noticing a machine with incorrect payouts that make it hugely +EV for the player.

For example, if a Jacks-or-Better video poker machine was set to pay 50 for a flush instead of 5, you would not be committing a crime by playing it and winning huge. It is not the player's responsibility to provide the casino with an edge. If the casino wrongly prices their payouts, they have to eat it.

However, this was a different situation. The machine's payouts were set correctly, but a separate bug made the machine exploitable to where it could be stolen from after the hand's conclusion. That was definitely theft.