Slashdot Mirror
Slot Machine with Bad Software Sends Players To Jail
dcollins writes "Previous discussions here have turned into debates over who is liable for faulty software: the programmers, the publisher, etc. Yahoo has a new option: perhaps the users are criminally liable for using the software. From the AP: 'Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against casino gamblers who won big on a slot machine that had been installed with faulty software ... A decision on whether to bring criminal charges could come in a couple of weeks, said John Colin, chief deputy prosecutor for Harrison County. He said 'criminal intent' may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.' Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?"
If you put $1 in the machine and got a $10 credit, I should think that the user would figure out that there's more going on than them just being "lucky".
As TFA says, the Casino contacted the winners about the fault, and several of them agreed to give back their winnings. (Total losses for the casino were nearly $500,000.) Criminal charges are being considered for the remainder of the two dozen people who exploited the machine. Those charges would result in the gambler getting hauled before a judge and made to prove that he thought that he was just "lucky" when the machine gave him a $10 credit for every $1 he put in.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'd say it's pretty #$@$ lucky to play a slot machine with bad software.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Don't send me to jail, I'm too young to waste away in the can!
Does that mean I'm going to be charged?
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
Intent is the key word, IE there has to be proof of intent, if you've been looking at the schematics / rom images for that machine and your skilled at reverse engineering, then you win big, well...
If your just average joe, then no.
Well that's bullshit.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
when you allow lawyers to breed.
they create shitheads like this.
If the legal profession even had the desire to not look worse than used car salesman they should be clamoring to have disbarred pieces fo shit like this.
OK. Isn't this why the State is supposed to certify this kind of stuff? That said, it's hard to tell. On the one hand, if you take advantage of an ATM machine, that's theft. On the other hand, the idea of a slot machine is to try to get money out of it, so if you find a way to do that (even it wasn't the way they intended) then you shouldn't get in trouble. Unless you are sticking your arm in the machine or zapping it with electricity or something else, you won. If you followed the rules (put money in, pulled levers/pushed buttons, won) then it should be yours even if the way you did it (maybe pulled level first, then hit buttons) caused it to malfunction.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, the casino should bear at least some of the responsibility for allowing a faulty machine to give away its money. I think it's entirely reasonable to expect them to inspect equipment for such glaring problems before installing it and letting the public have at it.
On the other hand, if a slot machine has the fact that it costs one dollar to play prominently displayed, and you get ten dollars' worth of credit when you insert your dollar, it's painfully obvious to any reasonable person that the machine is messed up. The people playing most certainly should have reported the error, or at the very least, not exploited it.
At the very least, I think the casino would--and should--have a very strong civil case against the people who exploited the bug and who didn't return the money. If the opposite happened, that people only got one dollar's worth of credit when they inserted a ten-dollar bill, you'd better believe there would have been hell to pay, and maybe even a lawsuit over it. Just because the error is in favor of the customer instead of the company doesn't shift the morality of the issue. As a matter of public relations, though, it might be in the casino's best interest not to push the issue, or to push the issue with the people who programmed the slots incorrectly instead of their paying customers.
As for criminal charges, although I think that exploiting the machines is a pretty scummy thing to do, I have a hard time thinking it should be escalated to the level of a crime. Like I said, the casino should bear some responsibility for the mistake. Even if exploiting the machine should be considered some sort of theft or cheating, what happened could be considered enticement to commit a crime that one wouldn't otherwise normally commit. That's entrapment, and that is illegal itself.
...is not to play at all. What if I think that other machines have faulty software because I have lost all of my money? Do I have a case now if I try to bring charges against the casino?
Did Zonk even read the article?
The users are at fault. For every $1 they inserted, they received $10 in credit. Unless they were blind, there is no way they could not know about this error.
Here in Manhattan Beach, I found a gas station that gives me premium for $0.41/gallon. Apparently, whoever set the pump price screwed up, as the posted price was $4.09/gallon, but they don't notice because no one else at the gas station used premium. I must have gotten hundreds of dollars of free gas off that one pump so far. Does that mean I can be jailed? Just because I'm taking advantage of someone else's screwup?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
FTFA: The machine at Caesars Indiana credited gamblers $10 for each dollar they inserted because the software wasn't designed for U.S. currency, state police said. More than two dozen people played the machine before one gambler alerted Caesars employees.
If Caesars was so negligent that they put out machines not designed for US currency without testing them or having their vendor test them, then they deserve to lose the money.
I find it hard to fathom that a casino would install a slot machine without even testing it. You would think the first thing they would do is verify that the machine accepts money and giving it a whirl. I'm sure they have some way of doing this in a test mode to verify it's functioning. I'm not condoning the people who took advantage of the situation, they should return the money. But sheesh, who does the casino have to blame but for themselves?
This is analagous to abusing a bug in the system for personal gain. The money gained illegally is just camoflaged by the fact that it is supposed to give money at random times. I'm with the prosecutors on this one. If people that know their are bugs (hypothetically) and abuse them to get money from a bank machine should be sent to jail, so should people who do this on gambling machines (instead of reporting the bug).
"The machine at Caesars Indiana credited gamblers $10 for each dollar they inserted
the machine was not giving out more wins, it was multiplying money 10x with 100% probability. the users could clearly see that. Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?" hell yeah!
while pressing criminal charges sounds unreasonable, "lucky" ones are not innocent either.
"Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?"
Kind of like when the A Lottery was rigged back in the 70's/80's. There was a record payout on the combo "666". Why? Because rumor got around to play sixes and fours.
Word gets out when gamblers figure out something is going on. Assuming the software was actually faulty and not rigged, my guess is that it took about an hour for word to get out that machine x was paying out WAY over the average, and then folks flocked to it.
Can they be prosecuted? Doubt it - how does the state prove that someone acted on a rumor with intent to defraud.
Should they be prosecuted? Maybe, depending on the level of sophistication.
Think of the case of the armored car whose door popped open and someone grabbed the cash (also in PA IIRC). All tehy did was grab up cash on the street, but they knew full well it was someone elses money and that something was wrong with what they did.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
While I agree with your feelings on the oversimplified summary I question whether the Casino's loss of $500,000 matters. As a rule the systems are setup in gambling so that the Casino has an expected payoff. That is, the balance is deliberately tilted towards the operators. When the Casino loses money due to their own negligence (installing broken systems is negligent) then I find it immaterial whether they lost more or less money. I also find the idea that they should be deserving of sympathy immaterial.
