The closest I’ve ever got to Counterfeit Coins are those chocolate coins you get at xmas. Well that and what I assumed to be the odd ‘dodgy’ pound coin or fiver in my change. I doubt it’s a dissimilar experience to most other people. Still, while for me this was a passing moment, for some it’s a professional, a livelihood. Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio (what’s in a name!) combined his job as a jeweler with his shady connections in order to counterfit coins and tokens to use in slot machines.
So precise were the coins, that it took an apparent surplus of coins and tokens in casino vualts for them to twig what was going on. Colavecchio was arrested in 1998 and sentenced to six years in prison. This didn’t deter him for long though, as he went back to his old ways once he was let out. So astounding was his run that it was detailed in the History Channel documentary Breaking Vegas.