5 ms·

At what point does a scheme like this go from just being a way to outsmart the slot machine to felony fraud? I know you are allowed to use those blackjack cheat

by moftz 10y ago

At what point does a scheme like this go from just being a way to outsmart the slot machine to felony fraud? I know you are allowed to use those blackjack cheat cards at the tables in Las Vegas but what if I started using a calculator and my own crazy algorithm? Is that fraud? What if I had an ear piece and hidden camera glasses to stream video to some blackjack guru outside in a van? I'm guessing that would be fraud. Is it the fact that he's using an outside source to determine his actions?

upofadown 10y ago
Here is a section of the Nevada gambling fraud law that hits close to a method that involves button timing: >7. To manipulate, with the intent to cheat, any component of a gaming device in a manner contrary to the designed and normal operational purpose for the component, including, but not limited to, varying the pull of the handle of a slot machine, with knowledge that the manipulation affects the outcome of the game or with knowledge of any event that affects the outcome of the game. In general you are not allowed to do anything clever in a casino. It isn't stated as such, but the actual crime is winning consistently. If you walk into a casino certain that you will not be providing the house with their cut then you will almost for sure run up against some law. Extra laws will be generated as required by the governments involved.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Key word being "knowledge". Seems like you are free to believe in any fantasy about you having an edge over the house, except when that belief happens to be true. The mere thought of having a streak of luck would make winning illegal. If thoughtcrimes were animals, this would be a cute little kitty.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    > Seems like you are free to believe in any fantasy about you having an edge over the house, except when that belief happens to be true. This is a pretty common pattern in "intent" crimes. As a simple example: attempted murder requires a potentially-effective plan. Shooting at someone and missing is attempted murder, burning a voodoo doll of them is not - no matter how sincerely you expect it to work. It does produce an odd situation where stupidity becomes a legal defense, but the basis for it is pretty understandable. It's not criminalizing being right, it's decriminalizing being wrong, presumably because it's too hard to define the boundaries of whether something useless was done with real intent.
    - Sunset 10y ago
      I would argue that burning a voodoo doll should at least count for intent to harm. Lets say I am completely mistaken about how chemistry works and I think that adding salt to wine will somehow make it a deadly cocktail. With intent to kill you I make such a concoction and serve it to you. In that case I should still be able to be punished under the law.
      - schoen 10y ago
        1991 article by David D. Friedman about this topic: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1565&context=facpubs http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
        Zak 10y ago
        The article assumes rational behavior with regard to everything except which methods of committing crimes are possible and concludes that punishing impossible attempts creates a rational disincentive to all attempts. It's right in a game-theory sense, but not a practical one. Proving intent to a jury is based on circumstantial evidence. Shooting a gun at someone is strong evidence of intent to murder because it is widely known that guns are lethal. Countering the weight of that evidence would require very convincing evidence that the shooter did not believe his actions would be lethal. Proving that someone believed burning a voodoo doll would be lethal would be very difficult since it is widely known that burning voodoo dolls is not lethal. Even apparent evidence that the voodoo practitioner had a genuine belief is easily played off as an act, and in criminal law, the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant. There's also the matter of people having mistaken beliefs about the probability of punishment.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        So legally, I know the "salt in wine" example doesn't count as attempted murder, at least in states that require action towards the murder. Some states have much lower bars where you don't have to try a murder and could merely buy supplies and write out a plan, but even then I don't think guaranteed-to-fail plans count. It does seem like the sort of thing that ought to be illegal somehow, but I'd need an actual expert's input on what charges they would seek for that.
  - LordKano 10y ago
    The mere thought of having a streak of luck would make winning illegal. Where I live, many bars have 8 line slot machines that are ostensibly "For Amusement Only" but they pay out when people win (and if they know you). If you win too much, you'll be banned from playing.
