Ah … you are new here I see, so welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards …
We have a separate forum here for debates called Great Debates, although being great isn’t a requirement … this is the General Questions forum, where we’re re
Ah … you are new here I see, so welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards …
We have a separate forum here for debates called Great Debates, although being great isn’t a requirement … this is the General Questions forum, where we’re required to provide Factual Answers to the question at hand … and, yes, citations are also required for any and all claims we make here … however, this late into a thread it’s assumed the factual answer has been given, and a certain about of debate is allowed to proceed … so your posts here are well within the rules as I understand them, just don’t expect us here in this thread to be at our debating best …
Please have a look at our IMHO forum, some very good discussions can be had there as well …
So, I’ll withdraw my call for a citation and propose this alternative to your position:
Ceasar’s and MGM sit down together and set prices … this is a serious felony under Anti-Trust laws … they would not risk the cartel by fleecing the tourists … manipulating the slot machines is so petty and so easy to find it’s just not worth it, they aren’t going to risk the billions of dollars the cartel pays them … you need to think with more zeroes attached …
Both Ceasar’s and MGM financial statements are public knowledge …
In most gaming states like Nevada games are state approved and have public PAR sheets.
And there are monthly reports, which are compared to the manufactures pay-tables.
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=4548
As the casino knows that they will only pay out 85% or 91% on a particular machine, they would be stepping over dollars to pick up pennies by risking a fail of this audit.
There can be multiple versions of the same game name approved, but even this biased source points calls out that the belief that there are hot or cold slot machines, could be from similar looking machines with differing payouts.
I’m going back to an earlier post since it seems to summarize your overall POV. In general I agree with you: there is a non-zero risk of organized cheating. The incentives are large and organized crime is never too far away from gambling. Neither is there inherently all that much daylight beween organized crime and large corporations. Both are sharks: utterly amoral money-making machines.
Where we part company is which approach is best to managing that risk.
Let’s imagine we take your approach: All casinos are required to continuously send every spin of every slot machine to the regulator, including who’s playing if they’ve inserted an ID card and are known. The regulator in turn makes all this info available to all of us online so we can analyze it however we want.
As well, the regulator requires that all software in the machines and the network be delivered to them. They’ll show it all to the public so it can be verified as honest & compliant.
Sounds good right?
But remember, the regulators need to create these regs and enforce them. The casinos still have the original motivation to cheat, but now they can cover it up by submitting fake data and/or software. Or by simply bribing the corrupt regulator to accept fake submissions or “lose” certain embarrassing data or …
My bottom line: you can’t build a fully trustworthy system out of untrusted components. Once you assert, as you do, that the regulators are inherently untrustworthy, they’re untrustworthy. Openness that might be full of lies is no better than closedness.
The same applies to software. Certified-safe software is nice. But how do you, the outside observer, know for an absolute fact that the audited software is the stuff actually running on all those machines?
This *is *a hard problem. More openness is generally a good idea. But if you’re trying to claim openness is a fundamental breakthrough in security, you’re simply misinformed. Or engaging in wishful thinking.
If we wanted real regulation for social benefit, we’d simply outlaw addictive designs. Or better yet, outlaw casinos & other forms of organized gambling.
Seems we’re missing a major conflict of interest here.
This is not petty at all, it’s became the major source of income for every casino, nothing is rational about it given the known fact of low return rate. Hence the concern and advocacy for more open data and tighter control. Per my conspiracy theory earlier they don’t even have to win on paper, but here’s their revenue breakdown. http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=12451
Notice “without hardware and software change”?
I have written similar technical documentation, full consultancy style writing, that’s how you could ever sell anything in IT.
They are just words, yet if you ask any engineers who’s worth their salt about whether it is possible to secure any system given no control of physical access, they would say it’s impossible. Does the tamper resistance design make it harder? Absolutely. Given the incentive do I believe people would and could do it? Even more so.
What I’ve been trying to point out is that we have a dissonance of understanding about how easy it is to get caught. As someone in the computing scene, I can tell you if you give me the budget amounts to a few months of that slots revenue I can source people and develop modification covert enough so given the right incentive regulation would turn a blind eye.
Note that I’m not accusing any of that actually happening without evidence, the same reason having regulation and police does not mean people are presumed criminal, they exist because there is large incentive to mischief and the bar of entry is low enough. Especially convenient to line up a chain of mutual interest parties given the social stigma of gambling addicts.
