Actually no, as I said, that's what YOU believe. Interesting that you state "no life from death". But in these cases of Jesus and probably Genesis, you back down. That goes to show your absolute mantra of "no life from death" isn't absolutely true. To you it's just relative to whether YOU think God was involved, as if it can't possibly be true otherwise - just like when the church said it can't possibly be true that the Earth isn't the center of the solar system before it imprisoned Galileo. You are all to ready to accept without evidence that God "transcended the laws of the universe."
Well, I have something to tell you. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens. There is no "transcending the laws of the universe". There is no outside of the universe, which doesn't make sense anyway because the universe is defined as all that is. God must be part of this universe to interfere in this universe. Then we can see that interference, measure it, and record it. We can record and measure God. And you know what? No one has EVER made such a recording - BECAUSE HE DOES NOT EXIST.
Evolution is still correct since it does NOT deal with how life was created in the first place. Evolution deals with how that life changes over time ONCE IT IS HERE. Your little rant about "no life from death" doesn't dispute evolution AT ALL. It disputes abiogenesis, which this topic was NOT about.
You prefer to view the world the same way as it was first explained to you as a child, with no room for additional information or change. You are literally too stupid, too stubborn, and too closed-minded to realize that.
That goofy creationist Isaac Newton was one wacky non scientist when he invented calculus, right? He didn't know anything about math! Pfffftttttt!!!!!
Newton believed in alchemy and secretly worked to transmute lead into gold. Just because Newton nailed calculus does not mean he was right about alchemy. Same thing goes with his religious beliefs.
Go ahead and evolve something in the lab if you can and send out an email about it. Try fruit flys, no one has ever tried that before! Yeah!
Already been done. But, you're too biased or too stupid to see the results for what they actually are.
On the contrary, the Bible was invented by man. As such, it could have turned out completely differently. Either way, it certainly wasn't done in a day. It was pieced together by a group of primitive men over hundreds of years, using the the best knowledge and morals of the day. The knowledge was delusional and their morals atrocious. That is why the Bible evolves over time. That is why the God of the old testament is murderous, evil tyrant who is just as likely to help you as he is to kill your first born or give you a plague. But, by the time of the new testament, God has evolved to preach love and peace. Morality evolved from the old testament to the new testament. And morality has evolved since then as well. The new testament tolerated slavery, the idea that women were subservient to men, and the idea of eternal punishment. All of those ideas are considered abhorrent today - and rightfully so.
Look, I'll believe in evolution too, just create life in the lab (or anywhere) and that ends it. Can't do it? Why not? Surely its a snap.
You as an evolutionist believe in something you cannot prove in the lab, or anywhere else.
Evolution is the science about how life changes. It is not about how life started. That is abiogenesis.
The twilight of the theory of evolution is at hand due to lack of proof and you are still trying to prop it up even to its last dying breath.
Proof is for mathematics. Evolution is science and requires scientific evidence. The fact that you do not know the difference suggests that you know little of science or mathematics, especially given your previous remark confusing evolution and abiogenesis. Evolution is the leading explanation of how animals evolved, currently bolstered by multiple fields. It is not about to "die". And it is certainly NOT about to be replaced by such nonsense as creationism, intelligent design, or whatever new name thought up for the same idea.
GP:...something as definatively proven (and relatively obvious) as evolution...
you: Unfortunately what is obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone.
Interesting that you decide to pick on the phrase "obvious" and not "proven".
Further, there's a reason why he wrote relatively obvious. And yes, evolution is relatively obvious compared with the common alternatives including creationism. If you spend the time to look around nature, you can see the mechanics involved with evolution. That is certainly not true with creationism. The mechanics of evolution have been deduced by thousands of scientific studies and experiments from nature by scientists of many different fields, without looking up in some dubious guidebook labeled "The Scripture". You could look at a group of animals all day and not come to the conclusion that a single God, as described in the Bible, who himself had no creator, made all these creatures in a single day some 6000 years ago. That religious conclusion would not happen unless someone told you about it first.