Think about it this way. In a bookstore or grocery the company is negligent if they put the wrong price on something and then let it be sold as such. However obtaining items under such situations do not result in criminal prosecutions. All that a Casino gives is the chance to win more than you pay, albeit a carefully rigged chance that is not in your favor. In this case they screwed up and gave too much of a chance. The fault here should lie with the Casino not the players. It was internal negligence not external. Proving a crime on the players' part seems a little odd of an interpretation to me.
I'm just surprised that increasing their chances by 10x was enough to give the customers an edge!
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
So, you make a defective product and then put it out for public use without telling anyone it's defective, and probably even deny it for quite a while, and then sue everyone who uses this publically accessible product thing? Sounds like the operator is guilty of entrapment.
Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?
When all the average Joe had to do was insert a dollar to get back $10 or $20, as in *no* game play at all, that's not "luck", that's "a stupid idiot who thinks he can rip off a casino".
If someone came up to a machine, and stuck a buck in and got back $10 without doing anything *or knowing the situation* and only did it once, I'd say the casino needs to suck it up and eat it.
But when people are lining up and (some of them) shoving $100 in to get $1000 out, that's not "luck" or "the way it goes", that's called "theft". And those who knowingly did it need to be knowingly prosecuted and knowingly be required to knowingly pay the piper.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Well, lets assume that you walk past an ATM that is spitting out thousands of dollars in money. If you grab a bag and fill 'er up, should you really be entitled to the money? Granted, yes the bank is liable for this (for using a product with faulty software), but i doubt there is anybody dumb enough to state, in good conscience, that they think the money should be theirs because they got "lucky".
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i remember seeing a story about a guy named ronald dale harris. long story short he was a guy that was high up gaming control board and supposed to be making the slot machines secure against a user compromising / altering them for higher payouts. he ended up writing his own version of the embedded software that runs the slot machines and flashing it to several different machines in vegas. it worked something along these lines. if you just played the machine normally youd almost never see the benefit of the modified software, but, if you did thing in a particular order youd jackpot every time. like, for instance; put 1 coin in. bet one row, spin. put 2 coins in, bet one row, spin. put 1 coin in, bet one row, jackpot.
he ended up getting busted because he was more of a computer nerd than a criminal. (he discovered the random number generator used for keno wasnt exactly random, but, he couldnt play it because employees are barred from playing. he had a friend that would do it for him, but the dumbasses stayed in the same room and used their real names. brilliant?)
whenever i go to harrahs, i try various weird combinations in different machines (wheel of fortune progressive ftw.)
if i ever do find a glitched machine, youd better bet your ass ill exploit it. how many billions of people a year do the casinos exploit? yeah yeah, i know, its their choice what they do to themselves- but i never saw anyone defend a drug dealer by saying it was his clients fault for doing drugs. addiction is addiction. 'you can find your crack in all sorts of things'.
They should have invested in Professor Frink's Gambletron 2000. Then none of this would have occurred.
Professor Frink, Professor Frink! He'll make you laugh, He'll make you think...
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
If the machine had been loaded with real money and dropped real tokens, the casino would have noticed the problem much sooner.
This is the same problem with people using credit cards instead of using cash.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The Slashdot blurb is not very accurate. Makes it sound like the gamblers wouldn't notice the fault. Instead, the machine credited the players $10 each time $1 was inserted, according TFA. So the gamblers can't claim they didn't know the machine was faulty.
Still, I think it's the responsibility of the casino to ensure the machines are working correctly. This is just like having an ATM spewing $100 bills at random, and expecting people to not take the money.
I also think the casino is also doing a very bad, very dumb move by publicizing the issue. They lost close to 500,000 (small change for a casino) and want it back. But now the press is all over how Caesars Indiana is considering suing its patrons because their own machines failed - definetely high potential for PR damage.
(Once, I put 1.5 euros in an automatic vending machine. The machine gave me my coffee, and returned 2 euros, which I obviously kept. Should the owner of the machine sue me?)
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
So whoever gained from the malfunction is responsible provided they were involved in implementing the technology.
Hence, if the machines were faulty the casino would be responsible and would have to give back anything they gained due to the fault.
So what of these politicians hell bent on using voting machines and resisting any attempt at creating an audit trail?
Prosecutors are considering criminal charges agains casino houses who won big on games involving people who have faulty perceptions of their chances of winning ...
...for being dim-wittedly negligent in their public service, and for endangering the public with their stupidity.
Seriously though: Why are people like this given power?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
If I give the guy at the racetrack window a ten and he gives me a ticket that says it was a $100 bet, that's not my fault. A slot machine is essentially an agent of the establishment in question, just like a dealer at a card table, or the guy at the racetrack window. They count your money and either return some of it or not, depending on the outcome of some specific circumstance. The machine counted badly, but that's not the fault of the players...maybe they should fire the machine or the machine's manager.
The casino obviously noticed the problem, and presumably has a way to prevent it from happening again other than litigation, otherwise they'll go broke from court costs. In this case, I'd have to say that the casino should suck it up, learn from the experience, and test their machines better.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
It's the responsibilty of the vendor to verify the systems are in compliance. If the error is in favor of the consumer, then there should be no recourse; if the error is in favor of the house then it's false advertising and the consumer is entitled to compensation. The house has control over all aspects of the game; the player has none. Imho, its similar to a contract: if one party writes the contract, then any errors therein are generally adjudicated in favor of the non-writing party.
Casinos are the rare exception to simple rules like this: anyone caught playing by the rules and winning too much is prosecuted, hence the prohibition against car counting in blackjack, which is simply smart play. They give you sheets to keep track of roulette spins, and will let you make notes on dice throws all day long.
To put it in simpler terms: You cut the cake, your brother chooses which piece. If you're the one cutting the cake, don't get pissed if your brother chooses the bigger half.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you put $10 into this slot machine and it gave you $1 in credit, you'd be up shit creek. If you put $100 in and it gave you $0 credit, you'd be lucky to get the casino to comp your breakfast because you're sure as hell not getting $100 back.
!sympathy here.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Harrison County, Indiana is the legal entity considering criminal charges against players, probably at the behest of Caesar's.
I find the summary wording to be at least misleading, if not defamatory.
Beyond that, from TFA, the machine was crediting ten dollars for every dollar inserted, not paying out with more wins. It was clearly, demonstrably, and obviously faulty. So the answer to the question "Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?" is yes. They knew damned well they were getting $10 worth of chances for every $1. It was as obvious as finding that someone had left their wallet at the machine and pocketing it.
What the heck is going on here editors? This summary is beyond shoddy.
--
Toro
It wasn't that long ago that the author of Microsoft Word was banned from a bunch of casinos (temporarily) for what he described as being too lucky at video poker.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/17709
Less than a half a million is chump change to them, considering how much they rip people off every day. The one time they screw up and actually give money away in someone else's favor, they send them to jail.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
No, but if you win enough you will be harrassed by security and possibly removed from the premises without your winnings with very little legal recourse. That's one of the many reasons why I never set foot into those places.
