Slashdot Mirror
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."
fp!
friva!
net GAYgas
So, are we going to be seeing more levels of various hacks coming through hot-cracking the slot machines, or hacking the roulette table so it always lands on 0 or 00? With all this new high-tech gambling, there are bound to be areas where a good sys-admin could help or break a casino. I wouldn't mind doing either, as long as I got my fair cut ^_^ Since I'll probably be living it up in Vegas for spring break, why not see if I can get a nice little laptop cracking action going :p Anyone want me to be on the slots for them? Before or after the cracking?
"Net Vegas will eventually move out of the city and into your homes using the web."
I don't know if I want networked slot machines in my home, but if I could access the refridgerator from the computer I could check for beer supply. Now for a remote controlled refridgerator...
Can't you people just DIE?
*sniff* Life is good! :>
Join the TWIT army now!
I have a friend that works on these things at a casino in my area (indian res, not vegas) and I guess it is basically a net admin position. He works on slot machines and stuff over there, they use some Linux, NT, and Novel? We discussed it a bit, I was pretty surprised that slot machines where that techy now.
:P
:P
One of the senior projects at the college nearby also involved computerising the casino. They developed some sort of tracking system involving PDA's for dealers...not exactly sure because I didn't see it - only heard about it. I guess they already had it sold a few times before even finishing
Yep, where people throw money away other people can pick it up
NR
sticks his dick in a jukebox, and N'sync comes on.
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
Interesting article about the technology used to watch and catch potential thieves of the casinos... but how closely are the gaming comissions watching the casinos to ensure we're not getting ripped off? With the millions of dollars passing through, the old "fraction of a penny" trick seems like it's a possibility, unless the casinos are watched very closely...
Net Vegas will eventually move out of the city and into your homes using the web.
Tell me more of this "web" you speak of.
Here is a mirror. I hope that's useful to someone. :)
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.
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
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
huh
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
the para-mutual betting system is secure too. This is a load of SHIT, considering the Paramutual betting system for horse racing was just cracked for 3 million, at the breeders cup. I'd say it will be some time before this is common, or the casinos will just have to eat the losses, and there will be FOR SURE...How will the go after say some guy in China that hacks the system ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Welcome to Net Vegas where slot machines are networked...
Net Vegas will eventually move out of the city and into your homes using the web.
Please help
I personally think that Vegas making sure they have the best of tech to keep "plotters" away is definately a good call.
-Kaos
What are the odds of it working?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Everywhere you go -- from Walmart, to Disneyland, to stadiums, to McDonalds, even to some carwashes -- everything is monitored and networked.
All cash registers in almost every supermarket, as well as any store (blockbuster, petsmart, etc) that cards you, is tracking everything you do through a network, and is usually accompanied by an impressive array of security cameras to boot.
It's not just risky gambling operations run by the mob -- it's your friendly neighborhood megastore that implements all the technology, too.
[ot]I saw an episode of Nova quite a while ago where they profiled a computer sysem that was capable of designing and building a body for itself, given certain goals of the body, and access to a machine that would create the body from plastic [/ot]
Would it be possible to create a system capable of designing and implementing a gambling system more secure than curent systems? As pointed out in the article, an employee of the slot machine manufacturer altered machines for payout.. this wouldnt happen if a secure computer system were to design the slot machine, in the vein of the aforementioned computer system capable of building itself a body. The computer designed slot machine would be able to design in booby traps to prevent tampering, and design in maintenance systems to maintain the system. I realize that this would be prohibitively expensive, but ultimately, wouldnt that be the only way to have a truly secure slot/gambling machine??
Just my $.02
I'm a little tea pot.
The article says "No single slot could pay out $4 million. Not physically, and not practically. Even in constant use, it would be impossible for any single machine to collect sufficient incoming wagers to make such mammoth paydays happen."
That's incorrect. A slot machine does not have to collect $4 million to have a potential payout of $4 million. A slot machine could be set to pay out huge sums for extremely unlikely combinations, combinations so unlikely that the machine would most likely NEVER pay it out during its X years in service. The network deal is compelling only because it allows pools, not because it makes huge payouts possible.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
What? Las Vegas has to be about one of the most technologically backwards cities in the US. A very poor tech market indeed, and as a special bonus, low pay. One of my network engineer friends out here recently had to move to Arkansa because THEY had more of a tech field than Las Vegas.
Take it from a resident.. Las Vegas != Technology.
"One of these days... milkshake... BOOM!!!!" - emb
Here's an interesting article from a month or two back in wired. True story about some kids from MIT breaking Vegas.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
I used to be work on the communications software for slot machine, and although every machine in the building is wired together via fiber optic cable (fiber optics aren't as suseptable to a lot of the noise generated in the casino, such as neon, among other reasons), it's important to realized that there isn't a whole lot data on the line that's really a security risk.