    - Zak 10y ago
      Cutting off people who win too much seems fair; charging them with a crime does not. Correctly estimating when the odds are more favorable doesn't seem like cheating to me.
      - LordKano 10y ago
        I have been banned from playing at a few establishments. Just knowing when to raise your bet does a lot to tip the odds in your favor.
        Zak 10y ago
        And that seems fair, in the same way that it's fair for a store to apply undisclosed quantity limits to a customer who figures out how to combine freely-available coupons to make all their merchandise free. I actually did something like that once. A store I visited put a link to a survey on its receipt with an offer of $10 off any one item on completion. I completed the survey on my phone, which displayed a barcode they could scan and selected a sub-$10 item. The receipt for my free item had a link to a survey.... I limited myself to a few items I actually had a use for. They would have been well within their rights to cut me off after a while, but certainly not to have me charged with a crime.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- loeg 10y ago
  > It isn't stated as such, but the actual crime is winning consistently. Bingo. :-)
- alkonaut 10y ago
  It's still a big difference between being banned and ending up in jail. Presumably e.g card counting isn't illegal but simply frowned upon. So you get banned. But at what point does it become a crime? The fact that it's even unclear is a bit scary (but probably intentional)
- scottlocklin 10y ago
  It's easier for them to use this one: " NRS 465.075 Use or possession of device, software or hardware to obtain advantage at playing game prohibited. It is unlawful for any person to use, possess with the intent to use or assist another person in using or possessing with the intent to use any computerized, electronic, electrical or mechanical device, or any software or hardware, or any combination thereof, which is designed, constructed, altered or programmed to obtain an advantage at playing any game in a licensed gaming establishment or any game that is offered by a licensee or affiliate, including, without limitation, a device that: 1. Projects the outcome of the game; 2. Keeps track of cards played or cards prepared for play in the game; 3. Analyzes the probability of the occurrence of an event relating to the game; or 4. Analyzes the strategy for playing or betting to be used in the game, Ê except as may be made available as part of an approved game or otherwise permitted by the Commission. (Added to NRS by 1985, 970; A 2011, 216; 2013, 1317)" I know about this, as I had a computer aided scheme to beat roulette (I've written about the historical ways of doing this, the first one was developed by Shannon and Thorp). I think the law was passed to prevent use of blackjack computers which were being sold around that time. Best bet would have been the European countries, who largely don't have such laws. I'm assuming the Russians didn't find as many of the vulnerable slot machines there. Funny the article gave independent confirmation of about how much you could take out of a casino without them noticing; an important number if you ever develop a scheme.
clubm8 10y ago
Not a lawyer, but I think the fact he used a device (iPhone) to aid him is what did him in. But I'm not sure where the line is either... would writing down results from a roulette wheel in a notebook be cheating? If not, why is recording the results of a slot machine?
- objclxt 10y ago
  > would writing down results from a roulette wheel in a notebook be cheating? If you've been to Vegas, casinos tacitly encourage this by showing the last 100 spins of the roulette wheel and displaying "statistics" about the numbers that have or haven't frequently come up. Of course, this is all garbage because at 100 spins that's nowhere near enough to formulate any kind of statistical theory.
  - digler999 10y ago
    (and they have an internal counter, and if there is a meaningful deviation from the 1/38 slots they will rebalance or pull the wheel)
    - hydrogen18 10y ago
      Do you have a source for that?
      - digler999 10y ago
        I'm at work, and it's blocking "casino" sites but google this [1] for a start: "Roulette - Biased Wheels and Wheelhead Speed - Casino News Daily" I read the cached version, its an advisory for casinos about how to look out for biased wheels. I'll look again tonight when I get home.
      - digler999 10y ago
        well I attempted to look, but there's too many pages for snake oil "beat the house" systems. I may have been wrong since I cannot find evidence, but if a wheel were biased, people would eventually detect it and exploit it. So at the very least, they would analyze the money drops and see an abnormal money flowing out of one particular table.
objclxt 10y ago