The machine was buggy, the people knew it, they need to return the money when asked. There was no fraud (which usually involves jail time). It's as if there was an ATM that displayed 'press here to get $9'. Naturally people would press it... a few thousand times. Those people should be forced to return the money, but jail time for something like that is ridiculous. It's not as if the casino operators go to jail if a 'bug' makes them more money than they expected, so why should their customers?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
There's quite a few responses here that say that the player saw a way to take advantage of the rules of play and proceeded to do so. I'd like to submit that the casinos make a regular practice of knowing the rules of play for every game in their inventory and use that knowledge to insure that the customers will consistently lose money. So if the casino fixes the game so that you lose it's just business as usual. But if the casino fixes the game so that you win then you're stealing from the casino? What kind of twisted logic is this?
Keep in mind that the players did not break the machine - they simply played the machine using the rules and conditions that the casino programmed into it. If the casino made a mistake in the programming, that's the casino's problem. If they lost money, that's just one of the risks of doing business.
What's happened is that they've created a system where the casinos are virtually guaranteed to make money. They rig the games so that the casino always comes out ahead - and as long as you lose when you play then everything is peachy. But if you win consistently you'll find that they don't consider it to be a game at all. Especially if you find and exploit a flaw in one of their games; not just things like a badly programmed slot machine, but things like counting cards at the blackjack table. They'll turn you over to the law and press for charges for your attempt to play their games by THE SAME RULES that the casino uses.
Does anyone here seriously think that observing the action on a casino game and adjusting your play style to take maximum advantage of the possibilities presented is a crime?
The Nevada Gaming Commission [PDF] (As an example, I know the article isn't about Las Vegas) heavily regulates slot machines, their software, and their payout schedule. Machines that deviate from the payout schedule are inspected and machines whose software processes are not open to inspection and audit are not allowed on the floor. In this case it would be, prima facia, a crime to install software that was not audited by the authorities onto a machine. IANAL, so I can't tell you if proving criminal intent would be required, but I suspect that the threshold would be minimal, assuming that it could be proven that the users inserted the bug.
In this case, it doesn't appear as though the bug was inserted by the users, just (sigh) exploited in order to win. These cases are well litigated in Nevada (though probably not in Indiana/Kentucky), and elsewhere. The trend seems to be (Scroll Down to "Overpayment to Patron") that if it can be proven that the gaming patron didn't involve him or herself in the actual flaw of the machine, then not only are they not liable, but the Casino must still pay out the winnings.
I have little sympathy for casino operators. It's their job to avoid hemorrhaging money, which according to the huge profits they have been raking in, they have been quite successful.
As for people being able to tell the difference between a faulty machine and lucky, I can't say with certainty that even a majority of the gamblers at a casino are rational intellectual people. I've found many gamblers are extremely superstitious and it seems possible to me that people playing a slot machine can actually believe they are lucky.
for the record I hate video slots. if it doesn't have gears and go "clunk clunk clunk" when you pull the lever, then it just ain't got no class.
--
I believe RTFA is bad luck.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Does your 'average' user even know that most 'mechanical' slot machines are computer-driven? Many posters on this forum assumed that the slot machines were video slot machines! The article doesn't even say that.
My point is this: having played slot machines before, they don't count credits in terms of '$', but in terms of 'points'. Some slot machines really do give you 10 credits (pulls) for $1 (these are called 'dime' slots).
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I've seen the most screwups when checking out of grocery stores.
Of course, in thoses cases, it's typically in the store's favor, it seems, but there have been times when the price rung up is a few cents less than what it said on the shelves. (of course, the last one I actually noticed was in the stores's favor, not mine, and I wasn't willing to wait around for a price check)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Is the intent here criminal? All they are doing is entering into a business transaction that the other party has agreed to. Is putting money into a bank account that pays too high an interest also criminal?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If the software lets you do it without any modification, then abuse it all you want. It's the fault of the casino for not checking their hardware, and there is an implied contract between the gambler and the casino that the casino will pay all debts owed to the gambler from use of the casino's machines. The gambler did nothing that, in my mind, is technically wrong. It may be prick thing to do, but it should not be illegal.
convert electronic voting machines into slot machines!
I suppose if customers didn't even play and cashed out right away they knew and should give it back. Maybe even have to sue a couple. Actual criminal charges is a bit much as thats almost entrapment. I'd ignore anyone that played more than a round or 2 and cashed out as winnings.
Unless it clearly states everything in dollars, very unlikely as the machine didn't even recognize dollars intially!, they need to leave some room for doubt. Lots of games convert to credits. Someone could assume a typo in the price schedule, etc.
1) Release defective software to public
2) Sue everyone who uses it
3) Profit!
The kept giving me free alcohol, so how can the expect me to observe there was a problem?
Really it's the Casinos loss. To bad, so sad. Thats the risk when introducing automatic systems that can fail.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well it sounds illegal but it requires looking at two things.
Did they repeatedly use the system or have knowledge of the problem before they put money into the system the first time?
If the answer to either of those two are yes then it's possible it's criminal intent and there's a case.
But allow me to raise another point Two situations arise. A. You go to the grocer's and you give a 5 to the cashier, who in turn gives you back a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
B. You go to an ATM. The ATM gives you a 50 instead of a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
Last I checked the answer is no to those, unless there's some sort of agreement between you and the bank/store which says any mistakes are decided in the store's favor and you must alert them of all mistakes. Which means if the players were playing and didn't realize the mistake, they shouldn't be required to give the money back.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From the article, it appears that the casinos have a way of tracking down every user from the casino card, and asking them to return their ill-gotten gains.
So my question is this: Imagine that the machine was faulty in the other direction, that it was rigged to never come up with a win, no matter how long you played. Would the casinos go to similar lengths to contact their patrons after the fact and send them reimbursement checks? If not, then I say, screw 'em.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
So, let take this further. Let's say that by some random chance cards are arranged and a particular player wins every hand of blackjack. Should that player be prosecuted? Let's say that a roulette wheel is defective, and players take advantage of the wheel? Should those players be prosecuted? Let's say that the person running a craps table does not know the rules, and is letting people win. Do the player get prosecuted?
No, because gambling is all about random events. That yoou might get a card, that you might hit a jackpot, that the dice rolls right. The random even that you might get a broken machine. The gambling promoter, OTOH, tries to prevent random events that they can control. The broken machine, the incompetent employee, the card counter walking into their legitimate business. They have the right and responsibility to control those things, but as gambling is about chance, and it about losing and winning on the basis of chance, there is no way that a gambling promoter can complain when the customer does the same thing as the promoter.