Every machine has generates it's own random numbers and determines if it hits the jackpot by itself. The methods to do that are faily secure, but since there are a lot of variable to pick from, such as the number of milliseconds between user buttonpresses, randomness is not much of a problem. The command to win the jackpot does not come over the network.
All that's really on the network are things like coins in/coins out, number of plays, and a lot of accounting data. This data goes to the casino for their own accounting, and also goes into a box which then computes how much to increment the progressive jackpot. If an individual machine says "I won the big one!", then everything is shut down, the individual machine is checked to make sure the software hasn't been tampered or any other security measure broken, then the winner is paid (sort of). The command "to win" doesn't come from the network, so security is not a problem from the network.
On some lottery setup, an administrator can send a command to shut a particular machine down, but on the whole, the machines are pretty autonomous. Casinos are considered pretty secure environments anyway.
I always thought this was pretty interesting when I've explained it to others, so I thought I'd repeat it here.
In the cold, pre-dawn hours of December 15, 2000, police deputy Matthew Lynch looked down at the
...he shouted ...my mouth to her vagina..uh...it would be her mouth to my vagina... they wanted
...we were under the impression that after they were done ....a howling ...He cried out (that) if he ...while Brad was gone ...I was pulled out to the wetbar...where he raped me. ...he had on ...I was spread on the floor on all fours...with him ...I saw a silver handgun ...by me as I was down on all fours."
snow in a lonely soccer field in Wichita, Kansas. The snow was pink, and spotted with red. It was
stained with blood: the blood of the white victims of one of the most vicious racial attacks in
American history -- the attack that has become known as the Wichita Massacre.
The bodies of four dead White Americans lay in that soccer field, and there would have been five if
not for a near-miracle that allowed one of the White victims, a 25-year-old schoolteacher we'll call
HG, to survive to tell her story. She ran naked for a mile in 17-degree weather before she found
help, and she refused medical attention (even though she was suffering from a gunshot wound) until
she was sure that her helpers had heard and understood her story.
She said "...Don't call 911 yet! I want you to hear this story in case I die."
You see, young HG wasn't sure she would live long enough to tell her story otherwise -- after having
been kidnapped, robbed, repeatedly raped, forced to engage in sex acts, shot execution-style in the
back of the head, and then run over by a truck and left for dead by her two Black male attackers.
That 25-year-old woman wanted us to know what happened. And thanks to the workings of a fate which
looks a lot like Providence, and to her own endurance and courage, we do know what happened there.
And we must never forget the Wichita Massacre.
Earlier that evening, HG had been visiting her boyfriend Jason Befort, age 26. Jason was a science
teacher and coach at Augusta High School, and HG was to learn during the ordeal that he was about to
propose to her and had bought her an engagement ring. Jason would never get a chance to ask "will
you marry me?" or give her the ring. His bloody, battered, and naked body lay dead in that snowy
killing field in Wichita.
Jason had two roommates, college friends of his, who shared a condominium with him: Bradley Heyka,
27 a financial analyst for Koch financial services, and Aaron Sandler, 29, who had recently decided
to study for the priesthood. Later that evening, the twentysomething roommates were also joined by
Heather Muller, 25, a church preschool teacher who was a former girlfriend of Sanders and who was
also a graduate student at Wichita State University. Like Jason Befort, Heyka and Sandler and Muller
would not survive to see the next day dawn.
At 11 PM, two Black males forced their way into the condominium. They have been identified as the
Carr brothers, Jonathan and Reginald. Armed with a handgun, the Blacks forced all the Whites to
strip off their clothes and shoved them into a bedroom closet. At first, the Blacks showed little
interest in robbery, though the Whites told them "take our money, take whatever you want." The young
Whites were then brought out into another room, one or two at a time, for rape and sexual
degradation.
According to HG's testimony (which was subsequently censored) transcribed at the CourtTV message
board, the Whites were forced to submit to rape and sodomy from the Blacks and were also forced to
rape each other to put on a kind of "sex show" for the Blacks : "they had Heather and I come out of
the bedroom...and they told us to perform oral sex. I did to Heather first and she did that back and
then
[us] to... digitally penetrate one another and we did that."
The Blacks then forced Mr. Befort and Mr. Heyka to have intercourse with HG, and when they were
unable or unwilling to perform as demanded they were mercilessly beat on the head with golf clubs
until they were almost senseless. Neighbors stated that the men's blood, as a result of these
beatings, "was everywhere in the duplex." HG's testimony continued: "We had sex but he didn't have
an erection... so they were angry...several guys came out...they hit him on the back of the head and
after that I went back into the closet.
they would probably shoot us. And then they were just screaming, one of them made er
sound... they moved so that they could get a better view... they were angry that he wasn't doing
what they had asked him to do...he didn't do what they wanted...there was some conversation about an
erection....you have some certain time to get that vagina entered
didn't have an erection, he would be SHOT...so I was trying to help Jason..." Later, the Blacks
repeatedly raped and sodomized the two White women, in the words of HG: "at that point in time Brad
was gone
an orange and black sweater that has FUBU.
behind me
The sexual self-expression of the Carr brothers temporarily satisfied, the Whites were taken on
rides to empty their bank accounts with their ATM cards. On the way back from one such ride,
Reginald Carr asked HG if she liked Black men. Thinking that a "yes" answer would please her captor,
she answered in the affirmative. According to HG, "he said he wished we could've met under different
circumstances. He said I was cute, and we probably would've hit it off."
