Coin selector and selection method for coin-operated machines for detecting fraud in coin insertion

A coin selector has a coin passageway wherein coins are inserted. A magnetic sensor inspects the coins in the coin passageway, and generates an inspection signal, which a controller evaluates to generate an acceptance or rejection signal. A gate plate responds to the acceptance or rejection signal, and selectively provides access to one of two chutes for the inspected coins, namely, an accepting chute for acceptable coins and a return chute for unacceptable coins. A photo sensor detects the acceptable coins in the accepting chute, and generates a detection signal. Counters are adapted to count the acceptance signals incrementally and the detection signals decrementally. A controller adds together the two counts of the counters, evaluates the sum of this addition, and generates an error signal in accordance with the sum evaluation. The error signal is utilized for the detection of fraud.