Slot machines and blackjack are very different. > I know you are allowed to use those blackjack cheat cards at the tables in Las Vegas but what if I started using a calculator and my own crazy algorithm? Is that fraud? They're not really "cheat" cards: even with a perfect strategy, blackjack still has a (very small) house edge. That's why casinos have no problem with you using them. And if you brought your own, hand-written, crazy algorithm the casino would probably let you play with it - because chances are it's much worse than the perfect strategy the printed card uses (a lot of blackjack players operate under the principle that the previous player's actions influence the game and adopt some pretty stupid strategies as a result). However, the casino almost certainly wouldn't let you use a calculator, because they'll think you might be using it to count cards. That's why you can't use a phone at the table. Ditto for this: > What if I had an ear piece and hidden camera glasses to stream video to some blackjack guru outside in a van? ...but the casino would certainly let someone next to you give you advice or help, because unless that person is counting cards they're still going to have a house edge (and it's pretty easy to tell when someone is counting, because you'll start making plays that would otherwise be in the house's favor). Note that counting cards in blackjack isn't fraudulent in most cases - it's just one the casino cottons on that you're doing it they'll ask you to leave or stop playing. Outright fraud in blackjack would involve something like having the dealer in on the scheme, or using a marked deck of cards.
- waqf 10y ago
  > it's just [when] the casino cottons on that you're doing it And maybe not even then. With the incomplete mitigations that casinos already put in for card-counting (multiple decks, etc.), card-counting is tricky and has a very small edge. Consequently, just as casinos know they make money from people with "strategies" with no statistical validity, they know they make money from people who think they can count cards well enough to get an edge but who can't.
  - packetslave 10y ago
    This. I've talked to several people who work in casino surveillance. They all said that if they think you're counting, the very first thing they'll do is assign an agent (or maybe a computer, these days) to count along with you. Make an error or two (vs. perfect counting strategy), and they'll let you keep going, because long-term they'll still have an edge. Count/play perfectly and you'll get backed off or 86'ed.
contravariant 10y ago
To make it fraud requires two things. First they need to be breaking some kind of legal agreement, secondly they need to use deception to make it seem like they didn't. In this case it's debatable to what extent they're deceiving anyone, but more importantly all they're doing is pressing the slot button at the optimal time, which is kind of the point of the game. Now most people wouldn't consider this 'fair', but for a legal argument that is a bit vague, even if it might be enough to say, disqualify someone from a tournament.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  "including, but not limited to, varying the pull of the handle of a slot machine" Under Nevada gaming law it's not vague - the law might be invalid, but varying slot timing is explicitly banned.
  - mokus 10y ago
    That's given as an example of "in a manner contrary to the designed and normal operational purpose" - to me, it sounds more like a mechanical slot machine being manipulated by pulling it in such a way that the mechanism doesn't engage in the usual way, perhaps only releasing one of the wheels after you've gotten two to line up well by chance. Pulling the lever at a time you know to be right still sounds like using it for its normal operational purpose to me. Slot machines are designed to have their levers pulled, even when they will pay out as a consequence.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      They offer a system that you can time because they know most people have superstitions that don't work, and they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate when someone finds a method that does work. If they don't want a time-able system they should remove the feature that lets you stop the wheels. Of course they never will because selective enforcement is profitable so we should remove their legal protection and make them treat everyone equally.
EdHominem 10y ago
Maybe right away, but at what point do I not care about casinos, and resent my tax money helping them enforce their system? Also right away. I get that it's "cheating", but I really don't care. Not at all. When predators get preyed upon it's funny. I only wish they were taken for more. For all this "play responsibly" talk, we know that they survive on those who don't, and the last thing they want is for the addicted to wise up. So I have as much sympathy for them as for street-corner drug dealers and I'm sorry our rules protect them.

