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I have a hard time deciding whether I really think this scheme qualifies as fraud or not; after all, the machines are initially rigged to give the owner an edge
by lb1lf 8y ago
I have a hard time deciding whether I really think this scheme qualifies as fraud or not; after all, the machines are initially rigged to give the owner an edge (obviously, otherwise slot machines would be few and far between!)
As long as the player is not manipulating the machine, only observing it and exploiting a known weakness negating and then some the edge the owner had, I'd say if slot machine operators cannot live with that, they need to upgrade their machines, not expect The Law to help them out.
- hashkb 8y agoIf counting cards is illegal, this seems like it'd fall under that same logic.
- Rjevski 8y agoIsn't card counting legal? From what I've read it seems like it's forbidden by the casinos and they can ban you for it, but it is not illegal as far as the law is concerned.
- maxerickson 8y agoBrief search says you can't use a device to count cards, which is probably more analogous to using the phone to crack the cycle. I guess new machines with reasonable random number generators would fix the problem. I wonder if any laws actually specify weak RNGs.
- paulie_a 8y agoCounting cards is completely legal. A casino does have the option of choosing to not do business with someone they suspect of doing it. There are no criminal penalties.
- hashkb 8y agoSorry... in this case by "legal" I meant "will not get you thrown out of the casino"
- codingdave 8y agoI had the same thought, so looked up the laws - the difference between counting cards and this trick is that they are using both external devices and other people to help. If they could get the timing correct solely with their own observation, it would be legal.
- warent 8y agoI'd be curious to know where the line is drawn for something like cybernetic implants
- coldtea 8y agoIf the casinos see you winning too much, they throw you out, no explanation given.
- wavefunction 8y agoThey try other things first, to probe if you're just 'lucky.' It's kind of fun to talk to undercover casino security though, especially when they catch on.
- dnautics 8y agothat's different from being arrested.
- johnchristopher 8y agoActual current cybernetics implants or fantasy-some-day-maybe implants ?
- spelunker 8y agoI would imagine similar to card counting though that if discovered you'd simply be banned from the casino, legal or not.
- newnewpdro 8y agoI agree entirely. Furthermore it's fairly trivial to build a good entropy source into these machines if they wanted to, rather than relying on a PRNG. ChaosKey [1] immediately comes to mind as one example. [1] https://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/ https://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/
- jacquesm 8y agoYou'd probably be surprised to hear that a PRNG is a requirement rather than an economy thing. The behavior of the machine is supposed to be deterministic and an actual random number generator would not be and hence could conceivably pay out less than the legal minimum for an extended period of time, leaving the casino owner then position of having to say it's 'random chance' that the customers aren't winning enough.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThat is surprising, considering elsewhere in the casino people are using rolled dice for random number generation.
- jacquesm 8y agoRolled dice are audited to ensure they are fair, the manufacture of such dice is pretty strictly controlled. It's hard to cheat with such dice without the cheating becoming obvious after a number of rolls. But for slot machines - essentially special purpose computers - such cheating would be trivial and hard to detect. And so regulators made sure that you don't have the 'but it's random' excuse for a machine that never pays out.
- 0x00000000 8y agoI can maybe see it because they were using external tools, kind of like those roulette computers. But there was a story [1] about this in the US a while ago with a bug in a poker machine. They were forced to return the money even though all charges were eventually dropped. The casino should be going after the machine's manufacturer. I have no sympathy for casinos. Absolute scum of society, preying on people to keep them impoverished and destroying communities. [1] https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/
- TwelveNights 8y agoWould the people who go to casinos find alternative, perhaps more dangerous means to gamble if they didn't exist?
- 0x00000000 8y agoHonestly, I don't think a good majority of them would. Casinos are psychologically optimized to get you to spend the most time and money there and it works. They are also just convenient and legal, eliminating pretty much all barriers to entry except age.