Server Based Slots of the Future

prostoalex writes "The slot machines of the future won't be dumb one-armed bandits anymore, CNet reports. New generation of slot machines, to be deployed in major Vegas casinos, will feature server-based gaming with games, new features and, most important, the odds being downloaded from a central server location, not determined by internal machine algorithm any more."

Comments

Re:Safe and secure!

[doormat]

The code that runs the slot machines is REQUIRED to be inspected and approved by the Nevada Gaming Board (for vegas anyways). So yes, it'll be safe and secure.

Re:Official Slashdot Guide to Moderation

[tomhudson]

Damn, but you're good! I salute you, good sir or madame (and linked to it from my journal).

Not new!

[netik]

I don't see how this is anything new.

Odyssey makes machines that do this already (boot from a central server, and play the games the server hands to it) and the majority of slot machines that exist on the casino floor already have ethernet and share the odds distribution between them.

This keeps odds at 1:600, or whatever they need to be instead of NSlotmachines:600.

Re:Safe and secure!

[JohnnyLocust]

The code that runs the slot machines is REQUIRED to be inspected and approved by the Nevada Gaming Board (for vegas anyways). So yes, it'll be safe and secure. . This hasn't stopped previous successful exploits on slot machines. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1998/Jan-10 -Sat-1998/news/6745681.html Las Vegas has a history of falling prey to the very same people they use to keep gaming secure. As with any secure system, the weakest link is always the human factor.

Re:Improving the experience, sure

[tomhudson]

Every study done shows that casinos hurt the local economy - higher policing costs, higher welfare rates (broken homes, suicide of the breadwinner, etc), more crime.

Everyone's a loser because of casinos.

Has nothing to do with "being self-righteous." People are addicted. Just like they're addicted to VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals). They wear Depends diapers so they can crap in their pants rather than risk losing "their" machine. They piss in their token buckets for the same reason.

The newspapers here used to carry stories about the workers' complaints, about having to clean up these wonderful "tips". Now the casino fires you if you leak stories about the leaks.

The three big days for the casinos?

In order:

1. Welfare Check Day
2. Old Age Security Check Day
3. Family Allowance Check Day.

The rest is just filler. Don't take my word for it. Ask any casino worker ... or the taxi drivers that take them there, or the bus drivers that bring them back and look the other way when they get on the bus with less than half the fare, because they are TOTALLY broke ...

Its the casinos that are "self-righteous" - saying they create jobs. Sure they do. Loan sharking. Pawn shops. Divorce lawyers. Embalmers. http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/Bulle tin/2003/december/bourget.asp

Psychiatry and the Law
Characteristics of 75 Gambling-Related Suicides in Quebec

Dominique Bourget, MD, FRCPC, CSPQ
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario; Coroner, Province of Quebec.
Helen Ward, MD, FRCPC
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario.
Pierre Gagné MD, FRCPC, CSPQ
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec; Coroner, Province of Quebec.

Objective: To describe the demographic, psychiatric and social characteristics of pathological gamblers who have completed suicide.

Method: The authors examined 75 cases of completed suicide in which pathological gambling behaviour was implicated. The characteristics of these cases were extracted from the Quebec Coroner's files by two forensic psychiatrists.

Results: Victims were married in 52.0 per cent of cases, and at least 45.3 per cent were employed. Only 25.3 per cent had made a previous suicide attempt, and most (64.0 per cent) had given no prior warning of suicidal intent to either family or psychiatrists. A history of substance abuse was present in about one-third of the sample, and one-quarter were intoxicated with alcohol at the time of death. Most victims had suffered financial and marital losses as a result of their gambling behaviour.

Discussion: These results suggest that pathological gamblers who commit suicide differ from nongamblers. Major psychiatric illness and suicidal intent may be more difficult to identify, which potentially leads to underestimates of suicidal risk in individual pathological gamblers. The impulsiveness that characterizes pathological gambling behaviour, in combination with substance abuse and multiple losses, put this population at high risk for suicide. We suggest that, given the growing prevalence of pathological gambling, suicide and suicide prevention in this population should be further studied.

Gee, sounds like they were having a lot of fun.

History...and clearing up some stuff

[axoi]

I've seen that the usual slashdot crowd is a little lax on history. Here are a few tidbits that I know:

1. Gaming accounting systems started around 1978. It was a Bally that started it, I believe. Running on a PDP11 in the back room. Keeping meter, drop and win percentage histories as required by gaming control.

2. Slot machines have been hooked up since that time using plain serial lines. Most use a form of encryption for the amounts and ticket validation ids.

3. This server based gaming thing isn't new but its just now starting to get approvals from GLI and NGCB ( gaming commisions in the US. ) The hard part has always been getting a hard drive into the dumb terminal. My guess is they finally found a way around that. That way they could just download the paytables ( not the personality which is the hold percentage which is heavily regulated BTW ) and not all the graphics and game code.

I do know that the NGCB looks at trend analysis of payoff data to confirm hold % over a period of time.

wow...old news

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Vegas and have done work for a certain casino and I can tell you that they've been on a computerized system like this for quite a while. I've been there at least a year and theyve had it the whole time. The system they have is made by ITG and slot machines send all their data to a cluster of MS windows servers. From there they can extract statistics, view statistical anomolies for investigation, change payouts (if they wanted), etc.
 
  BTW, the system some people refer to on blackjack tables is something separate completely. It is called Mindplay and basically uses a piece of software in the security office to detect 'card counting' patterns by knowing what cards have been played, what card are left, betting histories, etc. and alerts them by showing regular players as green seats at a table, suspicious players as orange seats and cheaters as red seats. These also have a small display about 2" sq in front of the dealer on the table to show them what the software sees.