Remember the successful gambling promoter controls the random variables as much as is possible so they the average rate of win is skewed toward the establishment. There is nothing wrong with this. But when the gambling promoter makes a mistakes, that is just like a retailer making a mistake. If a retailer accidently sells a product for an unreasonable low price, or gives a refund that is too high, or packs double merchandise, the customer might have a moral imperative to be nice and tell the merchant of the mistake, but certainly we do not send police to pick up the customer.And so why the person in this story might be morally wrong, I do not that any laws were broken. Especially considered that a slot machine is not like an ATM, where the behavior is predictable and a reasonable person knows or should know when it is broken. It is supposed to random. If someone magically starts winning, why they hell not should they think they are just lucky? I know people who time trips to casino once a month, and they come back with hundreds of dollars. They are playing the odds, which is perfectly legal.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"Someone robs her. Did she deserve to lose her money? Probably. Does the person who robbed her deserve to be charged with with a crime? Yes."
No, and Yes.
Lets actually make the analogy at least a little like what happened here, mmm'k?
Person has a bag of cash.
The bag has a hole in it and someone picks up the cash.
Does the person holding the bag 'deserve' to loose money? no
has the person who picked up the money committed a crime? No
Is anyone liable to tell the person about the hole in the bag? No
Just because there was gain, doesn't mean somebody did something wrong.
Shit Happens.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You lose by 1-2% with perfect basic strategy but no card counting. Their advantage is in you having to go first (and possibly go bust).
Also, simple card counting is too easy to spot, because you have to change the amount that you're bidding drastically to make any money. They can just ban you from the casino for it... among other things. Don't forget that casinos effectively control places like Las Vegas, not to mention their laws.
Does that mean I can be jailed? Just because I'm taking advantage of someone else's screwup?
Yes. If you had any idea that the price was unintentionally set that low, you're criminally responsible for theft.
If the gas was priced several cents lower than it should have been, that's not an obvious error and it could be argued reasonably that you didn't notice. If it's priced at 1/10th the price of other gas and everyone knows that higher octane gas costs more, you'd have a very, very hard time convincing a judge you're truly that stupid you didn't realize you were taking advantage of the price.
Even if the price was identical or slightly less than lower grades, the line of questioning would go something like "aren't you aware that premium gas always costs more than other grades?" "Did you see any promotional materials indicating a special?" "Did you confirm the price with any of the staff despite noticing the lower than usual price?"
Please help metamoderate.
"Did they repeatedly use the system or have knowledge of the problem before they put money into the system the first time?"
no that is not criminal. It is certianly rude.
Even if I know the cashiers gives too much change, I still wouldn't be committing a crime.
I worked in Casinos a very long time ago, so I have exactly no sympathy for the Casino, or any casino, and I wonder if the guy should sue the casino for setting false expectation for future visits.
I hate casinos.
No I wouldn't actually support that lawsuit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, just because a casino might not give you a refund if a machine jams, it is not morally, ethically or legally right for you to exploit a fault in a machine, any more than it would be right to keep a sack of money that fell off of a slot-manager's cart without their having noticed. Nor is it right to keep extra change given by any cashier. Many dishonest people would do so, but that doesn't make it right, either.
About the only honest defenses I can think of would be if a player thought the casino was running some kind of promotion, giving $10 in bonus for every $1 entered. (No reasonable person who is familiar with casinos or slots would believe that, though). Or if a person were so oblivious from free cocktails or OCD playing behavior that they really didn't notice. Other than that, though, there's no question which side of the honest/dishonest fence this lies on.
Now we can go forward with charges for each time a company does not repair a coin operated machine, and makes a profit from doing so.
:)
My old land lord knew his coin-op washer was make more money than it should due to it's little problem. He could be a criminal if he collected enough money! Yippie!
So when you lose money on that pay phone, coin-op washer, video game, and so on, alter the owner and check next week. If it's still not fixed call your own foaming at the mouth DA.
Seriously, these places make money off of people based on machines that pay out less than they take in. Now their upset because one machine out of 10,000 for a little gave out more than it took in. When I was 12 I found a Pac-Man machine that would return my 25 cents to me each time I put it in. Soon there was 100 credits on the machine. I sure did not have criminal intent...well no more than anyone else at 12.
On an unrelated not the GOP has endorsed the slot machine company for the next election's voting machines!
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
The argument that slot machine players should have known better is silly. Gambling is a veritable tax on the innumerate. Although some gamblers are very knowledgeable about odds, most play because they either don't care about the math as a whole or don't understand that they will always loose in the long run to the house.
1. Get wasted
2. Play slots
3. "Judge, how was I supposed to know it was faulty? I was drunk out of my skull!"
4. Profit
No ???'s needed.
I didn't know SCO employees posted here!
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
Sue your customers! It's the best way to make money while building public trust!
I'm glad to see casinos are using a broad range of knowledge to act on this issues.
Seriously, if this gets around, casinos are going to lose money every day based on the people not going there out of fear.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I am totally flabbergasted by all of the people here. The number of you who seem to think that it is perfectly ok to bilk the Casino as long you're not caught is mind numbing. Would you steal from an old lady if you knew you wouldn't get caught or if the state didn't consider it "against the law"? Would you rape? Torture? It is moments like this that I understand how depraved situations like Nazi Germany happened: people so used to doing what their government tells them it is ok and lawful.
The fact that the Casino is trying to take advantage of people and that they may not be run by the most moral of humans is no excuse either, these people were patronizing their establishments and threw themselves with the owners at that point.
I really thought the majority of geeks around here would be slightly more moral than the average... I might be wrong.
And we haven't even started with standardized testing or credit card billing policies.
When you put money into a slot machine you don't know how much is supposed to come out. That's the whole point, and that's what makes it "gambling".
There are slot machines in the world where you stick in a dollar and get a million in return (if you're lucky).
No sig today...
Ahhh, ethics. And what about the attendant and the small business owner that's just scraping by on the margin between what the market is charging him and what he's selling for...
I'm assuming this is either a mom-n-pop store or a franchisee, anyone else would have caught it quickly through tracking.
Mind you, I'd never let something like this get out on the floor.
However, it is VERY difficult to test machines with real currency.
The levels of security, just at a slot machine company are enough to make you want to scream.
Everything you do that involves real money has to be checked, rechecked and then checked some more.
That is, unless you want to put your own money into the machine. I was never one to carry a stack of hundred dollar bills in my pocket just to test company owned machines.