By circumventing that implied intent, you are morally in the wrong.
Bullshit. I never agreed to download the ad. I never agreed to even view the ad. I have no obligation to do anything just because the webmaster placed the ad on his publically accessible webserver, wanted me to view the ad, and placed an img tag to the ad on his page. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
...you do not morally have the right to disregard the owners wishes and block ads...
Again, I have no responsibility to download ad files from websites I visit. I have no responsibility to view those ad files. That's my bandwidth I'm saving, which the webmaster wants to use. I have a right to control my bandwidth, thank you very much. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
YOU webmasters are attempting to create a responsibility where NONE exists. YOU webmasters offered these pages free for ANYONE to view. And now YOU webmasters are intimidating people unless they download your ads down OUR bandwidth and view your ads on OUR time. Last time I checked, that is called extortion. So sorry, if anyone is in the wrong it is YOU webmasters. That is where the immorality lies.
Evidently, they've already cut out critical thinking considering that high school grades are only a small part of what universities look at when considering a student, at least in the US. Standardized tests such as the SAT play a far more important role. Get a 1600 on the SAT and it doesn't matter what your grades were, you have your pick of the colleges. Certainly those higher level math classes will help you more than hurt you.
...we would vote with the wallet if we could. The article implies that one cannot go to another vendor because there is an oligopoly like in other industries. That's typical to US. Not a real competitive market but one that "seems" to be competitive from 10000 feet. Get a clue.
Exactly. Libertarians will hate this idea, but the free market can not fix everything. That is because the free market has a weakness: monopolies. Over time, companies purchase and consume one another until one, dominant entity takes over a section of the market. Copyright, patent, and trademark law protect the monopoly and prevent competitors from establishing themselves. At that point, all innovation stops. The evidence is out there in industry after industry from telephones to software.
And again, libertarians will hate this, but the government must step in for cases like this. The government needs to shake these companies up and break up their monopolies. Only once we get some actual competition will we get good service.
Just because there are industries that are more regulated than casinos does not mean that casinos are not highly regulated. The twisted logic is disingenuous at best.
Me: The idea that casinos operate under "minimal government regulation" is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable.
You: No, it isn't. You should see the regulations other companies have for gambling machines - they specify the entire payout structures, the hit likelihoods, the amount of noise the machines are amount to make, the volume of brightness allowed to be put out in lumens, all sorts of stuff. All the American gaming services do is require regular random testing of the machines, honest posting of stats, no rigged machines, and a cap on expected draw. America has about the most open and liberal market possible while still intending to verify the honesty of a proprietor.
I worked as a Gaming Agent in Washington state and actually helped set up a brand new, 2000-slot casino, so excuse me if I know more about this than you do.
All new video lottery terminals (slot machines), games, and templates are checked and verified by the Washington State Gambling Commission. They have a Testing Lab specifically set up strictly for that purpose. If those machines do not pass the test, then those machines are not allowed anywhere in the state of Washington. If those games do not pass the test, then those games are not allowed anywhere in the state of Washington. If the templates do not pass, then they are not allowed in Washington. http://www.wsgc.wa.gov/egl/mission.asp
At the Tribal level, machine processors are kept under 24-hour lock and key and surveillance. Each processor for each slot is individually, electronically checked and confirmed against state signatures. The machines come straight from the manufacturer in sealed trucks. The machines are installed under the eyes of Tribal Gaming, Slot Maintenance, Security, Surveillance, and the manufacturer's technicians. They are tested by Slot Maintenance and the manufacturer, observed by Tribal Gaming, Security, and Surveillance. The machines can only be put into play once Tribal Gaming and the State Gambling Commission has checked and verified that the machines are operating properly.
Those laws and rules are underneath the federal laws around gambling and above the individual Tribal Compacts which also regulate gambling. I studied and learned all of those laws and was tasked with the duty of enforcing them. As a member of the Tribal Gaming Agency, we were at the casino 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By law, the casino was not allowed to remain open if one of our staff were not on the premises. We had complete and full access to every area in the casino at any time we wanted, regardless of the wishes of casino management or workers. At least half of our agency were former police officers. Were we badged members of Tribal Government with the authority to arrest and detain suspects.
