5 ms·

There's a fairly large difference between advantage players and what these guys did. You have to keep in mind the spirit of the machines. Video poker machines

by toki5 12y ago

There's a fairly large difference between advantage players and what these guys did. You have to keep in mind the spirit of the machines. Video poker machines are meant to play poker. If you can somehow find an edge in poker itself that gives you an advantageous position, I'd be for it. Exploiting the software that runs the game, however, isn't fair. The punishment was blown monstrously out of proportion, but yes, I still think what they did was wrong (and certainly against the law!).

danielweber 12y ago
He was changing the bet amounts after the victory. Imagine playing for pesos, and then upon victory tricking the software into playing for Euros. If he had outsmarted or even figured out a way to control the random number generator through button presses, I'd be all for him. But this is more like finding an ATM that has a bug to not record withdrawals of exactly $420 and then emptying the machine. It's shouldn't be lost that the casinos love to let players think they have an advantage, even they don't. The old joke is that casinos have a word for people who have a system to beat the house: "Welcome!"
- mikeash 12y ago
  This stuff is really interesting. Imagine if you're playing, say, blackjack with a human dealer. After you win a hand but before you collect your winnings, you ask the dealer, "Say, would you mind if I retroactively increase my bet and collect the winnings on that?" The dealer replies, "Sure thing," and pays you accordingly. I imagine we'd all agree that there's no harm in asking, and that the dealer's compliance is his own problem and a problem for his employer but not your problem. Why does this suddenly change when you're talking to a computer instead of a human? I'm not saying it doesn't change, but I can't entirely figure out why we approach these two scenarios so differently. For your ATM comparison, it's not uncommon for excessively-clever bank customers to jokingly ask the teller for a million bucks, often in response to a question like, "Is there anything else I can do for you today?" Suppose you found a particularly dim teller who decided to actually hand over a million bucks when you asked. We'd blame the teller and the bank for agreeing to such a thing, not the person who asked, right? Yet when it's an ATM instead of a teller, we blame the person asking.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    The gaming laws do not give the dealer the right to change the rules of the game once they have been set by the house and registered with the gaming control board. If the dealer decides to deviate from the rules, the dealer has committed a crime. The player could also be an accomplice if he was in cohorts with the dealer. Now in the case of the buggy slot machine, the software has been checked to NOT perform this action. If it does, it's obviously deviating from the rules as well and needs to be shut down. To avoid making the player an accomplice, the "malfunction voids all pays" rule comes into play. If the player knowingly made the slot deviate from the rules, then that falls under the definition of cheating.
    - josho 12y ago
      The Nevada gaming laws, as I understand it, allow for payout probabilities across a time threshold. E.g. Over a 24hr period this machine pays out 95 cents on the dollar. This gives the casino the ability to make a machine pay out $1.05 dollars to $1 early in the night, then change to worse odds as players become convinced its a hot machine. So, one could argue the 'hack' was no different than this. The probability of paying out was set to 500 to 1 for 1 hand. This is legal for the casino to do, but you turn the tables and a guy goes to jail? Regardless, this is just more evidence that the 'house always wins' (even when it looses).
      - joezydeco 12y ago
        The "time threshold" is the lifetime of the machine. Not minutes, hours, or days. Slots are fixed to a given payout percentage and then locked in with the gaming board. Traditionally this means a copy of the program is checksummed and stored offsite with the gaming commission. The officials have the right to open that machine at any time and verify that the program matches what is on record. Casinos cannot dynamically change this payout percentage on the fly. That's a violation of the law. A casino is required to have a certain average payout across all machines, but that does not mean a particular machine needs to obey that percentage. In fact, the penny slots will be set way lower and the high-denomination slots will be set much higher. The average will hit the target. The "hack" is theft, plain and simple. Putting aside the ability to re-award jackpots, the player found a way to change denomination of credits post-play. This is the equivalent of winning at a table game and then swapping your $1 chips for $100 chips when the dealer is not looking.
Dylan16807 12y ago
They're not playing poker though. "Double Up" is not a feature of poker. It's a feature of this very specific and state-approved game.
gaius 12y ago
be for it. Exploiting the software that runs the game, however, isn't fair. That is clearly nonsense tho', and that's easy to prove. If you are playing poker with a person, then that is all about exploiting the flaws in that person, this ones timid, that one's reckless, this one has a facial tic, that one drinks too much and so on.
derefr 12y ago
With poker in particular, I'd call being able to predict the machine's hand due to a bug in the software to be a fair outcome. After all, reading other people's tells is what makes poker poker. Why is it suddenly a "bug" if a machine has one?
- Buge 12y ago
  From what I understand, they weren't predicting future hands. They were switching to the main menu and back repeatedly to cash out on the same hand over and over again. They weren't playing the exact same game over and over again, they were cashing out repeatedly from the same win screen.
- theworst 12y ago
  Poker has very little to do with reading other people's tells. If a player relies on reading another in order to play his game, the first player is probably not going to do too well.
rwallace 12y ago
Suppose we postulate that exploiting a security flaw is wrong, and money obtained by doing so should be forfeit. The entire business of casinos is exploiting a security flaw in the human mind. By hypothesis, the casinos' money should be forfeit, so they have no moral grounds for trying to get it back from the people who found a way to take some of it. Conversely, if we backtrack and cancel our postulate, then there is no basis for a claim against a gambler who exploits the software.