Once you're on the floor of the casino, it's absolutely ridiculous. In most jurisdictions, just touching a machine (with a gaming license and an ID badge, mind you) requires calling security, waiting for them to reposition a camera on you and waiting for an armed guard.
Accessing any of the parts of the machine that are close to the money (most have an additional strong box around the currency acceptor, with seperate keys for everything), normally requires at least 2 guards and a floor person. It's nearly impossible to do any real testing of a machine on the floor.
I'll concede that the bill acceptors should have been checked LONG before the machines ever got the casino. That was a terrifically stupid mistake. But, not one that would have been easily discovered on the casino floor.
Finally, regarding liability. Because of an NDA, I can't mention who I used to work for. But, we did release a machine once that had a paytable bug. The average slot machine has several millions of possible draws. Our test lab was basically a casino floor, with oscillators rigged up to push the play button as fast as the machine could spin. We filled them up with large amounts ($100k+) of cash and left them spinning 24/7. We'd tested this release, on the whole lab, for several weeks. Unfortunately, we didn't ever hit the right section of the play sequence to trigger this bug. The particular bug was related to progressive payouts (those huge spinning dollar amounts above the machines). On our machine, there was only one combination that would award the progressive. Giving it about a 1/2,000,000 payout chance. The bug occured after a progressive hit and made future progressive wins more likely. We had one large casino call us after a particularly busy week. Our average was 1 progressive per month in this facility. They'd paid out 19 of them in a week. Additionally, our play volume was quite a bit higher then normal. After further examination, they found out that the people that had hit the progressives were related. We weren't ever sure if the people realized our paytable was borked or if they just thought they were lucky.
In the end, the casino paid the people and took it out of my former employer's hide.
I think that Johnny Law is just blowing some smoke to get his name in the paper. I can promise you who will end up paying for this mistake.
Actually, the fine article seems to indicate that a gambler reported that machine. The casino likely didn't know before then. Their misfortune that she wasn't the first gambler.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
...has somewhere on it a message like: "Any malfunction of this machine voids the transaction."
That and basic morality side with the casinos.
-Michael, here in sunny Las Vegas, NV (105-degrees today)
When you play a slot machine you don't know how much money is going to come out for every dollar you put into it - and that's the whole point!
The "if a shop gives you too much change" argument is bogus because you know beforehand exactly how much money you're supposed to receive in return. This isn't true for a slot machine.
No sig today...
And who is to say that it wasn't the **customer's** dollar that one--as opposed to the 9 allegedly faulty credits issued by the machine due to no fault of the customer?
Customers don't get "do overs" when they lose, neither should the casino...
I don't see what all the fuss is about. I always count the cars when playing blackjack, and I've never made a penny off it.
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
You imply that gas is too expensive.
However, demand still up. Classic economics would argue it is not too much.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The idea that a customer of a casino should be held criminally liable for bad software on a slot machine is absurd. It's even more ridiculous than throwing out card counters for "cheating".
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Your post is pompous, pious, and utterly ridiculous.
I have two questions: 1) Which country was the software designed for? 2) If I went to the country that the software was designed and put U.S Currency into the slot machine would it give me 10 credits?
In general, one should not take advantage of mistakes. Like the guy who is getting premium gas for 0.41$ a gallon. That freeloader smooching gas
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Vinnie, I keep telling you we can't say your wife's fur coat was lost in the slot machine. All these otha losses are OK, but the coat claim will have to go into the fire sale next month."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Follow me here.
Someone WILL take the suckers money.
The money should go to its best use.
By definition the best use for money is for HornWumpus to spend it on booze and women.
Ergo it is an immoral act to let a sucker keep his money.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No, the manufacturer would probably argue that the machine in question was never meant to be used in America in the first place, so it's Harrah's fault for importing that machine to Indiana.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Looks like some programmer messed up some mundane detail like a decimal point or something.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
As I said above: It's an immoral act to let a sucker keep his money.
By taking him for all he's worth he should at least notice he is screwing up, saving him future losses.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
One argument I've always had over the years in various networked video games I've played (from the original Doom on down the line) is what happens when a bug in the game allows a player to do something he shouldn't, particularly if said bug gives the player an advantage over his opponents. Some will say, "hey! That's cheating!" and others will say, "well, if the game program allowed it then it's legitimate." Both points of view are valid, which is where the conflict comes in.
I remember one FPS where there was a spot in one level where a player could walk through a wall and hide inside it and shoot anyone on the outside. This wasn't a game that had holographic walls or anything like that: it was an error in the level design. I racked up quite a few kills with that one until my friends caught on. At that point what had been a free-for-all turned into five-against-one.
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Who is to define luck? By going to a state regulated ( and inspected ) gaming facility i can logically assume everything is on the up and up.
If i keep winning, i have to assume its just my day, and id be damned if i would stop while im winning.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Blackjack is a winnable game, but it is not "a simple set of rules" that will do it.
The rules you're referring to are called "Basic Strategy," which is a set of rules that will maximize your odds of winning in any given situation. All casinos I've ever been in allow you to actually keep Basic Strategy notes with you for reference. I've even seen them sold on cards in the gift shops of some casinos.
However, this set of rules will not give you an edge over the casino. All it does is lower the casino's edge over you.
The rules that will win at blackjack depend on counting cards. You have to keep track in your head of what's been played, at least in general terms of high cards vs. low cards. As low cards are played out of a shoe, the odds of the player winning go up, because high cards tend to bust dealer hands. The key is to bet more money when the shoe has a disproportionate number of high cards in it, and to bet less when the shoe has a normal distribution or when the shoe has a disproportionate number of low cards in it.
In some places such as Las Vegas, casinos have the legal right to bar players they suspect of counting cards. In others such as Atlantic City, they don't. In those places, casinos compensate by having dealers at tables with card counters shuffle the shoes much more often, sometimes after every single hand. By doing so, any advantage a card counter may have is negated, and the odds will always be in favor of the casino.
Obviously, pit bosses and security personnel in casinos are trained to spot card counters. The casino has computers itself that can analyze the odds of the player and casino at any point in a shoe, and if they see players vary their bets according to where those odds lie, they know they've got a counter on their hands and can ban them. Casinos have also been known to hire card counters to watch for betting variations of other counters and report them. Also, casinos maintain databases of known card counters so that professionals are instantly spotted and never even get a chance to play in their own favor.