Saying there is "minimal government regulation" of casinos is abjectly false. Saying that this industry is not highly regulated is also abjectly false. Your arguments are disingenuous at best, and outright lies at worst.
I agree. Having actually worked at a casino on the slots, I find the article lacking and in one area outright false. They say nothing about how the individual slot machines and their network actually works. Further, they are wrong in that casinos do not operate under a "laissez-faire" or unregulated free-market economy. The idea that casinos operate under "minimal government regulation" is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable.
Casino gambling is one of the most highly regulated industries in our nation. Every worker who applies to work at a casino has to fill out a literal inch of paperwork, just for the background check. They have to supply a ten year work history, and you are told not to skip any months. Their fingerprints are taken and supplied to federal databases. Those fingerprints are compared to see if any matches come up, and then they are permanently stored for future reference. If any problems come up in your record, then it's very likely you will not be licensed to work there.
Once you are actually hired, that only begins the regulations. There are literally regulations for everything that a employee can and can not do, even after work. Those regulations are monitored by surveillance, casino management, state authorities, and the feds. Breaking those regulations could mean a suspension, pulling your license (effectively firing you), or even jail time. Casino gambling used to be controlled by the mob, so the authorities are deadly serious about making sure everything is done legally.
Don't attribute to maliciousness what you can attribute to stupidity. Put a dollar into a penny machine and you'll get 100 credits. The player could easily assume that the signage of the malfunctioning machine is incorrect and that they've actually sat down at a penny slot. There is nothing necessarily malicious about that action.
Further, you're assuming that customers, most of whom are senior citizens, can determine the difference between a malfunctioning machine and a correctly operating machine. Also, you're assuming that those customers can determine that difference better than casino maintenance or the machine manufacturer who put that machine into play. Unless each of those customers were walking out with million dollar checks, it's likely they never knew they played a malfunctioning machine.
Either way, the casino has controls in place to determine whether they're losing money on a certain machine or not getting enough money from a machine. Their auditing should have caught this mistake almost immediately, after their maintenance mistakenly put the malfunctioning machine into play. The mistakes here do not lie with the player.
The player is not responsible for the mistakes of the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer.
Further, putting a malfunctioning machine into play is the result of sloppy auditing or maintenance by either the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer. The fact is that the machine should never have been turned on in the first place. The machine should never have been made available to the customer. The fault here clearly does not lie with that customer. The customer is not financially responsibility for the errors of others.
Putting a malfunctioning machine into play is the result of sloppy auditing or maintenance by either the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer. The fact is that the machine should have never been turned on in the first place. The machine should never have been made available to the customer. The fault here clearly does not lie with that customer. The customer is not financially responsibility for the errors of others.
But after stepping up and seeing that you got 10.0 credits for every $1.00 put into the machine and then repeatedly cashing the machine out in order to take advantage of the broken machines, you have to not be using it in this way because you know it is doing something it shouldn't do. Thats when it becomes cheating/theft.
Put a dollar into a penny slot and you'll get 100 credits for every dollar. Put a dollar into a nickel slot and you'll get 20 credits. A slot player may or may not notice the discrepancy between the dollars they put in and the amount of credits they receive. And even if those players do notice the discrepancy, they may attribute that to the signage on the machine being incorrect, thinking that the dollar machine really is a dime machine.
If players actually knew about this malfunction, you would see customers walking away with million dollar checks. The casinos would or should have been tipped off that something was wrong far earlier in those circumstances.
Don't attribute to maliciousness what you can attribute to stupidity.
If you can justify borderline illegal and illegal activity for any reason you will end up with lots of people breaking the law.
You're assuming that these players have done something illegal or "borderline" illegal, whatever that means. The last time I checked, unless an action is specifically deemed illegal, then it is perfectly legal to perform that action.
