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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 $1 he put in.
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I'd say it's pretty #$@$ 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.
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.
Blackjack isn't faulty. They just keep adding more decks to make card counting impossible. If they catch you with some sort of electronic cheating device, being charged would be the best case scenario.
(They really do still work cheaters over in the back room..)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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
I would say that sliding in a dollar, realizing wow I can cash out for $10, and then repeating that same action umpteen times without actually using the slot machine would also qualify as intent.
Any average joe could do that.
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?
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!
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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.