Then, in the recess of sleep, the solution appeared in all its brilliant simplicity: a flexible piece of metal, wedged at the top, and some piano wire. But no matter what he tried, some riddle in the guts of the unit would thwart him.

Night and day in his Vegas apartment, he toiled on a Fortune One video poker machine. He needed a new tool, something to replace the clumsy old instrument that had landed him in the penitentiary. “I’m seeing myself from behind,” he recalled, “and I have in my hand.” All through 1990, he’d been searching for a way to cheat the latest slot machines.