But the set of rules to be a counter is not simple. In fact, most casinos actually LIKE it when people who think they can count cards come. The thing is, if you screw it up, you will lose a lot of money, because you'll be betting large amounts when the odds are not in your favor. Casinos get far more money from people who screw up card counting than they lose to people who can actually pull it off. For one thing, you're having to keep running counts of at least two numbers (more, if you want better odds) in your head. For another, you're actually having to play the game, and the guy sitting beside you at the table doesn't want to wait 30 seconds for you to decide whether to hit or stand after every card. For another, when you're trying to count cards, you're typically trying to do it in some non-obvious way so that if you're successful, you won't be banned or shuffled up on. It's hard to act all casual like you're not intensely concentrating on something when in reality you are. For yet another, casinos are by their nature very distracting places, with lots of commotion, yelling, dinging slot machines, and so on. As if that weren't enough, while you're at the tables, you'll have waitresses who are generally very attractive coming by repeatedly offering you free drinks, and counting cards while drunk is infinitely harder than counting them while sober.
Caesars lost $487,000 on the machine during that time, state police said.
Did they really "lose" money or did they just not make as much as they normally would have? Did the machine pay out during this time, or is it that players got to play 10x more per dollar, and therefore Caesars "lost" money?
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Yes, casinos are about as watchful a business as there is.
Still, mistakes will always be made in every business. It doesn't give people the unmitigated right to exploit them. "They should have caught me" is not a valid defense.
If he's lucky.
You smart /.-ers know as well as I do that you would recognize this error for what it was instantly (unless drunk, then it might take you all of $3 instead of the first dollar) and not only that, you'd take the machine for all it had without thinking twice and walk away grinning like a fool.
This applies to a good 80% of you, and you know it in your hearts. It's easy to justify, odds are that you've already lost a good chunk of what you brought into the casino to begin with (and unless you are a professional gambler, resentment is at least a seed, and most likely a blooming tree in your heart over this) and the chance to stick it to 'the man' would be impossible to pass up.
The only people who honestly claim they would not take advantage are a/ non-gamblers who rarely if ever have ventured into a casino, b/ stakeholders in a gambling business or c/followers of a strong moral code, and not likely to be in a casino anyway.
Devil bunnies! I snort the nose! Lucifer! Banana! Banana!
I live right next door in Redondo Beach. Please tell me where this gas station is. Please please please please!
Pretty please?
Just kidding of course. Posting it on Slashdot would be one sure-fire way to put an end to that good thing. The gas station would become the first brick and mortar "site" to ever be "Slashdotted".
Besides which, my stupid, annoying conscience would never let me take advantage of that anyway. I'd be the guy that started feeling guilty and told the station owner about it.
Isn't this exactly what all the players are praying for?
Actually something like this happened already with an ATM. Was in 2006 IIRC. Hacked ATM machine was giving out far too much money ($20 bill instead of $5 bills.) Finally someone reported it (like at the casino) after about nine days.
It is highly unlikely that the ATM was hacked. There were many such incidents when ATMs were originally introduced. Basically early ATMs in the U.S. offered multiple denominations, $5, $10, and $20 for example. Each had its own magazine for bills. Occasionally there were human errors where the person loading the machine would put the wrong denomination in a magazine, for example putting $20s in the $5 magazine. This quickly led to the situation where nearly all ATMs became single denomination machines, $20s.
FWIW in Europe this is far less of an issue, the Euro denominations come in different sizes so it would be far easier to key the magazine to prevent misloading.
No, the state would track the casino down and make the casino pay some big fine to the state.
If the state doesn't do this, the invisible hand will eventually notice that the casino is paying out too little. People will go to less depressing casinos, and the tight casino will shut down. Trust me, casinos advertise that they have better payouts than other casinos when they can.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
One -little- item just about everyone has overlooked so far: One single slot machine paid out over $500,000 and obviously did not do it in a short time period. The time period is not stated in the article, but since there were multiple "suspects" I can only assume that whomever won, played it cool and did not get greedy. Regardless, the casino's SECURITY should have caught this anomaly, let alone the slot techs. Also, I don't buy the "faulty" software bit either. The slot was obviously NOT tested, as it did not even recognize US currency.
Lastly, the "suspects" should not have to give back their winnings as there is no way to distinguish between actual winnings and the errant credits; I.E. gamblers are greedy and are going to see if they can win the jackpot with their free credits.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Just to post another analogy into the mix: If a store post an incorrect price, and it can be reasonably assumed that its a valid price (ie -- an incorrect decimal place usually doesn't cut it), they have to honor it until a public correction is posted. Usually they'll post the correction near the entrance, the sales bulletin board, and near the item itself. At least that's the way it was were I grew up.
The bottom line is that if a business entity makes a mistake, they have to eat it. If there's culpability on the part of the slot manufacturer for their faulty software, then its up to the casino to go after them to re-coup their loss.
Was it dishonest to exploit the machine knowingly? Absolutely. Did everyone know? probably not. How can you separate those who did from those who didn't? You can't. You cannot prove to a reasonable degree of certainty that any of these people *knew* they were exploiting the machine. No proof? No Criminal.
Any judgment you can make will be solely on the perception of someone as honest or dishonest -- that infamous and often untrustworthy "gut instinct", and even at that I would still maintain that there's no criminal act to be guilty of in the first place.
The casino always wins in the end; It is THEIR responsibility to make sure GAMES OF CHANCE are working properly.
This happened because either somebody didn't do their job, or there was inadequate quality control.
Personally, I think the casino should eat it, I don't think this is, or should be considered a criminal act - If charges end up being filed and this goes in front of a judge I don't think it's on the players to prove they just thought they were lucky, I think the casino would have to prove they they KNEW they were taking advantage, (and even if they did, I still think it's on the casino).
AFAIAC the furthest something like this should be able to go is civil court and ONLY if they can prove a player who made money off this didn't return it when asked.
...and have mechanical slot machines? The way they're built are bulletproof. I have a machine from 1935 that plays quarters, and after a restoration after sitting around, it runs like clockwork. There aren't any problems, there isn't any software to program, and because of that, there's no risk of having any software errors that cost you money! It's plain and simple.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
Once you step into a casino all bets are off, so to speak. It's one big game from the moment you walk in to the moment you walk out. If you leave with more money than you came in with you win. If you leave with less money you lose. Short of committing a violent act, anything else is (or should be) fair game.
Or to put it another way; Do you think any players would have been contacted if the error was in the casino's favour?
Caesars lost $487,000 on the machine during that time, state police said.
Assuming "more than two dozen" is still less than fifty, we're talking about people pulling out $10,000 or more on average from what was apparently a dollar slot machine.
Since a typical dollar slot machine doesn't spit out thousands of dollars in winnings to multiple players in a row, I think the facts in the article do pretty clearly "suggest" that several players recognized that the machine was faulty, pumping in bills, and, well, stealing from the casino.
Frigging herd of hypocrites!