When they returned to the house, the same Reginald Carr raped HG again and forced her to perform
oral sex on him. Jonathan Carr raped Heather Muller again and then he raped HG one more time.
After the rapes and beatings, as the Carr brothers ransacked the house, they found a coffee can
containing a diamond ring. As the Blacks flashed the ring, Jason Befort managed to tell HG: "That's
for you. I was going to ask you to marry me."
Three hours after the ordeal began, at 2:07 AM, the Blacks loaded the men into the trunk and took
the five young Whites for their final ride, the men nude, the women naked from the waist down.
Arriving shortly thereafter at the lonely, snow-covered soccer field, the Blacks ordered the five
Whites to kneel in the snow and then shot them one by one in the back of the head. HG remembers "As
I was kneeling, a gun shot went off... I heard Aaron . . . I could distinguish Aaron's voice. He
said, 'Please, no sir, please.' The gun went off."
There were three shots and then: "I felt the bullet hit the back of my head. It went kind of gray
with white like stars. I wasn't knocked unconscious. I didn't fall forward. Then someone kicked me,
and I had fallen forward. I was playing dead. I didn't move. I didn't want them to shoot me again."
The Blacks, thinking the Whites were dead, got into Jason Befort's pickup truck and ran over the
bodies, including the living body of HG.
She says: "I waited until I couldn't hear any more, then I turned my head and saw lights going. I
looked at everyone. Everyone was face down. Jason was next to me. I rolled him over. There was blood
squirting everywhere, so I took my sweater off and tied it around his head to try and stop it. He
had blood coming out of his eyes." The rest you know. Everyone except HG was killed, and she is now
testifying in the trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr.
According to New Nation News, a pro-White alternative Web site, the autopsy of 25-year-old Heather
Muller, the student who was also a preschool teaching volunteer, indicated new trauma to her hymen,
showing that she had been a virgin at the time of her rape and murder, belying the statement
allegedly made by Reginald Carr "Ever been with a Black dude before, you bitch?"
Naturally, the defense is trying to confuse the identities of the brothers: the brother who had a
bushy "afro" style now wears "cornrows," and the brother who had "cornrows" has shaved his head, and
both are now wearing glasses and squinting a great deal.
And the arrogance of these Blacks, who know that the system in this country will not tolerate Whites
expressing even the mildest racial preference or concern, is almost unbelievable. One Black juror, a
Boeing employee, was being questioned about his feelings toward the Carrs when he said "I hate to
see young Black men go through this."
In a CourtTV forum message, a local woman in Wichita stated:
"I attended the second day of the preliminary hearing, the day after the surviving victim recounted
the horrific ordeal of the Carr brothers' victims. During a break in the proceedings, several family
members of the Carr brothers left their seats in the back of the courtroom and sat in the jury box,
where they were only a few feet away from the defendants. All manner of laughing, giggling and
making faces at each other then ensued. It was the most surreal and repugnant sight I've ever
witnessed. When Reginald Carr saw me staring at this display, he flicked his tongue, obscenely, at
me; a gesture I've experienced several times before when driving by black men on the street."
And the massacre didn't even begin with the horrors of that night. A few days earlier, the Carr
brothers carjacked a White man, Andrew Schreiber, and attacked and repeatedly shot Linda Walenta, a
cellist in the Wichita Symphony, as she tried to escape them. She was paralyzed and suffered for
three weeks before finally dying.
From the time of the attacks themselves, through the arrests of the Carr brothers, the preliminary
hearings, the depositions, and now the trial itself, the Wichita Massacre has received very little
national attention from the Jewish-controlled media, just as we predicted it would not.
Though these same media outlets shouted from the housetops for years about the dragging death of a
Black man in Texas committed by Whites, and about the murder of homosexual Matthew Shepard, and even
filled the airwaves with "outrage" over the use of excessive force against the Black criminal Rodney
King, there has been hardly a mention of the grisly rape-murders of the Wichita Massacre.
Almost all of the coverage has been local Wichita coverage, with even readers in Kansas City
complaining they get little news of the massacre in their local media. Ingram's, a local magazine,
states that the major media there have given only inside-page notice to the massacre -- with no
mentions of the interracial nature of the crimes in the Kansas City Star, and that their research
revealed that Kansas City media had given considerably more coverage to the killing of an animal
called "Scruffy the Dog" a few years back than they did to the Carr brothers and their seven White
victims.
