What worries me is the number of ellipses in that paragraph. I hope newcomers aren’t getting the impression that it’s the hip way to write posts now.
We definitely need to watch out for people who use too many ellipses … trust me when I say, they might not be who they present themselves as …
Anyway, just wanted to point out that casinos have good cause to set their machines reasonably low … I mostly play craps and blackjack, but I see tons and bunches of folks at these video machines … even set at a 2% take, the casino is making BIG bucks, the initial investment is sizeable, but the overhead is cheap to run them … compared to having four dealers at the crap table …
Sorry … casinos are money makers when run honestly … there’s no point to cheating …
An old Penn Jillette line sums it up nicely: “You know what you’re problem is? You all suffer from Bad Math. You see a billboard that says “99% return on our slots” and you think you’re winning. That’s Bad Math.”
Like I say: we don’t build 'em because people win.
ETA:
I’m pretty sure we have top research teams working on this now that weed is legal here.
Moderator Note
I’m surprised so many posters are unfamiliar with what forum they’re in. These remarks aren’t appropriate for General Questions. If you have a problem with a post or a poster, report it or take it to the Pit.
Moderator Warning
This one is so out of line I’m going to issue a warning for it. You know better than this. I don’t care what you think of a new poster, you’re not entitled to insult them. Do not do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I think what really convinced me was that he titled his thread “Liar liar pants on fire.” Powerful argument.
The other thing that strikes me is that he believes the machines are manipulated for his personal benefit or loss…and yet he still plays.
A drive-by post to trigger more hate.
Just kidding. As a computing person, it’s interesting to see people are so sure about EGM being honest when it’s a known fact that no computer system is unhackable give physical access. Think incentive, people have done way crazier things for a lot less money – self mutating virus, neighbor VM crypto key extraction, memory extraction through fan noise or backdoor chips just to name a few.
IIRC, at least in Australia, game play metrics is upload in real time to regulator, but even that is hackable given physical access. Say if you lower the RTP for a fish, you can have shills to collect the win so the trend would not be skewed by the end of the day or week. After all it’s individual events and you can’t judge it from a single session.
Yes the information exposure surface is increased, but if you think about how they donate to both major parties here in Aus, with the power that comes with cash, it would be very dangerous for any whistleblowing. If you’re untrusted in the first place, they don’t even have to make you vanish, you’re just schizophrenic. Again, how much money do gangsters make? How is it even possible for them to keep secret?
Be mindful as a slots addict, I could be biased, apply critical thinking as always, but here’s a recent industry leak
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-10/china-gives-trump-a-win-on-trade-trump-didn-t-even-know-it
People tend to say things like this is conspiracy theory, but I think the other way is true. Computers are hackable, with enough money and power, humans are also very hackable. When there is huge money incentive, the burden of proof should be on benefactor side. For me I’d say it’d naive for me to place trust on them from design diagram and words alone. Without open data and metrics, I think they should be untrusted by default.
That’s not a silly POV. It certainly has some reasonable factors to it. I’d totally expect it to be true in, say, Macau. As a former Las Vegan, I doubt it’s a problem there. As to Aus, you’re there and I’m not. I can’t handicap that one.
What seems a bit confusing is choosing to gamble with people such as you assume them to be.
Here in the US there’s a saying about playing poker. It goes about like this: “Before sitting down to play, look around the table and find the patsy. If you can’t figure out who it is, it’s you.”
You seem to be asserting that any player is a patsy at the hands of the organized bad guys. And that you play. Seems to me those two things shouldn’t go together. Maybe they do, but IMO they shouldn’t.
He does call himself a “slots addict.”
The beautiful reason for me to get into this was kind of a real life skinner box self experiment, and I’m only just getting myself under control with withdrawal limit. I’ll leave the ugly side vague, some people are more susceptible to operant conditioning, or maybe I’m a bad person 
I don’t regret the life choice but I have to say I over estimated how much will power has to do with the whole process. Humans are not rational at all, that’s one of the things I learnt from the experience. At least for slots players, even if they don’t have the concept of EV, most of them know it’s the worst losing game. Education level helps, but after all it’s just chemical in the brain, nothing more nothing less.