by moftz 10y ago

upofadown 10y ago

Here is a section of the Nevada gambling fraud law that hits close to a method that involves button timing: >7. To manipulate, with the intent to cheat, any component of a gaming device in a manner contrary to the designed and normal operational purpose for the component, including, but not limited to, varying the pull of the handle of a slot machine, with knowledge that the manipulation affects the outcome of the game or with knowledge of any event that affects the outcome of the game. In general you are not allowed to do anything clever in a casino. It isn't stated as such, but the actual crime is winning consistently. If you walk into a casino certain that you will not be providing the house with their cut then you will almost for sure run up against some law. Extra laws will be generated as required by the governments involved.

usrusr 10y ago
Key word being "knowledge". Seems like you are free to believe in any fantasy about you having an edge over the house, except when that belief happens to be true. The mere thought of having a streak of luck would make winning illegal. If thoughtcrimes were animals, this would be a cute little kitty.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  > Seems like you are free to believe in any fantasy about you having an edge over the house, except when that belief happens to be true. This is a pretty common pattern in "intent" crimes. As a simple example: attempted murder requires a potentially-effective plan. Shooting at someone and missing is attempted murder, burning a voodoo doll of them is not - no matter how sincerely you expect it to work. It does produce an odd situation where stupidity becomes a legal defense, but the basis for it is pretty understandable. It's not criminalizing being right, it's decriminalizing being wrong, presumably because it's too hard to define the boundaries of whether something useless was done with real intent.
  - Sunset 10y ago
    I would argue that burning a voodoo doll should at least count for intent to harm. Lets say I am completely mistaken about how chemistry works and I think that adding salt to wine will somehow make it a deadly cocktail. With intent to kill you I make such a concoction and serve it to you. In that case I should still be able to be punished under the law.
    - schoen 10y ago
      1991 article by David D. Friedman about this topic: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1565&context=facpubs http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
      - Zak 10y ago
        The article assumes rational behavior with regard to everything except which methods of committing crimes are possible and concludes that punishing impossible attempts creates a rational disincentive to all attempts. It's right in a game-theory sense, but not a practical one. Proving intent to a jury is based on circumstantial evidence. Shooting a gun at someone is strong evidence of intent to murder because it is widely known that guns are lethal. Countering the weight of that evidence would require very convincing evidence that the shooter did not believe his actions would be lethal. Proving that someone believed burning a voodoo doll would be lethal would be very difficult since it is widely known that burning voodoo dolls is not lethal. Even apparent evidence that the voodoo practitioner had a genuine belief is easily played off as an act, and in criminal law, the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant. There's also the matter of people having mistaken beliefs about the probability of punishment.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      So legally, I know the "salt in wine" example doesn't count as attempted murder, at least in states that require action towards the murder. Some states have much lower bars where you don't have to try a murder and could merely buy supplies and write out a plan, but even then I don't think guaranteed-to-fail plans count. It does seem like the sort of thing that ought to be illegal somehow, but I'd need an actual expert's input on what charges they would seek for that.
- LordKano 10y ago
  The mere thought of having a streak of luck would make winning illegal. Where I live, many bars have 8 line slot machines that are ostensibly "For Amusement Only" but they pay out when people win (and if they know you). If you win too much, you'll be banned from playing.
  - Zak 10y ago
    Cutting off people who win too much seems fair; charging them with a crime does not. Correctly estimating when the odds are more favorable doesn't seem like cheating to me.
    - LordKano 10y ago
      I have been banned from playing at a few establishments. Just knowing when to raise your bet does a lot to tip the odds in your favor.
      - Zak 10y ago
        And that seems fair, in the same way that it's fair for a store to apply undisclosed quantity limits to a customer who figures out how to combine freely-available coupons to make all their merchandise free. I actually did something like that once. A store I visited put a link to a survey on its receipt with an offer of $10 off any one item on completion. I completed the survey on my phone, which displayed a barcode they could scan and selected a sub-$10 item. The receipt for my free item had a link to a survey.... I limited myself to a few items I actually had a use for. They would have been well within their rights to cut me off after a while, but certainly not to have me charged with a crime.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
loeg 10y ago
> It isn't stated as such, but the actual crime is winning consistently. Bingo. :-)
alkonaut 10y ago
It's still a big difference between being banned and ending up in jail. Presumably e.g card counting isn't illegal but simply frowned upon. So you get banned. But at what point does it become a crime? The fact that it's even unclear is a bit scary (but probably intentional)
scottlocklin 10y ago
It's easier for them to use this one: " NRS 465.075 Use or possession of device, software or hardware to obtain advantage at playing game prohibited. It is unlawful for any person to use, possess with the intent to use or assist another person in using or possessing with the intent to use any computerized, electronic, electrical or mechanical device, or any software or hardware, or any combination thereof, which is designed, constructed, altered or programmed to obtain an advantage at playing any game in a licensed gaming establishment or any game that is offered by a licensee or affiliate, including, without limitation, a device that: 1. Projects the outcome of the game; 2. Keeps track of cards played or cards prepared for play in the game; 3. Analyzes the probability of the occurrence of an event relating to the game; or 4. Analyzes the strategy for playing or betting to be used in the game, Ê except as may be made available as part of an approved game or otherwise permitted by the Commission. (Added to NRS by 1985, 970; A 2011, 216; 2013, 1317)" I know about this, as I had a computer aided scheme to beat roulette (I've written about the historical ways of doing this, the first one was developed by Shannon and Thorp). I think the law was passed to prevent use of blackjack computers which were being sold around that time. Best bet would have been the European countries, who largely don't have such laws. I'm assuming the Russians didn't find as many of the vulnerable slot machines there. Funny the article gave independent confirmation of about how much you could take out of a casino without them noticing; an important number if you ever develop a scheme.

clubm8 10y ago

Not a lawyer, but I think the fact he used a device (iPhone) to aid him is what did him in. But I'm not sure where the line is either... would writing down results from a roulette wheel in a notebook be cheating? If not, why is recording the results of a slot machine?