Another message, this one from a retired police detective, which was posted (and then removed) from
CourtTV's Internet forum, stated the media non-coverage issue succinctly:
"As a retired Chicago homicide detective, I have yet to hear of any more VICIOUS and COLD-BLOODED
(5) homicides involving a PERSONAL CONFRONTATION between victims and STRANGERS than this case which
resulted in ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN (113) FELONY COUNTS vs. Reginald CARR and his brother, Jonathan.
"This case involves a home invasion, repeated rapes and sexual assaults, armed robberies, burglary,
abductions, theft and car-jacking as well as the execution-style murders of naked victims in a
snow-covered soccer field.
"Aside from the Internet and local media, the mainstream national media has suppressed news coverage
of these most HEINOUS atrocities outside of the State of Kansas. The case also involves a gag order
in which (considering ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN FELONY COUNTS) the public has yet to learn the full
extent of this outrage!
"Please have full COURT TV national coverage of Kansas v. Carr. Bros Veteran homicide detectives can
assure all that it does NOT get ANY WORSE than the WICHITA MASSACRE!"
Please, please give this trial national coverage -- so pleaded hundreds of White people outraged at
the silence of the media. (It should have been hundreds of thousands, but give the new White media
time to grow.) It looked too good to be true when Time-Warner's CourtTV, in the person of chief
anchor Fred Graham, announced in September that they would air "gavel-to-gavel" coverage of the
Wichita Massacre trial. That statement sent a wave of hope through the White community, but that
hope was dashed to the ground when, a few weeks later, CourtTV abruptly decided to drop all but
minimal coverage of the trial. At around the same time, many discussions on CourtTV's own message
board about the case suddenly disappeared, and those who tried to re-post the deleted information or
protest the censorship found that their accounts had been terminated and their messages erased.
There had been no public protest of the upcoming trial coverage. Despite the arrogance of the
anti-White forces in our society, they still didn't dare to publicly call for censorship of such a
horrific crime. The pressures that forced the change in plans were behind-the-scenes pressures,
pressures that have been kept secret from us. The ostensible reason given by front man Graham for
nixing the Wichita Massacre coverage was the upcoming trial of a rabbi accused of murdering his
wife. That in itself would be enough to make us suspect intentional misdirection from Jewish
sources, even if we hadn't discovered the fact that CourtTV is, according to their own Web site, a
proud "partner" with the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, whose anti-White activities
are well known. CourtTV states on their own Web site that the ADL "is one of the nation's premier
civil rights/human relations agencies fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defending
democratic ideals, and protecting civil rights."
I also checked the ADL's own Web site, and they announce proudly that, right around the time that
the coverage of the Wichita Massacre would have started, CourtTV will be airing an ADL-sponsored
program called "Empowering Children in the Aftermath of Hate." What an interesting coincidence. When
one sees these connections, and remembers that heavily-Jewish Time Warner is a major owner of
CourtTV, it is no longer surprising that CourtTV suddenly -- and at the last minute -- pulled the
rug out from under coverage of the Wichita Massacre Trial, leaving other networks ill-prepared to
step in even if they had wanted to.
The Jewish minority in the United States has a virtual monopoly control over our mass media, and all
decisions that they make are decisions which place Jewish interests first. That is the key to
understanding why CourtTV didn't cover this trial; that is the key to understanding why White people
aren't allowed to have any institutions or preferences for themselves, that is they key to
understanding why outrages like the Wichita Massacre aren't considered hate crimes -- even when they
involve Blacks targeting only Whites seven times in a row, even when they involve gross sexual
degradation and murder of Whites by Blacks, and even when racial references are made by the
attackers -- while at the same time Whites who post an innocent sticker saying that Whites are an
endangered species are charged with hate crimes. Understanding the facts and the consequences of
Jewish media control are the keys to understanding what has happened to our country. I hope you'll
continue to listen to these programs and write to us for a copy of our book catalog and magazine so
you can understand the problem more fully and help us solve it in the future. Without Jewish media
control, the situation in America would never have deteriorated to the point that made the Wichita
Massacre possible. Even in the America of today, without Jewish media control changing the massacre
from a hate crime to a hush crime the outrage from an enlightened White population would sweep the
nation. Understanding media control is the key to understanding our current paralysis.
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.
Christ, at least two idiots with mod points gave that informative? It's a troll link that posts "fuck you, this site sucks" on some random bulletin board. Sheesh, don't mod a link without checking it first, dilhole!
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.
All their machines are networked together. Mostly w/ cheap netgear stuff too. I think its to keep track of the money on your card :)
There is so much more to this than just networking some casion cameras, etc.