The fact is that the machine manufacturer produced these machines, the state and feds authorized these machines, the casinos willingly put these machines online for play, customers payed money to play them, and the machines payed out. Yes, there may have been a malfunction and malfunctions void all pays and plays, however the casino did not catch that malfunction, started the machine, and took player money for some time with those malfunctioning machines.
Hunting down innocent players after weeks or months went by, telling them that their slot machine was malfunctioning, telling them that they were not entitled to the money they won, and then demanding that money back sounds more like the real thievery going on. In fact, it sounds very similar to extortion. If the machine was malfunctioning, it should have been turned off and it should not have accepted that money in the first place. The casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer put this malfunctioning machine into play without properly checking it and thus one of those entities are financially responsible for that machine, not the players.
The fault here lies with sloppy auditing or maintenance, which is not the player's fault.
"Tightness" or "looseness" of the slots is a matter of perception for the customer, even though that is set concretely by the casino. There are payout tables shown by the machine, however most payers disregard these statistics in favor of their own flawed perceptions, observations, and overheard rumors.
The machines do not adjust their behavior to the player. The machines run off a template, with the individual "pulls" of the slots randomly determined in the central server room long before the player sits down in front of the machine. For example, with a 0.97 payout ratio, you'll have a template similar to this:
For every 1000 pulls:
1x 500-point payout
2x 100-point payouts
6x 25-point payouts
12x 10-point payouts
Total payouts: 970 points
Multiply the point totals by the dollar or cent amount of the slot machine and you have monetary totals.
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.
Those salary laws are ridiculously easy to get around and thus completely useless. For example, bring in a experienced software engineer with a PhD in Comp Sci and label them as a Junior Developer. That person would be paid over $100,000 on the open market, but they are locked to you and you can get away with paying them $65,000.
Gambling machines are weighted to weighted to cheat in favor of the casino.
Gambling machines are highly regulated in the states where they are operated. The machine processors are checked by the state and held under lock, key, and surveillance until installed in the machines which are also under lock, key, and surveillance. The people who service the machines are certified by the state. Those employees fill out about an inch of paperwork when they are hired in order for their state and federal background checks, which includes taking and running their fingerprints through the criminal databases. Cheating and allegations of cheating are taken very seriously by the states and the feds in this business, which at one point was run by the mob. The machines do not cheat.
That said, those machines are programmed to benefit the casino, which is not the same as cheating. The casino actually sets the payout amount to a certain percentage of every dollar, in accordance with state law. For example, machines that bring in little money for the casinos, such as penny slots, generally have the worst payout to the player. For penny slots, that payout could be $0.85 for every $1. For more profitable slots, such as $5 slots, that payout ratio could be $0.97 for every $1.
The payout ratio depends on the casino and what they want to do. If they want to attract customers, then they increase the payouts. If they have a good amount of customers, then they'll decrease the payouts to increase profits. Customers are very sensitive to these payout amounts. If players sense a casino is being cheap, aka "the slots are tight", then players will leave that casino. If the players sense a casino is giving money away, aka "the slots are loose", then those players will get out the word and people will flock to that casino. It's all supply and demand.
If the machine was broken, then the fault lies either with the casino or with the vendor who services the machine. Playing a broken machine is not illegal.
When a machine breaks and the customer loses money, then the casino does not give that money back. It is only right that when a machine breaks and the customer actually gains money that they should not have to pay back the casino.
Either way, the casino won't likely lose money. They'll either get that money back from the customer, from the machine vendor, or from insurance.
This gender imbalance still creates a whole underclass of men who will likely never get married or even have sex over their entire lifetime. Promised 72 virgins by manipulative terrorist recruiters, they'd gladly give up a poor life that only offers celibacy.
There's only 4,380,439 people in the UAE - 2,966,118 men and 1,414,321 women. By those numbers, over a quarter of the population would have to be male laborers to get that kind of imbalance. More likely is that you have the combination of male laborers and honor killings.
