The machines' mechanical gears required constant maintenance, and the games were magnets for cheats. In the early years of Las Vegas, slots were relegated to the perimeter of casino floors, where they were expected to gobble up coins from women waiting on their blackjack-playing husbands. There was a time when casinos only grudgingly tolerated slot machines. So in 2004, Cabrera used his modest savings to found his own repair company, FE Electronic. The deeper he plunged, the more he came to regard slot machines as his true professional calling. He spent hours dissecting slot electronics to learn everything he could about how they worked. Though he wasn't much of a gambler, Cabrera was drawn to these devices. mp3) Subscribe: Wired Features PodcastAs Latvia became more open and prosperous, slot machines began to pop up in the nation's bars, clubs, and supermarkets, creating new repair opportunities for Altea.

How One Man Hacked His Way Into the Slot-Machine Industry by Brendan I.

In 1994 he accepted a gig with a company called Altea, servicing the boxy videogame consoles found atop Eastern European bars, where they offer drunks the chance to waste a few coins answering trivia questions or playing Tetris. Instead of fixing jet engines, Cabrera was forced to make money repairing radios and telephones. The newly independent country had no aerospace industry of its own, and thus no aerospace jobs. While working toward his degree, he fell in love with an older Latvian woman, and though he was expected to return to Cuba after graduation to serve Castro's regime, Cabrera decided to stay in Riga and build a new life designing and working on aircraft.īut soon after Cabrera completed his degree, Latvia broke free from the dying Soviet Union. Nine years later, after becoming obsessed with airplanes as a teenager, Cabrera won a scholarship to Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute, home to one of the Soviet Union's finest aeronautical-engineering programs. When the dictator asked the 10-year-old what he wanted to be when he grew up, Cabrera confidently replied, 'An architectural engineer.'

Once, after winning a student essay contest in 1976, he was given a personal audience with Fidel Castro. Just to make a little cash while playing with circuit boards.īorn and raised in Camagüey, Cuba, Cabrera always had an affinity for technical pursuits. That's why he started his own slot-machine repair company in Riga, Latvia. All he wanted was to earn a decent living doing what he loves most: tinkering with electronics. Rodolfo Rodriguez Cabrera didn't set out to mastermind a global counterfeiting ring.

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