by toki5 12y ago

danielweber 12y ago

He was changing the bet amounts after the victory. Imagine playing for pesos, and then upon victory tricking the software into playing for Euros. If he had outsmarted or even figured out a way to control the random number generator through button presses, I'd be all for him. But this is more like finding an ATM that has a bug to not record withdrawals of exactly $420 and then emptying the machine. It's shouldn't be lost that the casinos love to let players think they have an advantage, even they don't. The old joke is that casinos have a word for people who have a system to beat the house: "Welcome!"

mikeash 12y ago
This stuff is really interesting. Imagine if you're playing, say, blackjack with a human dealer. After you win a hand but before you collect your winnings, you ask the dealer, "Say, would you mind if I retroactively increase my bet and collect the winnings on that?" The dealer replies, "Sure thing," and pays you accordingly. I imagine we'd all agree that there's no harm in asking, and that the dealer's compliance is his own problem and a problem for his employer but not your problem. Why does this suddenly change when you're talking to a computer instead of a human? I'm not saying it doesn't change, but I can't entirely figure out why we approach these two scenarios so differently. For your ATM comparison, it's not uncommon for excessively-clever bank customers to jokingly ask the teller for a million bucks, often in response to a question like, "Is there anything else I can do for you today?" Suppose you found a particularly dim teller who decided to actually hand over a million bucks when you asked. We'd blame the teller and the bank for agreeing to such a thing, not the person who asked, right? Yet when it's an ATM instead of a teller, we blame the person asking.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  The gaming laws do not give the dealer the right to change the rules of the game once they have been set by the house and registered with the gaming control board. If the dealer decides to deviate from the rules, the dealer has committed a crime. The player could also be an accomplice if he was in cohorts with the dealer. Now in the case of the buggy slot machine, the software has been checked to NOT perform this action. If it does, it's obviously deviating from the rules as well and needs to be shut down. To avoid making the player an accomplice, the "malfunction voids all pays" rule comes into play. If the player knowingly made the slot deviate from the rules, then that falls under the definition of cheating.
  - josho 12y ago
    The Nevada gaming laws, as I understand it, allow for payout probabilities across a time threshold. E.g. Over a 24hr period this machine pays out 95 cents on the dollar. This gives the casino the ability to make a machine pay out $1.05 dollars to $1 early in the night, then change to worse odds as players become convinced its a hot machine. So, one could argue the 'hack' was no different than this. The probability of paying out was set to 500 to 1 for 1 hand. This is legal for the casino to do, but you turn the tables and a guy goes to jail? Regardless, this is just more evidence that the 'house always wins' (even when it looses).
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      The "time threshold" is the lifetime of the machine. Not minutes, hours, or days. Slots are fixed to a given payout percentage and then locked in with the gaming board. Traditionally this means a copy of the program is checksummed and stored offsite with the gaming commission. The officials have the right to open that machine at any time and verify that the program matches what is on record. Casinos cannot dynamically change this payout percentage on the fly. That's a violation of the law. A casino is required to have a certain average payout across all machines, but that does not mean a particular machine needs to obey that percentage. In fact, the penny slots will be set way lower and the high-denomination slots will be set much higher. The average will hit the target. The "hack" is theft, plain and simple. Putting aside the ability to re-award jackpots, the player found a way to change denomination of credits post-play. This is the equivalent of winning at a table game and then swapping your $1 chips for $100 chips when the dealer is not looking.

Dylan16807 12y ago

They're not playing poker though. "Double Up" is not a feature of poker. It's a feature of this very specific and state-approved game.

gaius 12y ago

be for it. Exploiting the software that runs the game, however, isn't fair. That is clearly nonsense tho', and that's easy to prove. If you are playing poker with a person, then that is all about exploiting the flaws in that person, this ones timid, that one's reckless, this one has a facial tic, that one drinks too much and so on.

derefr 12y ago

With poker in particular, I'd call being able to predict the machine's hand due to a bug in the software to be a fair outcome. After all, reading other people's tells is what makes poker poker. Why is it suddenly a "bug" if a machine has one?

Buge 12y ago
From what I understand, they weren't predicting future hands. They were switching to the main menu and back repeatedly to cash out on the same hand over and over again. They weren't playing the exact same game over and over again, they were cashing out repeatedly from the same win screen.
theworst 12y ago
Poker has very little to do with reading other people's tells. If a player relies on reading another in order to play his game, the first player is probably not going to do too well.

rwallace 12y ago

Suppose we postulate that exploiting a security flaw is wrong, and money obtained by doing so should be forfeit. The entire business of casinos is exploiting a security flaw in the human mind. By hypothesis, the casinos' money should be forfeit, so they have no moral grounds for trying to get it back from the people who found a way to take some of it. Conversely, if we backtrack and cancel our postulate, then there is no basis for a claim against a gambler who exploits the software.