The taxi companies have been paying telco insiders for taps into payphones, as an example. This lets them intercept customer calls, and swoop down before the competition can land the fare.
You have to go there and hang out for a while before you can really appreciate the amount of technology involved and how it's being used. The types of games being played behind the scene dwarf the action at the tables. Boggles the imagination, actually.... Not sure I want this stuff coming home with me.
if its so wired and high tech how come myself and none of my friends who have been laid off from tech jobs can't friggen find ANY work what so ever... I hate this town.
The sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.
Big gambling is run by big listed corporations and guys called Steve and Lee, not Tony and Vitti.
There are very few mob owned casinos left. There might be some vestigal ties (through debt-collection, prostitution, etc) with the majority but the influence of organised crime (violent, inefficient) has been replaced by the influence of the organised market ('family orientated', efficient).
Besides it screaming to be a bad idea because you know people would abuse it, but that normally doesn't stop the marketing people.
No, the main problem is that you're only liable for $50 on your credit card if the card is lost. What's to stop somebody from running up $2000 on a machine, then claiming to "lose" the card. They'd be personally liable for only $50, and the casino would have a chargeback for the rest. Not a good business plan.
There was a pilot program a while back (there might be others now), that used an ATM like card where you can put money on a card, then withdraw it at the individual machines. It was scary to look at the reports and see some guy at a machine withdraw $10k from his card, then 20 minutes later, withdraw another $10k, over and over again.
Trolling is dead. This place is dead. This place has been dead for far too long. The Revolution and The Rebirth are coming.
Trolling will be re-born.
A New Era dawns. The future grows near.
The Revolution will be devastating.
The Rebirth will be glorious.
The End Is Near.
The Revolution: December 31st, 2002
The Rebirth: January 1st, 2003
Trolling is dead.
Trolling will be born again.
Trolling will return.
Trolling will return with FIRE.
January 1st, 2003.
Mark your calendars.
Clear your calendars.
Reschedule your life.
Everything you know is a lie.
Everything you know is going to change.
This is not the end.
This is not the beginning of the end.
This is the end of the beginning.
The Third Age of Trolling is about to begin.
January 1st, 2003.
It's coming. The Rebirth.
You are powerless to stop it.
Only a fool would try.
If you are a troll, rejoice.
The time of our supremacy is at hand!
The Revolution is coming. The Rebirth draws near. The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth. It's all about to change... forevar. THE END: December 31st, 2002. THE BEGINNING: January 1st, 2003. History has come full-circle. Get ready to troll, motherfuckers.
I was out there a few years back and that place was wired to the gills. I'll bet you $1000 they even got cams in the john.
Looks like more jobs in security and the service
industry. IT stuff pretty thin.
You'd probably be better off keeping your quarter to phone an ambulance. hacking casinos.... those "legitimate" businessmen would get mighty P'd off if they caught you...
Slashdotters being turds and bloody thieves will go there I am sure. You suckers. djk ekjf djklgfdgdf fdjgkltr jksdf rhwjlhad cdhskjlfhsd hfjfh czkljfdsf vsdjkfljsdklf fjdskfjkljfsdf kfjsdkljlkwefwjkgldjfgjgdfg
hfgshg hjkhsjda hfjksdh dhjkds h eyhwuq dhjakhd auiqy fbkjfbsdkjhjwk e hfjhfjyfuwhdk hsfjkdhfuwhffhkj hfhuwyfsdfs TROLL TROLL TROLL
To what extent are these machines controlled ? This give rise to lotsa alarming thoughts. They can then program the whole system. They want p% profit. Hence only $x should be lost by the casino .... can they manipulate the machines ?
This is a scary scenario.. you're at the mercy of the casino... totally.
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
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.
The latest gizmo at the casinos is recording the video directly to arrays of ATA hard drives. Not only does this save a lot of labor, but also the security team can review recorded video without pausing the recording in process, kinda like TiVo. With 250GB ATA drives costing less than $300, you are going to see a lot more tape applications being replaced by hard drives. In the case of the casinos, they keep one or two tape units handy for saving evidence, but basically there is a definite trend to elimitate the old fashioned VCR.
What's to stop somebody from running up $2000 on a machine, then claiming to "lose" the card. They'd be personally liable for only $50, and the casino would have a chargeback for the rest.
With the sheer amount of security cameras available, I don't think a casino would have any problem identifying the user of the card in court. I would be more worried about the smarter thief who steals a credit card, wins a couple grand, cashes out, ditches the card, and then bolts. If the casino subtracts the original charge from the winnings and it never actually hits the credit card (avoiding the charge fees, saving the casino money), nobody is the wiser.
I've seen the people who abuse their ATM and credit cards gambling. Last year, I watched a guy use an ATM on a casino boat just out of Florida waters. The ATM fee was $40 and he must have hit the machine at least 10 times, never pulling out more than $200.
