To any reader who suspects they're experiencing a déjà vu moment, this question accidentally went live very recently, due to a technical glitch* at this end, but all you got to see then were some unedited research notes. Oops! So, here's Take 2 -- the real McCoy!
This whole subject turns out to be a topical one, due to the recent arrest in Las Vegas of another notorious cheat and degenerate high-roller named Archie Karas, the self-proclaimed (and unchallenged) biggest gambler of all time. If you didn't catch Friday's post in Today's News, Karas was busted back in July marking cards at the blackjack tables of California's Barona casino, and is facing extradition and a possible three-to-four-year stint in prison, if convicted. (You can find plenty written about Karas in the QoD Archives, should you be interested to learn more about this colorful character.)
Returning to the subject du jour, Dennis Nikrasch, a.k.a. Dennis Sean McAndrew, was another well-known member of the casino rogues' gallery and an inductee into the so-called "Black Book" of permanently blacklisted gamblers. No casual opportunist, he was a professional in his chosen field. As Keith Copher, Chief of Enforcement at the Nevada State Gaming Control Board during the latter part of Nikrasch's career put it, "He ... knows what he's doing. He's the most sophisticated cheat we've ever seen." So sophisticated, in fact, that authorities were never able to figure out exactly what some of his techniques were.
Nikrasch was first convicted, along with his wife, back in 1986, for a well-orchestrated scam in which he and his crew allegedly won some $10 million in ill-gotten gains. The judge who sentenced him to 15 years called him a "mastermind" for his role as the brains behind a scam that used keys, wires, magnets, and other devices to rig slot machines to pay off bogus jackpot prizes, including several luxury cars, between 1976 and '79. Dennis and Susanna Nikrasch were figitives for three years after their 1983 indictment, finally surrendering to authorities in '86.
Like any well-thought-out criminal enterprise, Nikrasch's plot involved plenty of preparation, including buying a slot machine to practice on at home, together with computer chips purchased from the machine's manufacturer, and keys to open it. Once in the casino, he employed his team members as "blockers" to obscure his actions and divert attention from surveillance while he opened his chosen machine and the housing around the computer chip, attached clips to either side of the chip, and then used a handheld device to force-feed it the jackpot code, before re-sealing the housing -- and all in less than a minute. Once properly rigged, an accomplice would sit down nonchalantly to play the game; the first coins played would trigger the jackpot. Nikrasch, meanwhile, was already out the door and gone by the time this happened -- he was smart enough never to wait around to witness the fruits of his labors.
After finally getting busted in 1986, Nikrasch served five years before being released on parole in January 1991. It was apparently another five years before he returned to his chosen "trade" but return he did -- and therein lies the most likely answer to your question, but we'll return to that shortly.
The world had moved on from the relatively unsophisticated mechanical-reel machines of yore by the time of Dennis' release, but he was able to keep up with the new digital age and was attempting to pop a $17 million Megabucks jackpot in order to fund a move to France when he was arrested in June, 1998. He and his crew, several of whom were connected to the Chicago mob, had won multiple jackpots and prizes from Excalibur, Rio, Harrah's, and Luxor before being caught.
This time around, a dozen people were allegedly part of the team he'd recruited to play or monitor the rigged machines, with his co-defendants claiming that between 50 and 70 percent of any jackpot hit went to Nikrasch. He, however, disputed this, and claimed that at the time of his arrest he was broke. This, of course, would explain the return to crime, even after serving a lengthy sentence. At the first trial back in the '80s, at which his wife was also sentenced to serve a year for her part, prosecutors claimed that the couple, who were living in Southern California at the time, had lived a luxurious lifestyle financed by their fraudulent winnings.
Evidently this lifestyle had been a little too luxurious, doubtless prompting the return to crime once all the winnings were gone. It sounds very much as if they were shooting for that one last big hit to fund a nice retirement in France. So, while we can't be sure, our best-guess answer to your question is that they spent it all.
As a post script to this story, you may wonder what brought down this seemingly unassailable genius, who the Nevada Gaming Control Board actually credited with almost single-handedly bringing down the entire slot industry. The answer, according to one writer, was simple: "his nastiness." It would seem that his teammates weren't exaggerating when they described the disproportionate amount of the winnings that greedy guts would keep to himself, and eventually they got fed up and shopped him to the FBI.
Dennis was sentenced to 7 1/2-years the second time around, despite cutting a deal with prosecutors in which he allegedly told all (or at least some) and possibly spilled the beans on some other outfits who were using his techniques. He died in 2010. We could find little information about his wife but it would seem that the 60-year-old Susanna, who also goes by the name of Susanna Holquin, is currently residing in Las Vegas. It looks as if she and Dennis may have divorced at some point, and that she may be a Scientologist, but these latter facts we're not certain about, so don't quote us.
*This is actually a euphemism for "I screwed up," but don't tell anyone :-)
