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August 27, 2010

Legendary slot cheat’s home up for auction

Joy Hampton Staff Reporter

CLAREMORE — A legendary slot machine cheat may finally be paying his dues.

The Nevada Gaming Commission lists Claremore resident Jerry Dale Criner on its exclusion/ejection list as a convicted slot cheat. Criner was placed on the list in 1997. Now the U.S. Treasury Department is selling his home at 20154 Carefree Valley Dr., Claremore, Rogers County, to pay back taxes.

Criner was added to the Vegas “Black Book” of known and convicted cheaters in 1997 after a long criminal history of slot cheating. He has been convicted twice in Nevada and once in New Jersey for cheating the slots.  

He was placed in New Jersey's exclusion list in 1981.

Criner’s colorful criminal history can be tracked through media archives. In 1995, John Sullivan of The New York Times reported on him as an “Atlantic City mechanic, a quick hand with a jimmy who could steal the last dollar from a slot machine and walk away before anyone knew the difference.”

Criner reportedly worked the Boardwalk with a crew from Arkansas but was monitored at the Taj Mahal casino by state police detectives who “fight a constant battle of wits with the crooks who try everything to divert the flood of cash that flows through Atlantic City’s gambling machines.”

Criner was led away in handcuffs.

He and his crew used mechanical levers commonly known as monkey paws to manipulate the internal working of the machines, thus triggering a payout.

It was not his first brush with the law in Atlantic City.

“On Dec. 27, 1980, Jerry D. Criner used a mechanical device, to wit, a ‘yo-yo’, to obtain free handle pulls on the slot machines at Harrah's Casino,” according to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.

He pleaded guilty to cheating and swindling in Atlantic City Municipal Court and was fined.

At that time he is listed as having no known prior convictions.

Apparently, he didn’t learn his lesson.

Criner was famous enough to be included on season one, episode four of Breaking Vegas in 2005 on “The Gadget Gambler.”

According to an article published by the Las Vegas Sun in 1999, only 49 individuals had made Nevada’s Black Book at that time and Criner was one of them.

The first entry in 1960 was Marshall Caifano, a “high-ranking Chicago mobster.”

The Black Book originated to keep mobsters out of the casinos. It expanded to include the most notorious cheats in the business.

In 1997, there were several names added to the Black Book, including a Kansas City mob underboss, several other mob members, and a variety of “cheats” including Jerry Dale Criner of Claremore, Okla., listed as a “convicted slot cheat whose rap sheet also includes convictions for burglary, racketeering, theft and currency violations.”

Currently, there are 34 names in Nevada’s Black Book. Some have been removed over the years, but Criner’s remains.

Criner’s whereabouts are uncertain at this time. The Nevada Gaming Commission has posted a photo circa 1979 of Criner and lists his date of birth as Dec. 9, 1948.

A cousin in Missouri said he believes Criner is still alive.

Criner’s home on Carefree Valley Dr. will go up for auction Oct. 5 with an open house that morning.

The starting bid is $60,000 and the property will be free and clear of any interests by Criner or the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

“The successful bidder shall tender the balance of the purchase price, in certified funds payable to the United States District Court of the Northern District of Oklahoma, at the office of the Internal Revenue Service, 380 Office Ct Fairview Heights, IL 62208, on or before 3:30 p.m., sixty (60) days from the date of sale,” according to the legal document related to the sale.

Whatever payouts Criner managed to collect from the slots during his heyday, the tax collection estate sale of his Claremore home is a sad ending that emphasizes in the long run, crime doesn’t pay.  

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