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Actually no, as I said, that's what YOU believe. Interesting that you state "no life from death". But in these cases of Jesus and probably Genesis, you back down. That goes to show your absolute mantra of "no life from death" isn't absolutely true. To you it's just relative to whether YOU think God was involved, as if it can't possibly be true otherwise - just like when the church said it can't possibly be true that the Earth isn't the center of the solar system before it imprisoned Galileo. You are all to ready to accept without evidence that God "transcended the laws of the universe."
Well, I have something to tell you. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens. There is no "transcending the laws of the universe". There is no outside of the universe, which doesn't make sense anyway because the universe is defined as all that is. God must be part of this universe to interfere in this universe. Then we can see that interference, measure it, and record it. We can record and measure God. And you know what? No one has EVER made such a recording - BECAUSE HE DOES NOT EXIST.
Evolution is still correct since it does NOT deal with how life was created in the first place. Evolution deals with how that life changes over time ONCE IT IS HERE. Your little rant about "no life from death" doesn't dispute evolution AT ALL. It disputes abiogenesis, which this topic was NOT about.
You prefer to view the world the same way as it was first explained to you as a child, with no room for additional information or change. You are literally too stupid, too stubborn, and too closed-minded to realize that.
I believe I am arguing with a toddler that believes life came from dead matter.
Didn't Jesus rise from the dead? That's what YOU believe, right? Life from dead matter.
Yeah, I won't cry over the "theory" of gravity either. Damn, you're a kook.
That goofy creationist Isaac Newton was one wacky non scientist when he invented calculus, right? He didn't know anything about math! Pfffftttttt!!!!!
Newton believed in alchemy and secretly worked to transmute lead into gold. Just because Newton nailed calculus does not mean he was right about alchemy. Same thing goes with his religious beliefs.
Go ahead and evolve something in the lab if you can and send out an email about it. Try fruit flys, no one has ever tried that before! Yeah!
Already been done. But, you're too biased or too stupid to see the results for what they actually are.
On the contrary, the Bible was invented by man. As such, it could have turned out completely differently. Either way, it certainly wasn't done in a day. It was pieced together by a group of primitive men over hundreds of years, using the the best knowledge and morals of the day. The knowledge was delusional and their morals atrocious. That is why the Bible evolves over time. That is why the God of the old testament is murderous, evil tyrant who is just as likely to help you as he is to kill your first born or give you a plague. But, by the time of the new testament, God has evolved to preach love and peace. Morality evolved from the old testament to the new testament. And morality has evolved since then as well. The new testament tolerated slavery, the idea that women were subservient to men, and the idea of eternal punishment. All of those ideas are considered abhorrent today - and rightfully so.
Look, I'll believe in evolution too, just create life in the lab (or anywhere) and that ends it. Can't do it? Why not? Surely its a snap. You as an evolutionist believe in something you cannot prove in the lab, or anywhere else.
Evolution is the science about how life changes. It is not about how life started. That is abiogenesis.
The twilight of the theory of evolution is at hand due to lack of proof and you are still trying to prop it up even to its last dying breath.
Proof is for mathematics. Evolution is science and requires scientific evidence. The fact that you do not know the difference suggests that you know little of science or mathematics, especially given your previous remark confusing evolution and abiogenesis. Evolution is the leading explanation of how animals evolved, currently bolstered by multiple fields. It is not about to "die". And it is certainly NOT about to be replaced by such nonsense as creationism, intelligent design, or whatever new name thought up for the same idea.
GP: ...something as definatively proven (and relatively obvious) as evolution...
you: Unfortunately what is obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone.
Interesting that you decide to pick on the phrase "obvious" and not "proven".
Further, there's a reason why he wrote relatively obvious. And yes, evolution is relatively obvious compared with the common alternatives including creationism. If you spend the time to look around nature, you can see the mechanics involved with evolution. That is certainly not true with creationism. The mechanics of evolution have been deduced by thousands of scientific studies and experiments from nature by scientists of many different fields, without looking up in some dubious guidebook labeled "The Scripture". You could look at a group of animals all day and not come to the conclusion that a single God, as described in the Bible, who himself had no creator, made all these creatures in a single day some 6000 years ago. That religious conclusion would not happen unless someone told you about it first.
So yes, evolution is relatively obvious.
