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Man Arrested For Exploiting Error In Slot Machines
An anonymous reader writes "A man awaiting trial in Pennsylvania was arrested by Federal agents on Jan. 4, and accused of exploiting a software 'glitch' within slot machines in order to win payouts. The exploit may have allowed the man to obtain more than a million dollars from casinos in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and officials say they are investigating to see if he used the method elsewhere. The accused stated that 'I'm being arrested federally for winning on a slot machine. Let everybody see the surveillance tapes. I pressed buttons on the machine on the casino. That's all I did.' Apparently, slot machine software errors are fairly common. The lesson here seems to be that casinos can deny you a slot machine win any time they wish by claiming software errors, and if you find an error that you can exploit, you may find yourself facing Federal charges for doing so."
The only way to win is to not play.
Put identity in the browser.
This is a common misconception which the likes of Vegas and Atlantic City would love everyone to continue to believe. There are no jurisdictions in the United States in which card counting (without the use of any devices) is illegal. Additionally, a casino has no right to take back any winnings which were legally obtained. In Nevada, casinos *are* permitted to deny you entrance or ask you to leave if they suspect you may be a card counter. AFAIK, they are also free to share ban lists with other casinos as they see fit. In New Jersey, casinos are not even allowed to go this far. Players may not be denied entrance simply because they are too skilled (see Uston v. Resorts International Hotel, Inc.).
The pair, according to police, had knowledge of a software glitch in one of the high-bet slot machines. In order to expose the glitch, a special "double-up" feature had to be internally activated. The men persuaded casino technicians to alter "soft" options on the machines, such as volume and screen brightness controls. Such perks aren't unusual for high-rollers, who can wager anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars in one day.
One Meadows employee, who was not criminally charged or accused of wrongdoing, agreed to enable the double-up feature on the machine with the glitch.
Normally, such a feature would allow a player to risk doubling his winnings or potentially losing them all. The double-up feature isn't usually enabled on the machines in part because it's unpopular with most gamblers, who are unwilling to risk large amounts of money.
Read the story and you'll see that there's a lot more to it then just his preferences. For instance he was using a third-party to cash in winnings that he knew would raise eyebrows.
Not far off the mark, really.
There was a case of someone winning a jackpot a while back and the casino claiming the jackpot was a "software error" after the fact. Denver Post Article. As the article shows, such "errors" are relatively common.
And of course, the casinos always reserve the right to claim someone is "cheating" or simply "winning too much", or "card counting", and pull all sorts of nasty tricks.
Also remember: in a gambling town, the cops and judges aren't paid by the local government. They're paid by the casinos. Period.
Like everyone else, I read about such things with outrage until I actually RTFA. The jackpot she hit was about 100x higher than the maximum the machine was ever supposed to give, so it WAS an error, and obviously so.