No, I am not an expert. I think I am a reasonable person who understands right from wrong.
I can tell you this much: If I had been on the jury and it was explained to me what these guys did. Hit a jackpot of say $400, but manipulated the machine to pay $4000 over and over, I would have convicted them of theft.
But if the prosecutors started talking about conspiracy of the computer fraud act and hacking, I would have voted innocent. The computer fraud act has to do with hacking into systems from a remote location. They did none of that. They didn't even hack anything. They manipulated the machine to pay them money that they were not entitled to. That is theft in my book. THAT I would have convicted them of. That's just me.
And lets go to another example. If you are buying new flat screen TV's off of the back of a truck at $40 a pop, you can and will be convicted of theft and receiving stolen property even though you stole nothing. That has been proven many times. I don't know the exact terminology but it has to do with reasonable expectation that you are receiving something you are not legally entitled to. These guys received and accepted payments they were not entitled to.
Want another example: What about the idiot in Philadelphia, decades ago, probably before I was born. Found bags of money that had fallen out of brinks truck. He didn't steal that money, but it was money he was not entitled to.