By circumventing that implied intent, you are morally in the wrong.
...you do not morally have the right to disregard the owners wishes and block ads...
Bullshit. I never agreed to download the ad. I never agreed to even view the ad. I have no obligation to do anything just because the webmaster placed the ad on his publically accessible webserver, wanted me to view the ad, and placed an img tag to the ad on his page. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
Again, I have no responsibility to download ad files from websites I visit. I have no responsibility to view those ad files. That's my bandwidth I'm saving, which the webmaster wants to use. I have a right to control my bandwidth, thank you very much. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
YOU webmasters are attempting to create a responsibility where NONE exists. YOU webmasters offered these pages free for ANYONE to view. And now YOU webmasters are intimidating people unless they download your ads down OUR bandwidth and view your ads on OUR time. Last time I checked, that is called extortion. So sorry, if anyone is in the wrong it is YOU webmasters. That is where the immorality lies.
Evidently, they've already cut out critical thinking considering that high school grades are only a small part of what universities look at when considering a student, at least in the US. Standardized tests such as the SAT play a far more important role. Get a 1600 on the SAT and it doesn't matter what your grades were, you have your pick of the colleges. Certainly those higher level math classes will help you more than hurt you.
...we would vote with the wallet if we could. The article implies that one cannot go to another vendor because there is an oligopoly like in other industries. That's typical to US. Not a real competitive market but one that "seems" to be competitive from 10000 feet. Get a clue.
Exactly. Libertarians will hate this idea, but the free market can not fix everything. That is because the free market has a weakness: monopolies. Over time, companies purchase and consume one another until one, dominant entity takes over a section of the market. Copyright, patent, and trademark law protect the monopoly and prevent competitors from establishing themselves. At that point, all innovation stops. The evidence is out there in industry after industry from telephones to software.
And again, libertarians will hate this, but the government must step in for cases like this. The government needs to shake these companies up and break up their monopolies. Only once we get some actual competition will we get good service.
Just because there are industries that are more regulated than casinos does not mean that casinos are not highly regulated. The twisted logic is disingenuous at best.
Me: The idea that casinos operate under "minimal government regulation" is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable.
You: No, it isn't. You should see the regulations other companies have for gambling machines - they specify the entire payout structures, the hit likelihoods, the amount of noise the machines are amount to make, the volume of brightness allowed to be put out in lumens, all sorts of stuff. All the American gaming services do is require regular random testing of the machines, honest posting of stats, no rigged machines, and a cap on expected draw. America has about the most open and liberal market possible while still intending to verify the honesty of a proprietor.
I worked as a Gaming Agent in Washington state and actually helped set up a brand new, 2000-slot casino, so excuse me if I know more about this than you do.
All new video lottery terminals (slot machines), games, and templates are checked and verified by the Washington State Gambling Commission. They have a Testing Lab specifically set up strictly for that purpose. If those machines do not pass the test, then those machines are not allowed anywhere in the state of Washington. If those games do not pass the test, then those games are not allowed anywhere in the state of Washington. If the templates do not pass, then they are not allowed in Washington.
http://www.wsgc.wa.gov/egl/mission.asp
At the Tribal level, machine processors are kept under 24-hour lock and key and surveillance. Each processor for each slot is individually, electronically checked and confirmed against state signatures. The machines come straight from the manufacturer in sealed trucks. The machines are installed under the eyes of Tribal Gaming, Slot Maintenance, Security, Surveillance, and the manufacturer's technicians. They are tested by Slot Maintenance and the manufacturer, observed by Tribal Gaming, Security, and Surveillance. The machines can only be put into play once Tribal Gaming and the State Gambling Commission has checked and verified that the machines are operating properly.
Washington state has some of the most strict laws around gaming and slot machines in the nation:
Laws http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.46
Rules http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=230
Those laws and rules are underneath the federal laws around gambling and above the individual Tribal Compacts which also regulate gambling. I studied and learned all of those laws and was tasked with the duty of enforcing them. As a member of the Tribal Gaming Agency, we were at the casino 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By law, the casino was not allowed to remain open if one of our staff were not on the premises. We had complete and full access to every area in the casino at any time we wanted, regardless of the wishes of casino management or workers. At least half of our agency were former police officers. Were we badged members of Tribal Government with the authority to arrest and detain suspects.