Bottom line is, I’m not arguing you should “trust” or “doubt” it’s a problem or not. I’m saying regulation should be transparent, data should be open, that’s how you ever trust something in science.
Education level helps, in this case it’s mostly just chemical in the brain, go find the research on brain activity when people play slots and see it yourself, it’s similar to taking heroin.
I just like throwing dice and hitting people …
A lot of things in this world are profitable even if they run honest.
Let’s say you make $10 million per annum, 30% on top of it is $3 million, tax free.
WannaCry made $100K, it’s gone up a few folds but that’s another story.
You make $10 million per annum …
Other than that, I don’t understand this post … could you clarify for me please …
Just last night I had a big winner … a fella downtable thought to make a last second field bet after the stickman gave me the dice … got him in the hand, and left a mark too !!! … funny what one can get away with if they’re throwing hot … that fella just laughed as he was raking in his money …
The fact that they already make shit ton of money without cheating isn’t a reason to trust them given the demographic that run those places and the scale of money involved. People have done crime for much less.
Granted even if they open up the inspection record and bet record people could still say the same, it always come down to verifiability and degree of trust.
After all what’s to lose if they’re all legit entertainment venue as their PR would like you to perceive.
I’d say the more you know about computers the less you trust them.
His point is simple. And simplistic. He means:Any business that’s honestly profitable could be even more profitable by adding dishonesty to their mix. Therefore they all do just that. The whole world is my cite. QED.
Now that’s a slippery slope to discredit the point being made.
More like, therefore you shouldn’t blind trust they don’t do that without data, see the article I linked, inspection can be a joke.
Study history about the gambling industry, instead of trying to push all the burden of proof on me.
On burden of proof, the beneficiary should own it given the addictive nature, ease of tampering versus incentive.
Now I’m confused, I would understand if I said hardline “they are cheating”.
Instead I’m advocating don’t trust it either way without the data, for which there’s no down side to open it up.
What’s your motive?
You would have been right many many many years ago … if Brutus and Cut-Throats Inc. gets caught cheating in their Nevada casino, their murder-for-hire and kidnapping operations aren’t going to be negatively effected …
1] Today things are much different … Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer owns a little over 40% of the Vegas Strip casinos … if they get caught, not only will they see a big drop in their $6b top line revenues but all their operations will be harmed, like their movie business … these multi-national corporations moved in and chased away all the gang-bangers … Cosmpolitan is owned by Deutsche Bank, are you seriously suggesting the nation bank of Germany is cheating in their Vegas casino, that’s an extraordinary claim so you’ll need extraordinary evidence to back that up … (citation = “Las Vegas Casino Ownership”) …
2] The State of Nevada has a massive interest in keeping these casinos honest … that’s all but their entire tax revenue … even the slightest hint of casino cheating is going to drive customers away bankrupting state services … unless you think a casino cheating their customers will be faithful in tax reporting … again an extraordinary claim needs extraordinary evidence …
The bottom line is that for each $10 bet, we’ll get back $9.80 on average … there’s only one way around these loses, don’t bet … I’m sorry you’ve been losing, but you should have known that before you started … if you’re sick of losing, then buy my book “1001 Ways to Win at Casino Gambling”, particularly Chapter 7 … “Value Added by a Major Bender” …
Computers are completely trustworthy … only the programmers can be dishonest …
Is that the style of debate around here? Now you’re discrediting my argument by attributing to my circumstances, when you can evaluate what I said base on what it is directly. BTW the EV for slots is definitely less than -0.02.
There’s no extraordinary claim here, extraordinary line of business needs extraordinary openness. Slots particularly is designed to be addictive, since you’re nice enough to cite, I shall share more link about it, since I’m not the only one doing that any more. Not too specific, just something publicly available Google Scholar
Computers are completely untrustworthy, I think I’ve given away way too many key phrases to google for free already in my first response to the topic.
Bottom line, do not blind trust big corporations nor the comments here.
The Bloomberg article I linked is exactly what it’s about. The stakeholders for Crown and Vic have as much to lose as an income stream, that’s not a reason to trust. Madoff had so much to lose, why would he lie?
Request for more data and records.