objclxt 10y ago
> would writing down results from a roulette wheel in a notebook be cheating? If you've been to Vegas, casinos tacitly encourage this by showing the last 100 spins of the roulette wheel and displaying "statistics" about the numbers that have or haven't frequently come up. Of course, this is all garbage because at 100 spins that's nowhere near enough to formulate any kind of statistical theory.
- digler999 10y ago
  (and they have an internal counter, and if there is a meaningful deviation from the 1/38 slots they will rebalance or pull the wheel)
  - hydrogen18 10y ago
    Do you have a source for that?
    - digler999 10y ago
      I'm at work, and it's blocking "casino" sites but google this [1] for a start: "Roulette - Biased Wheels and Wheelhead Speed - Casino News Daily" I read the cached version, its an advisory for casinos about how to look out for biased wheels. I'll look again tonight when I get home.
    - digler999 10y ago
      well I attempted to look, but there's too many pages for snake oil "beat the house" systems. I may have been wrong since I cannot find evidence, but if a wheel were biased, people would eventually detect it and exploit it. So at the very least, they would analyze the money drops and see an abnormal money flowing out of one particular table.

objclxt 10y ago

Slot machines and blackjack are very different. > I know you are allowed to use those blackjack cheat cards at the tables in Las Vegas but what if I started using a calculator and my own crazy algorithm? Is that fraud? They're not really "cheat" cards: even with a perfect strategy, blackjack still has a (very small) house edge. That's why casinos have no problem with you using them. And if you brought your own, hand-written, crazy algorithm the casino would probably let you play with it - because chances are it's much worse than the perfect strategy the printed card uses (a lot of blackjack players operate under the principle that the previous player's actions influence the game and adopt some pretty stupid strategies as a result). However, the casino almost certainly wouldn't let you use a calculator, because they'll think you might be using it to count cards. That's why you can't use a phone at the table. Ditto for this: > What if I had an ear piece and hidden camera glasses to stream video to some blackjack guru outside in a van? ...but the casino would certainly let someone next to you give you advice or help, because unless that person is counting cards they're still going to have a house edge (and it's pretty easy to tell when someone is counting, because you'll start making plays that would otherwise be in the house's favor). Note that counting cards in blackjack isn't fraudulent in most cases - it's just one the casino cottons on that you're doing it they'll ask you to leave or stop playing. Outright fraud in blackjack would involve something like having the dealer in on the scheme, or using a marked deck of cards.

waqf 10y ago
> it's just [when] the casino cottons on that you're doing it And maybe not even then. With the incomplete mitigations that casinos already put in for card-counting (multiple decks, etc.), card-counting is tricky and has a very small edge. Consequently, just as casinos know they make money from people with "strategies" with no statistical validity, they know they make money from people who think they can count cards well enough to get an edge but who can't.
- packetslave 10y ago
  This. I've talked to several people who work in casino surveillance. They all said that if they think you're counting, the very first thing they'll do is assign an agent (or maybe a computer, these days) to count along with you. Make an error or two (vs. perfect counting strategy), and they'll let you keep going, because long-term they'll still have an edge. Count/play perfectly and you'll get backed off or 86'ed.

contravariant 10y ago

To make it fraud requires two things. First they need to be breaking some kind of legal agreement, secondly they need to use deception to make it seem like they didn't. In this case it's debatable to what extent they're deceiving anyone, but more importantly all they're doing is pressing the slot button at the optimal time, which is kind of the point of the game. Now most people wouldn't consider this 'fair', but for a legal argument that is a bit vague, even if it might be enough to say, disqualify someone from a tournament.

Bartweiss 10y ago
"including, but not limited to, varying the pull of the handle of a slot machine" Under Nevada gaming law it's not vague - the law might be invalid, but varying slot timing is explicitly banned.
- mokus 10y ago
  That's given as an example of "in a manner contrary to the designed and normal operational purpose" - to me, it sounds more like a mechanical slot machine being manipulated by pulling it in such a way that the mechanism doesn't engage in the usual way, perhaps only releasing one of the wheels after you've gotten two to line up well by chance. Pulling the lever at a time you know to be right still sounds like using it for its normal operational purpose to me. Slot machines are designed to have their levers pulled, even when they will pay out as a consequence.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    They offer a system that you can time because they know most people have superstitions that don't work, and they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate when someone finds a method that does work. If they don't want a time-able system they should remove the feature that lets you stop the wheels. Of course they never will because selective enforcement is profitable so we should remove their legal protection and make them treat everyone equally.

EdHominem 10y ago

Maybe right away, but at what point do I not care about casinos, and resent my tax money helping them enforce their system? Also right away. I get that it's "cheating", but I really don't care. Not at all. When predators get preyed upon it's funny. I only wish they were taken for more. For all this "play responsibly" talk, we know that they survive on those who don't, and the last thing they want is for the addicted to wise up. So I have as much sympathy for them as for street-corner drug dealers and I'm sorry our rules protect them.