I don't think the gambling helps these people, but I'm pretty sure these are the same people who don't understand the fundamental concepts behind credit systems. I could just as easily see them buying items they can't afford, then rolling over thousands of dollars in balances each month.
5. Games/entertainment (how could you miss this?)
6. Chatting/Communication
This was somewhat of a scandal sometime ago. Apparently a woman won a jackpot on a slot, lights flashed etc etc etc and she got a pile of credits. Just before she left, she decided to stick another quarter in, and won a second time!
The lottery corp refused to pay her out though (I think possibly only for the second win, not the first), as they second the (second?) win was a glitch, and didn't wasn't registered from the main computer - indicated by the lack of flashy lights the second time around.
All the machines have disclaimers saying that they are not obligated to pay for winnings due to a technical error. My question is, how do you tell? It would be pretty easy for them to say "oops, sorry no that machine is faulty, you only get $10 instead of $10000."
I think she eventually got her money in the end, but only because it went to the paper and created a lot of bad publicity for the local casinos. The big point is though, that the winning is not entirely on-the-spot chance/luck, but actually seems to be based on something coming from a main server. Whether there's a randomizing alghorithm or whatever,it seems pretty suspicious to me, as it probably means that your winnings are based more on getting lucky and catching a server during it's "win" calculation than actual random luck - they can probably adjust win thresholds etc from the home base.
No wonder they profit on slots...
Of a Janeane Garofalo SNL skit for the Nut-arific candy bar...
Nut-arific!
Nut-arific!
It's nut-very good.
Wait, that doesn't sound right, how about...
You're nut-gonna love it!
No, that's not right either...
where if a lousy M$ OS crashes in a big hotel, say like Circus-Circus, they are totally unable to function. They actually told us we could not check out, and seemed puzzled when I started laughing. On a Wedesday morning they had a checkin line almost 200 people long and could not even begin to operate. We just walked out, and told the foolish desk clerk to bill us if they could ever figure out how. It took several days but the bill finally did arrive, and I even payed it, though there was no signature. Why is it that the more automated a system becomes the more ignorant the people running it are ?
DMV anyone ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
almost all of the tech companies here in Vegas are cutting back, adn even if you can get a job, you're typically paid much less than if you were to get one anywhere else.
(Yes, I do live in Vegas)
"I used to think I was chasing the real criminals," says Lt. Steve Franks, a 29-year veteran of the LVPD, who spent the early days of his career pursuing drug dealers and now runs the town's financial crimes unit. But "these guys," he says of the casino crooks, "are calculating. They plot everything out. They're efficient."
None more so than Ronald Dale Harris, whose job as a software engineer for the state Gaming Control Board was to write slot machine anti-cheating software. Harris surreptitiously coded a hidden software switch--tripped by inserting coins in a predetermined sequence--that would trigger cash jackpots. After retooling more than 30 machines, Harris and accomplices made the rounds, walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Harris was caught when one of his confederates implicated him after being busted in Atlantic City for rigging a Keno game. In 1998, Harris was sentenced to seven years."
If she floats, she's a witch.
Las Vegas is the place to be ....
:-)
At least, the Fortran Standardisation Committee
thinks so - I'm leaving tomorrow for another
week filled with hot Standards-editing
In our copious free time we try to come up with
physical theories to predict (or even better,
influence) the course of the roulette ball.
- Toon Moene (GNU Fortran 77 maintainer).
Actually, the casinos have baited the roulette tables. These days roulette tables have a display showing the last 20 numbers that have come up. Anyone who knows odds understands that the past numbers don't matter, but on a psychological level, people will react to that display, betting for a trend or against a trend, depending on the gambler. Either way, it means more money on the table and more possible money for the casino.
Of course, the American roulette tables started the whole added percentage thing by adding a "00" to the European version. It's all about the small percentages...
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
that las vegas has admited twice that the slot machines were jerry riged to make it more likely that you'll be struck be lightning four times than win anything more than 5 dollers on the first pole on slot machines.
Wich is funny since even in as unoptimal a game as a gravit operated pachinco game after three consecutive drops you've got a 3::4 odds of breaking even.
Las vegas patheticly goddy, over hyped, hoy-ploy, loud, rude, slimy hot, and run by the last people you want:
themselves the game comission doesn't chek them
the mechanical machines are rigged
They don't use a mathmaticaly fare formula
their odds itterate out so that n is less than what you pay 99% of the time
and I hope they get cracked and have to take it up the ass from hemos
FIRSTLY I MUST FIRST SOLICIT YOUR CONFIDENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION; THIS BY VIRTUE OF ITS NATURE AS BEEN INTERLY CONFIDENTIAL AND TOP SECRET THOUGH KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WILL MAKE SOMEONE APPREHENSIVE AND ELATED BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. I HAVE DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU DUE TO THE URGENCY OF THIS TRANSACTION AS WE HAVE BEEN RELIABLY INFORMED OF YOU DISCRETNESS AND ABILITY TO HANDLE TRANSACTION OF THIS NATURE.