Saying there is "minimal government regulation" of casinos is abjectly false. Saying that this industry is not highly regulated is also abjectly false. Your arguments are disingenuous at best, and outright lies at worst.
It's a student project, and it shows.
I agree. Having actually worked at a casino on the slots, I find the article lacking and in one area outright false. They say nothing about how the individual slot machines and their network actually works. Further, they are wrong in that casinos do not operate under a "laissez-faire" or unregulated free-market economy. The idea that casinos operate under "minimal government regulation" is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable.
Casino gambling is one of the most highly regulated industries in our nation. Every worker who applies to work at a casino has to fill out a literal inch of paperwork, just for the background check. They have to supply a ten year work history, and you are told not to skip any months. Their fingerprints are taken and supplied to federal databases. Those fingerprints are compared to see if any matches come up, and then they are permanently stored for future reference. If any problems come up in your record, then it's very likely you will not be licensed to work there.
Once you are actually hired, that only begins the regulations. There are literally regulations for everything that a employee can and can not do, even after work. Those regulations are monitored by surveillance, casino management, state authorities, and the feds. Breaking those regulations could mean a suspension, pulling your license (effectively firing you), or even jail time. Casino gambling used to be controlled by the mob, so the authorities are deadly serious about making sure everything is done legally.
Don't attribute to maliciousness what you can attribute to stupidity. Put a dollar into a penny machine and you'll get 100 credits. The player could easily assume that the signage of the malfunctioning machine is incorrect and that they've actually sat down at a penny slot. There is nothing necessarily malicious about that action.
Further, you're assuming that customers, most of whom are senior citizens, can determine the difference between a malfunctioning machine and a correctly operating machine. Also, you're assuming that those customers can determine that difference better than casino maintenance or the machine manufacturer who put that machine into play. Unless each of those customers were walking out with million dollar checks, it's likely they never knew they played a malfunctioning machine.
Either way, the casino has controls in place to determine whether they're losing money on a certain machine or not getting enough money from a machine. Their auditing should have caught this mistake almost immediately, after their maintenance mistakenly put the malfunctioning machine into play. The mistakes here do not lie with the player.
The player is not responsible for the mistakes of the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer.
Further, putting a malfunctioning machine into play is the result of sloppy auditing or maintenance by either the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer. The fact is that the machine should never have been turned on in the first place. The machine should never have been made available to the customer. The fault here clearly does not lie with that customer. The customer is not financially responsibility for the errors of others.
Putting a malfunctioning machine into play is the result of sloppy auditing or maintenance by either the casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer. The fact is that the machine should have never been turned on in the first place. The machine should never have been made available to the customer. The fault here clearly does not lie with that customer. The customer is not financially responsibility for the errors of others.
But after stepping up and seeing that you got 10.0 credits for every $1.00 put into the machine and then repeatedly cashing the machine out in order to take advantage of the broken machines, you have to not be using it in this way because you know it is doing something it shouldn't do. Thats when it becomes cheating/theft.
Put a dollar into a penny slot and you'll get 100 credits for every dollar. Put a dollar into a nickel slot and you'll get 20 credits. A slot player may or may not notice the discrepancy between the dollars they put in and the amount of credits they receive. And even if those players do notice the discrepancy, they may attribute that to the signage on the machine being incorrect, thinking that the dollar machine really is a dime machine.
If players actually knew about this malfunction, you would see customers walking away with million dollar checks. The casinos would or should have been tipped off that something was wrong far earlier in those circumstances.
Don't attribute to maliciousness what you can attribute to stupidity.
If you can justify borderline illegal and illegal activity for any reason you will end up with lots of people breaking the law.
You're assuming that these players have done something illegal or "borderline" illegal, whatever that means. The last time I checked, unless an action is specifically deemed illegal, then it is perfectly legal to perform that action.