Kathryn Ford of Louisville, Ky., the gambler who alerted the casino, said going after the other patrons was unfair. When a slot machine jams and gamblers lose money, they don't get it back, she said. "It doesn't work in the reverse," Ford said. "They need to forget it and move on."Once when I was a kid I played a Chuck E Cheese game that wasn't working right, it was giving out 50 tickets a play instead of 5. I'd better start packing my bags and buying that ticket to Canada now. :(
>> 'criminal intent' may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.'
The mathematics of gambling is to always be in the house's favor. That's faulty by design. You simply cannot win over the long term because the odds are against you from the start. So why talk about a "broken" machine when the entire concept of gambling and its false promises is broken by default?
It's not right to say that "the casino should bear some responsibility for the mistake." IMHO, it's the programmer that should be bearing responsibility for this mishap.
I seem to remember a fairly good cheat in early Star Castle games where one could conceivably play forever (hang on the edge and double back to the opposite edge as the star castle fires at you). This was eventually corrected by the programmers responsible for it, and no doubt countless coins were lost to this exploit before it was fixed. But c'mon -- was it criminal for any of us who took advantage of that exploit? And what is an exploit, if not a programming oversight?
Programmers and Developers should rejoice. All of the pay, none of the responsibility. Just shift it on to your customers.
There is a reason why in certain mission critical applications, Software Engineers are required. I would want someone with a license they can loose programming my slot machines, not some code jockey.
What's the charge, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
..but you cannot rob slot machine owners?
One argument I've always had over the years in various networked video games I've played [...]
Those are PvP games. Completely different environment. You're playing against your peers, not the house.
He was supposed to give her back $90 in change.
You found someone's wallet? Are there rules requiring it to be turned in?
What about the armored car that accidentally drops a pallet of money on the sidewalk, and you move it inside your house, is that ok?
You mean just like all the machines everyone uses to cast their votes with too, right?
Actually, I know you're right. In fact Debra Bowen campaigned on this fact last year when she won Sec. of State for California, (that 'slots had better accountancy processes (etc.) than ballot boxes). Thank goodness she won such a powerful and influential state, and is now implementing red hat testing now, hopefully in-time for the next election as she plans.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
>>B. You go to an ATM. The ATM gives you a 50 instead of a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
>>Last I checked the answer is no to those
Last I checked, you signed an agreement with the bank that specifies EXACTLY your level of responsibility in that area.
Plus, the minute you realize your account balance was not correct - you are bound to return the money by law or face criminal charges.
Mod Parent down!!!
What if I bought a $1.50 can of pop from the vending machine? Everyone knows the cost is 1/10 of this. Is that theft? Or I was talked into buying a $50 extended warranty? Or I bought a diamond for two months' salary? Nearly every company (the oil industry in particular) on the face of the earth has no problem taking advantage of people in the same manner.
Any chance that you have to rip off a casino, you should take it and take full advantage of it. Its just common sense
Is it the users fault that Ceasers was totally clueless when it comes to the subject of software validation testing. It was not the users fault that the software developer was a bunch of complete morons. This generates a dangerous precedent. It means that I can be sued for using a Microsoft product that has a known vulnerability even if the organization that I work for supplied the product. Either Cesars needs to step up and admit that they paid for crap software or the company that developed it needs to admit that they produced a piece of shit. To blame the user for someone elses incompetence is down right stupid.
Except that entrapment is only applicable to law enforcement. In cases like this, you could probably argue unclean hands, which should get you off the hook but is not illegal in itself.
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)
the machine is completing transaction on the companies behalf, its done, you cannot go back and change it later.
Don't use technology if you cannot understand/test/control it properly.
The persons involved had no influence on the software writers; no intent could exist.
had an employee done this mistake it would be his fault, the company would eat it, and fire him.
had someone blackmailed the employee or been in cahoots then yes.. both parties would be in trouble.
Is always at fault in cases such as this. A lack of investment in quality assurance processes is virtually always to blame. The casino/slot machine owner has the right to sue the publisher.
It is NOT the programmer, unless the programmer is also the publisher. It is not the programmer's job, nor is it considered an acceptable practice, for the programmer to perform all of the quality assurance testing. If the publisher sells it, the publisher takes full responsibility for it. Period.
Throwing the users in jail because they know that software is faulty on a slot machine? How are they really supposed to prove that the users knew? Can they afford to make that same assumption that just because several players got lucky at the same time and won at another slot machine, that they were all in collusion? Can casino owners afford to scare off their customers by canning customers who get lucky? That is one of the risks you take when you get into the gambling business. If you jail your customers for winning, people will go elsewhere and you will go out of business. Only a very stupid casino owner would even dare try to do such a thing. He has legal recourse against the publisher and that is it.
So a casino lost money and we're meant to feel bad?
Cry me a river.
This is just another way of showing that you can never win in a casino, so don't try.
People won, but they didn't really win.
When I was a kid, I knew about a certain jelly bean machine that was generous if you wiggled the knob. The mechanism was slightly faulty I guess. Regarding TFA, should I have been liable for knowlingly using a defective jelly bean machine and receiving 20% more beans than normal? Vendors keep an eye on the yield of machines and should know when profit declines. Gambling machine vendors have a legal responsibility to assure the gambling commission that the machines operates within certain performance boundaries. If they are not paying attention, they are not doing their jobs. Do gamblers have a legal responsibility to walk away from a machine that is paying off more often. Good luck with that :-)
i think intimidation is exactly what the prosecutor is doing here. the casino has bought the favor of law enforcement, and law enforcement responds in kind by saying they are thinking about prosecuting these people that got lucky. it really doesn't matter if they've got a case or not, the result is you frighten people into returning their winnings to the casino. it appears that John Colin is just one of their hired goons.
Now that the Casino has given proof that a machine can be made to give much more then what is required by law, it should be clear that there are machines that give much less. Machines that do not give you anything, or not nearly enough.
So all people who have lost should now start filing claims that they were on such a machine.
What is good for the goose...
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
When the casino takes every dollar some poor sucker has, it's fine. As soon as the casino loses a petty $500,000 (Surely not more than a days earnings for any sizeable casino), it's a crime..
Casino's (in theory) revolve around luck. In reality of course, they revolve around statistics and guaranteed winning odds. But if they actually revolved around luck like they should - people finding a way to exploit a fault in the system for a while is just _LUCK_, so the casino is just doing its job.
Will program for karma.
Give me a break, this is the casino's problem pure and simple. Anyone going into a casino to gamble is attempting to maximize their winnings in some fashion, at the same time the casino is going to great lengths to maximize their profits. These people beat the odds, the casino lost despite their best efforts(which obviously were not good enough.).