LET ME START BY INTRODUCING MYSELF PROPERLY , I AM MR. TIJANI YUSUFU CREDIT OFFFICER WITH THE UNION BANK OF NIGERIA PLC (UBA) BENIN BRANCH, I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY PRIVATE SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE THIS CONFIDENTIAL TRANSACTION,WHICH INVOLVES TRANSFERING HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO A FOREIGN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE
THE PREPOSITION:
A FOREIGNER AND AN AMERICAN , LATE ENGR JOHN CREEK (SNR) AN OIL MERCHANT WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA, UNTIL HIS DEATH MONTHS AGO IN KENYA AIRBUS ( A3K-300) FLIGHT KQ430 BANKED WITH US AT UNION BANK OF NIGERIA PLC BENIN AND HAD A CLOSING BALANCE AS AT THE END OF MARCH 2001 WORTH $35,432,000USD , THE BANK NOW EXPECTS A NEXT OF KIN AS BENEFICIARY. VALUABLE EFFORT HAVE BEEN MADE BY THIS BANK TO GET IN YOUCH WITH ANY OF THE CREEKS RELATIVE OR FAMILY HAVE BEEN UNSUCESSFUL. IT IS BECAUSE OF THE PERCEIVED POSIBILITY OF NOT BEEN ABLE TO LOCATE ANY OF ENGR JOHN CREEK (SNR) NEXT OF KIN ( HE HAD NO WIFE OR CHILDREN THAT IS KNOWN TO US ).
THE MANAGEMENT UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF OUR CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE FOR THE FUNDS TO BE DECLARED "UNCLAIMED" AND SUBSEQUENTLY DONATE THE FUNDS TO THE ARMS & ARMUNITION TRUST FUNDS AND THIS WILL FUTHER ENHANCE THE CAUSE OF WAR IN AFRICA AND THE WORLD IN GENERAL .
IN OTHER TO AVERT THIS NEGATIVE DEVELOPMENT SOME OF MY TRUSTED COLLEAGUES AND I NOW SEEK YOUR PERMISSION TO HAVE YOU STAND AS THE NEXT OF KIN TO THE LATE MR.JOHN CREEK (SNR) SO THAT THE FUNDS WILL BE RELEASED AND PAID INTO YOUR ACCOUNT AS THE BENEFICIARY NEXT OF KIN, ALL DOCUMENT AND PROOFS TO ENABLE YOU GET THIS FUNDS WILL BE CAREFULLY WORKED OUT . WE HAVE BEEN MANDATED BY THE BANK TO OFFICIALY DECLARE THE BENEFICIARY WITHIN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME , THAT IS WHY WE HAVE DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU AND MORE SO WE ARE ASSURING YOU THAT YOU THAT THE BUSINESS IS 100% RISK FREE INVOLVEMENT .
AS SOON AS WE RECEIVE AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE IN ACCEPTANCE OF OUR MUTUAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL WE WOULD FURNISH YOU WITH THE NECESSARY MODALITIES AND DISBURSEMENT RATIO TO SUIT BOTH PARTIES WITHOUT ANY CONFUSION . IF THIS PROPOSAL IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU DO NOT TAKE DUE ADVANTAGE OF THE TRUST BESTOWED ON YOU ,KINDLY RESPOND IMMEDIATELY WITH THE E-MAIL ADDRESS FURNISHING ME WITH YOUR MOST CONFIDENTIAL TELPHONE, FAX NUMBER AND YOUR EXCLUSIVE BANK ACCOUNT PARTICULARS SO THAT WE CAN USE THIS INFORMATION TO APPLY FOR THE RELEASE AND SUBSIQUENT TRANSFER OF FUNDS IN YOUR FAVOUR.
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Here are the only ways to make money, long-term, on gambling:
Or purchase one. The Crystal Bay Club Casino in Crystal Bay, NV (up on the North shore of Lake Tahoe) is currently bankrupt and for sale. The hearing on the sale is reportedly scheduled for November 21 at the Reno Bankrupcy Court.
There was no real reason for the casino to go to pot, judging from the neighboring casinos who are doing just fine. Indeed, the reported increase in gross revenue -- in spite of 9/11 -- at the neighboring Tahoe Biltmore, Nugget, and Cal-Neva casinos suggest that there is a hefty share of revenue to be made. A total investment of about US$7-8 million should get you a going concern. The place has a current gaming license (the buyer would have to qualify to obtain an operator's license from the Nevada Gaming Board), two restaurants, two bars (liquor licenses would need to be renewed), over 100 slot machines, 10-12 black-jack tables, a roulette table, a craps table, and parking for 500 cars.
