Net Vegas

Makarand writes "Vegas has to have the best of tech to keep the plotters away. Popular Science has an online article on how networks are playing an important role in Las Vegas. Welcome to Net Vegas where slot machines are networked and surveillance grids monitor everything that goes on. Net Vegas proves to be the best and the harshest test pad for new tech. Net Vegas will eventually move out of the city and into your homes using the web."

Comments

Of course

[tcd004]

Technology is always first developed for one of four things:

1. The Military
2. Sexual Urges
3. Easy Money
4. Security (making sure the above services are properly paid for)

If we can't have sex with it, blow it up, or make loads of cash off of it, we're just not interested.

Visit Richard Gere's Ass Zoo

tcd004

Unsung heroes of wild west

[LucidBeast]

Since smut vendors seem to be the most thriving content providers on the internet (at least compared to Hollywood) it is logical that gambling establishment will be the security providers. Our triumphs come from our vices not our virtues.

all about odds

[painehope]

Kathleen Budz grins and bears big winnings that only a Net-generation slot machine like the IGT units (bottom) can pay out.
okay, here's the cynics take on it :
you're playing against 40,000 people for 4 million rather than 1,000 for 100k. Your odds aren't getting any better, they're actually getting worse ( on winning anything worth a shit ). and if anyone really thinks that the odds stay the same on a nationwide network, well, i invented this mirable cream that will MAKE YOUR COCK GROW FIVE INCHES and AM REALLY INTERESTED IN SHARING MY SECRETS TO SUCCESS!!!

gambling and the lottery are for people that are bad at math...i'm talking worse than i am :)

Re:all about odds

[Anonymous Coward]

you're playing against 40,000 people for 4 million rather than 1,000 for 100k. Your odds aren't getting any better, they're actually getting worse ( on winning anything worth a shit ).

You're mistaken. You are playing against the odds for one million rather than for 100K. Yes, the odds are stacked higher against you (read the articel again), but nothing any other person does can affect your individual odds of winning. Now, if you were talking about, say, blackjack, where every move a person at your table makes affects you, then you would have a point. But not with slots.

Re:How closely are the casino's being watched?

[ender81b]

The casinos are watched fairly closely, though not perhaps by the gaming commissions. Here is how I figure it. The commisions establish relatively fair laws, the casinos make money and people come away happy. Not only that there is the fairly famous gambler's ruin mathematical theory that shows that the gambler never can break even, it is always in the houses favor.

Now, of course, the casinos might want to make even more money by cheating people. Here is why this wouldn't work on, most likely, a grand scale. Even if they managed to bribe a large contigent of inspectors ( a distinct possibility) what would happen, you suppose, if word of this got out? I mean, las vegas cheating people on a grand scale? You would have investigations upon investigations and it could ruin business in vegas. As I see casino operators are making money hand-over-fist right now, why attempt to ruin a good thing? Also, what happens if a rival casino operator finds out you are cheating? I'm sure a fair ammount of self-policing goes on to make sure one bad apple, so to speak, doesn't ruin it for the rest of Vegas. You think atlantic city and other places wouldn't jump on the chance to be the new 'fair city of gambling?'

This is not to say they don't cheat - I'm sure it happens, but not on any grand scale. Lets face it, if you are going to vegas odds are you aren't going to come away with more money than you brought.

Re:Hacking Roulette?

[Kierthos]

And if someone can do this with a physical machine, and do it long enough to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, then you see why I will never play on any online casino.

"We've coded this roulette wheel to only pay the short odds on a winning hit 85% of the time."

Kierthos

Re:Yeah right, and

[blair1q]

The racetrack heist was an inside job by a guy with the password to the database. That sort of security problem will be with us until we get the human factor completely out of the system from conception to implementation to validation.

And then there will be no need for money, because the human slaves of the master machines don't have time off to shop.

Player Tracking Technologies

[ChicoLance]

A technology I always thought was interesting at the Casinos was the whole "Player Tracking" aspect. The marketing people just drool to know what and when individuals are playing.

Just like the grocery "club cards", a player can sit down at a machine, put in their tracking card, and play away in the hopes of getting credits towards a hotel room or something. In the back room, some guy is looking over the reports, and sees that you tend to come in on Friday nights, play for a little while, have dinner, then bet a little bit more for a couple of hours. You stay an average of 20 minutes per machine, tend to gravitate towards the red machines, but stay longer at blue ones, and that you like to play "Double Diamond". The waitress can view a summary screen near the drink station and see a list of everybody in her area, have it highlighed in red if you're a top player, highlighted in green if it's your birthday, and if it's both, well, you'll get a nice bottle of champaine delivered to you without even asking.

The whole "science" of which colors attract which people for how long, which seats are the best, and which layouts work is a fascinating subject, but really only studied by a select few.

Slots really are random

[ChicoLance]

Last comment on this thread, then I'm going to bed.

To the people who have asked "who's watching the gaming commission?", all I can say is that slot machines use lots of variables to make sure that everything is random on the machine, and everything is on the up-and-up. With casinos and manufacturer being corporate controlled entities these days, it doesn't make since to screw around with this -- the house is already making a nice profit, so why run the risk of a lawsuit.

And if there was something fishy in the software, there'd be a lot more rich ex-software engineers running around. I'm proof that there isn't. :)

slots underbelly

[octalgirl]

In Vegas a couple of years ago, there was a whole row of slots in repair. They tip the row over on its side, showing the mounting plate and everything underneath. Very clearly you could see the RJ45 jacks in the floor and what looked like regular Cat5 going from the jack to up inside the machine somewhere. There were outlets of course, and other cables, similar to large computer/mainframe setup where the cable trays are underneath. My thought was, if they are on a traditional network, then the guys at the other end can control just about anything on that slot.

Same trip, different casino, hubby and I walked up to a $1 progressive slot, and he started hitting 100 and 250 each pull. (it was near the back of a casino and we were the only ones there, it was also at 8mil, which is around when they hit) After about 4 hits, these men in suits with earpieces showed up. 2 right behind us, and 2 on the other side of the slots. They kept talking into their lapels (I kid you not!) like some sort of spy movie. I watched one guy look over hubby's shoulder, give a look to the other guy, talk to the lapel, and then we started losing. After a couple of pulls and losing, they walked away. I really don't think it was coincidence.