The fact is that the machine manufacturer produced these machines, the state and feds authorized these machines, the casinos willingly put these machines online for play, customers payed money to play them, and the machines payed out. Yes, there may have been a malfunction and malfunctions void all pays and plays, however the casino did not catch that malfunction, started the machine, and took player money for some time with those malfunctioning machines.
Hunting down innocent players after weeks or months went by, telling them that their slot machine was malfunctioning, telling them that they were not entitled to the money they won, and then demanding that money back sounds more like the real thievery going on. In fact, it sounds very similar to extortion. If the machine was malfunctioning, it should have been turned off and it should not have accepted that money in the first place. The casino, the state, the feds, or the machine manufacturer put this malfunctioning machine into play without properly checking it and thus one of those entities are financially responsible for that machine, not the players.
The fault here lies with sloppy auditing or maintenance, which is not the player's fault.
"Tightness" or "looseness" of the slots is a matter of perception for the customer, even though that is set concretely by the casino. There are payout tables shown by the machine, however most payers disregard these statistics in favor of their own flawed perceptions, observations, and overheard rumors.
The machines do not adjust their behavior to the player. The machines run off a template, with the individual "pulls" of the slots randomly determined in the central server room long before the player sits down in front of the machine. For example, with a 0.97 payout ratio, you'll have a template similar to this:
For every 1000 pulls:
1x 500-point payout
2x 100-point payouts
6x 25-point payouts
12x 10-point payouts
Total payouts: 970 points
Multiply the point totals by the dollar or cent amount of the slot machine and you have monetary totals.
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.
Those salary laws are ridiculously easy to get around and thus completely useless. For example, bring in a experienced software engineer with a PhD in Comp Sci and label them as a Junior Developer. That person would be paid over $100,000 on the open market, but they are locked to you and you can get away with paying them $65,000.
Gambling machines are weighted to weighted to cheat in favor of the casino.
Gambling machines are highly regulated in the states where they are operated. The machine processors are checked by the state and held under lock, key, and surveillance until installed in the machines which are also under lock, key, and surveillance. The people who service the machines are certified by the state. Those employees fill out about an inch of paperwork when they are hired in order for their state and federal background checks, which includes taking and running their fingerprints through the criminal databases. Cheating and allegations of cheating are taken very seriously by the states and the feds in this business, which at one point was run by the mob. The machines do not cheat.
That said, those machines are programmed to benefit the casino, which is not the same as cheating. The casino actually sets the payout amount to a certain percentage of every dollar, in accordance with state law. For example, machines that bring in little money for the casinos, such as penny slots, generally have the worst payout to the player. For penny slots, that payout could be $0.85 for every $1. For more profitable slots, such as $5 slots, that payout ratio could be $0.97 for every $1.
The payout ratio depends on the casino and what they want to do. If they want to attract customers, then they increase the payouts. If they have a good amount of customers, then they'll decrease the payouts to increase profits. Customers are very sensitive to these payout amounts. If players sense a casino is being cheap, aka "the slots are tight", then players will leave that casino. If the players sense a casino is giving money away, aka "the slots are loose", then those players will get out the word and people will flock to that casino. It's all supply and demand.
If the machine was broken, then the fault lies either with the casino or with the vendor who services the machine. Playing a broken machine is not illegal.
When a machine breaks and the customer loses money, then the casino does not give that money back. It is only right that when a machine breaks and the customer actually gains money that they should not have to pay back the casino.
Either way, the casino won't likely lose money. They'll either get that money back from the customer, from the machine vendor, or from insurance.
This gender imbalance still creates a whole underclass of men who will likely never get married or even have sex over their entire lifetime. Promised 72 virgins by manipulative terrorist recruiters, they'd gladly give up a poor life that only offers celibacy.
There's only 4,380,439 people in the UAE - 2,966,118 men and 1,414,321 women. By those numbers, over a quarter of the population would have to be male laborers to get that kind of imbalance. More likely is that you have the combination of male laborers and honor killings.