In its heyday, the CBC sported more than 260 slot machines, about half of them the networked progressive machines featured in the SlashDot story today. The new owner will be able to get them back, and enjoy the house cut of the play on them.
If this seriously interests you, call the Bankruptcy Trustee at (775) 329-1528 during normal government office hours (closed for Veteren's Day) for more information, including a listing of the components of the estate and times to tour and perform your due diligence inspections.
Disclaimer: The information in this post is based on published reports, Web-gleaned information, and court hearing transcripts, and is not guaranteed to be accurate. You are encouraged to get information directly from the Trustee before making a bid on the Crystal Bay Club Casino. The AC making this post has no financial attachment to the casino.
I currently live in Las Vegas and believe they have been all networked for quite some time.
When a customer wins the jackpot and I mean "thee jackpot" in terms of thousands of dollars the slot machine needs to alert an attendant about the winnings and send the log to a server. Slot machines only have a limited sum of money. Also the server wants to check the logs on the slot machine to make sure that the results are really mathmatically accurate on the so called tightness of the machine.
Slot machines can be adjusted to give users less or more odds. The Las Vegas Hilton or Stratesphere typically have the tightest machines in the city where as the local oriented station casino's in suburbia have the loosest. If the bar on the slot machine is between a jackpot and a cherry for example, at the Hilton the machine will pick the cherry so the consumer will lose. At a station casino it will select the jackpot.
Its all controlled by the computer.
Another area is security and video taping. When a customer wins alot of money from a slot machine or from a blackjack table, the manager will select a camera that faces the particular machine and will watch a video log in fast motion to make sure the user did not cheat.
Also a casino like Ceasars have 30 or 40 satilite dishes so gamblers can watch sports events from around the world as well as serve high rollers who want to watch television from home. Alot of expensive telecommunications are installed.
Last casino's hire mathmaticians and statisticians and use powerfull computers for running various mathmatical bussiness models. Everything including hotel room size to even the amount of booze being used to make a particular drink in the bar is mathmatically researched and formulated for maximum profit. For example you could not stay at the penthouse or villa in the casino's no matter how much money you wanted to pay. They are reserved for popular or consumers who have big checking accounts. Basically they are free even if you have the cash! Why? Because the casino's want high rollers who they know will spend a quarter million a bet!
You did not misread this a quarter to 1 million dollars for a single bet!
If you could only pay 25k per bet, they put you in the next to highest room.
This is all based on mathmatics and how much ROI they get back for each guest staying at the penthouse or villa.
http://saveie6.com/
Last month a programmer from a Vegas company done threw himself over the Golden State Bridge. Apparently, someone snitched on him for creating a backdoor on these new bingo machines; machines that he programmed. The machines are like little hand-held devices, and you just get one for however many bingo cards you buy. You enter the numbers as they come up, and the program places them for you on your virtual cards.
Anyway, this fellow created a password that allowed him 200+ cards. They caught him on camera at one casino, but didn't go after him... a week later, he did himself in.
Not sure why he did it... maybe he knew they would catch him or something. Moral of the story, don't fu** with the gaming industry in Vegas. Trust me on this one, I've lived in Vegas all my life.
Dan
One way to save some money is to play foosball.
Not to bust your balls, but hells-bells dude!
I can tell you that in casinos that have the right games the player can win over the long haul. There are games in the many casinos that are better than 100% over the long term. There are also games that are so close to 100% that when combined with cash-back or promotions can yield better than 100%. Of course, this also requires grinding hours of play, a bankroll that is large enough, and playing the proper strategy as perfectly as possible.
I know a lot of you queers will want to argue about it, so I'm not even going to tell you what games offer a income opportunities.
And, no, I'm not even talking about counting cards in Blackjack, another possibility for beating the casino on a regular basis provided you can count and play perfectly, as well as get away with raising your bets as high as possible when the count is in your favor.
has absolutely no long-term affect on your returns. It might piss you off to see some moron hit 16 against 4 and take "your" card, but it's completely irrelevant in the longterm.
Didn't you see what he wrote? PROGRESSIVE JACKPOTS. He's talking about the slot machines that have multi-million dollar progressive jackpots.
The slots can't be set to win or lose over the network. It just doesn't work that way. Each machine is networked only to keep statistics and credit your account with points towards comps or cash-back.
I suspect that if the security guys were checking stuff out they were either 1)Checking out your tits and ass. 2)Had noticed that someone was hitting a bunch of payoffs in a short period of time, and were there to make sure that they didn't see anything fishy going on, like someone manipulating the machine.
Another thing, slots aren't set to "hit" after a certain number losses, nor are they setup to stop hitting after a certain number of wins. They are random. Duh.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this
big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around --
nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy
cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go
over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're
going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do
all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy,
but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.
-- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye"
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