Seems to me that the casino got sold a broken machine. Going after the customers is biting the hand that feeds you. Seems like a slot machine, like most other things in life, should come with some kind of manufacturer's warranty and would be a much better target for recouping some of their losses?
but since the casino programs/sets the odds for their slot machines, I feel they should eat their loss. They have no regard for their patrons when they screw their machines down. Also, as previously eluded to, anyone who mentally counts cards- IS NOT CHEATING!!! How the hell can anybody be considered a cheater for being observant? Same as the guys who learned how to get dice to roll in their favor repeatedly. If they did not modify the dice- how can they be cheating?
"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer"- Jack Thompson
Suppose you own a restaurant in a part of town where there is a large population whose language you do not speak -- and, crucially, most of whom do not speak English. Now you ask one of the tiny bilingual minority to make up a sign saying in both languages "FOR THE ORPHANS - DONATIONS WELCOME" which you will prop up on the counter next to a basin of coins; but, due to some sort of misunderstanding between you and your signwriter, the notice actually reads "FREE MONEY - PLEASE TAKE SOME" in the language you don't understand. (The English portion is fine, requesting donations for the orphans.)
Is it the customers' fault if they do what the sign told them to do and take some money out of the basin?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I wish it was only $4.09 per gallon. That's 48% less than what you'd pay here in the Netherlands, which has about the highest gasoline prices of the EU.
$4.09/gal is 2.96/3.79l = 0.78/l. The price at the pump is typically about 1.50/l.
I have no idea whether what he says is true or not, but it was a genuinely interesting post to read, and those are so rare on Slashdot these days that they need proper recognition.
There is a fundamental question here: the casino installed faulty software and didn't test it; they should bear the full responsibility for that, no matter how obvious the fault may be to a user.
How does an individual customer have any chance of determining whether the slots are 'tight' or 'loose'? You might notice one or two big wins on a particular day, but it's unlikely to be statistically significant - that is, whatever effect you observe is more likely to be caused by chance than by the casino adjusting the average payout.
In Britain I believe gambling machines are required to state the average payout on the front.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
When you put money in a slot machine, you are not actualy required to play. You can hit cash out and get your money out.. Or, you can put $10 in at once, and play 25 cent rolls. It adds and subtracts credits as you go.
So.. If the customers were putting in a dollar and immediately hitting "cash out" and getting 10 back. Without playing (or minimally).. put those 10 back in, hit cash out.. put those 100 back in, and hit cashout.. lather rinse repeat.. then I think the casino has a case. Minimally I would expect the casino to black book the customer.
The casinos know exactly who played what and how.
If it's someone that put a roll if $1 coins in.. played, and cashed out w/o noticing the infraction.. The casino should ask nicely for the money back,and maybe offer to pay for a trip back to vegas, and take it on the chin.
I find it amusing that one of the reason the casinos know who these people were was by use of their frequent player cards. Without cards it would get harder to track (Look at hotel registration video/logs, etc).
-Jason
Prosecutors jump right onto users or a mis programmed slot machine, but for
a voting machine? 'not worth it.'
Gamblers should realize one important fact - it is essentially illegal to win in vegas. The machines and games are programmed to the house advantage. If you use mathematical skill to calculate the odds and win - its a crime, if the machine breaks and you win because of a fault in the programming - its a crime.
The only thing that always stays in vegas - is your money.
If you win, the software MUST be faulty.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
That is from the US? And I tought your patent laws were bad...
Rethinking email
The security around voting machines are laughable compared to that of the slot machines. Also, states not only have access to the source code of slot machines, they actually inspect that source code.
It is far easier to cheat a voting machine than a slot machine, which demonstrates the sorry priorities of our current society.
1) Imagine that 'working' slot machines have a 1% chance of winning. Imagine that a 'broken' slot machine has a 0.01% chance of winning.
If 1,000 gamblers played on the broken slot machine before someone realized that there was a defect, would the casino spend the time and resources to track down each of the affected players and offer them a refund for the money they lost?
2) Imagine that 'working' slot machines have a 1% chance of winning. Imagine that a 'broken' slot machine has a 10% chance of winning.
If 1,000 gamblers played on the broken slot machine before someone realized that there was a defect, would the casino spend the time and resources to track down each of the affected players and insist that they refund the casino?
The material difference, then, between these two scenarios and the one from the article is the user's ability to identify a problem.
3) A child approaches a candy machine and inserts a quarter. A handful of candy comes out. Usually, only a quarter of a handful comes out, so the child repeats the process of adding a quarter and receiving a handful of candy several times.
Did this child commit a crime?
4) Imagine you are in a super market, and you put 3 boxes of cereal in your cart with a listed price of $5/box. When you get to the cash, the cashier scans the 3 boxes of cereal and they show up as being $1.99 (an unadvertised special?). If you don't mention to the cashier that the list price was $5, and rather you go buy 3 more boxes, are you commiting a crime?
How does an obvious troll like this get modded insightful?
Corporations, yes. Casinos? Not so much.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
n/t
Rethinking email
No. It's called gambling because the odds are against the player. That's what gambling means--taking a risk against the odds. Savvy states call it "gaming" in their vacation flyers for this reason.
People who play the slots usually know at some level that, under normal circumstances, gamblers are more likely to lose their quarter/credit than not. They play for the thrill they get when the machine actually coughs up money, and the thrill is greater because it isn't guaranteed.
So you can get $10, guaranteed, just by sticking the card into and out of that broken machine. But why settle for that when you can pull the lever and try to win $10 million?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I've read the fine article. It didn't claim that. It didn't say anything about the people using that slot machine not playing it.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Thank you. I concede. The Louisville Journal-Courier is a better source than Associated Press, so it has precedence. And it does mention the non-gambling on that slot.
I only wish you had thought to post your link to this article in one of your earlier posts when you referenced its contents. It would've saved a little trouble & confusion...
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Most places you find slots at have tons of smokers. Even if you do win, you lose, especially if you become a regular. I may not be winning much in playing Entropia Universe for the last several months, but my money's lasting longer than it does in Casino, and I don't have to deal with all the smoke and idiots running around the floors pushing their chairs up against the machine, assuming that doing so gives them a God given right to "hold" the slot even if they walk away for half an hour or more... not to mention all the idiots that try to play three slot machines at the same time, yelling at you if you try to sit beside them and take one of the three machines, even if they aren't sitting in front of it. Let the old retired farts at the Cussing Holes (Casino) have their ways... us middle aged and younger folks who actually have some manners and don't want lung cancer can stay at our computers playing Entropia and similar games, or go and send out prosperity.com loans and make more money quicker.