My doubt could only be cleared when the public have access to the physical inspection report, methodology of sampling, whether it is statistically significant and detailed per transaction record for the slots so the public could own the analysis.
nm
funny ive been told that back in the 80s when video card games started they were programmed with better odds than the tables and “streaks” were programmed in …to get people interested in playing them
I don’t see the conflict here … why would a State regulator turn a blind eye to untaxable cheating profits? … if you’re suggesting bribery, please consider how many folks have to be bribed … regulators, the FBI, corporate board, union officials … I get the feeling you’ve never been involved in running a dishonest business, you’d be shocked at all the additional overhead, it would cost more to nickel and dime the tourists than the revenue it brings in … just think of all the time you spend on your own bookkeeping, now double that to maintain your second set, and that’s just the beginning of your extra expenses …
Where does the money go? … Ceasar’s and MGM sure as hell can’t include it in their public financial reporting … and the shareholders are going to scream about dividends, that alone makes the FBI the better alternative … it’s really difficult to hide billions of dollars in US banks these days …
We’re not talking about frontending a database or running an industrial control system here … I could be wrong, but I believe the State of Nevada reserves the right to come into a casino unannounced, point to a machine and say “open her up” … and if it ain’t perfect inside, the casino shuts their doors … in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the casinos had to surrender their root account password to the regulators, *NIX logs don’t lie …
Easier selling booze in Simons County, Kansas …
I’m I reading your citation correctly? … statewide Twenty-One tables are running a 15% house take? … basic strategy should only give 2% …
@watchwold49
Yes, gaming agents walk in to a casino and pull the computer chip from a slot machine, take the dice off the table, take the cards or the shoe from a blackjack game, etc. They seal the items in a bag and sign it to maintain the chain of evidence and take them back to their lab for analysis.
Yes, BJ holds around 15% (used to be over 20% but players have gotten better at the game.) “Hold” is different than “Theoretical Expectation” because people don’t buy in for $100 and only make 10 bets – they continue to play for a while, betting the same money over and over again and the house earns its percentage on every bet.
I’m a semi-frequent visitor to Vegas, and I will tell you what the assumptions are about some of the simpler question among people who spend quite a bit of time playing slots and video poker and therefore care and do at least some research of their own:
[ul]
[li]The casinos comply with Nevada law because they make enough now without cheating and can make more than they do now still without cheating[/li][li]The theoretical payback % for a given machine must be the same for every player[/li][li]If they want to change the payback % on a machine they must take it out of service first, primarily because the cabinet has to be opened. But in any case, they are not currently allowed to do it on the fly due to time of day, day of week, special weekend, or specific player, etc.[/li][li]When the payback % is altered it is done individually by machine, via software update on newer machines and hardware update on some older machines (which means they probably never bother with older machines, they just leave them alone or get rid of them)[/li][li]The capability exists or will exist, for software updates to be deliverable over network instead of physically opening the machine to do it. This potentially will throw a monkey wrench into the concept of not being able to alter the payback % on the fly.[/li][li]If the rules regarding how and when payback % can be altered change, it will become known to players quickly, not by anecdote (ie. playing and noticing) but by public reportage. If Venetian/Palazzo were to stick with its current method of awarding points, and started changing payback % on the fly based on time of day or day of week, for example, this information would be easily detectable and disseminated quickly by players[/li][/ul]
In terms of competition and payback % rigging, the casino business is incestuous like a lot of other businesses are, so it is suspected that casinos generally have a pretty good idea of what their competitors are paying out, non-compete and other confidentiality provisions notwithstanding. In addition, a few years ago, the Venetian/Palazzo complex went to a system where they award players club points based on theoretical hold instead of coin-in like everybody else. So you can go play there and determine the exact payback percentage of any slot machine, assuming that the way they have stated their policy is 100% accurate. Put your card in, run $100 through, take your card out, stick it back in and see how many points you earned in the previous session, this allows you to calculate the payback %. There’s no reason why every strip casino couldn’t have an employee go to Venetian/Palazzo and do that every week if they wanted to.
Casinos primarily compete for players by using comps and other incentives like table games rules. Payback % on slot machines is a negligible part of that because the overwhelming majority of players don’t care and the ones who do care can’t know (with the exception of Venetian/Palazzo). The sentiment among even experienced players is that they don’t care much about “a point (meaning a basis point) here or there,” even if in relative terms, that could be meaningful (ie. a 10% hold is 11% greater than a 9% hold).
One reason table games hold is much higher than the house edge is because people bust out having sustained a loss well in excess of the house edge. Way fewer people leave a table ahead by the same margin. Most people do not bankroll themselves property to be able to stay in the game long enough to recover from an extended period of bad variance.
To that I would add–if a casino corporation feels that the current regulations are not providing them with enough profit, which is the best way to fix the situation? Illegal manipulation of the odds on slot machines, or lobbying a couple state reps to change a couple minor percentages here and there?
Like I said before … we need to think in terms of a hell of a lot more zeroes behind our numbers … those State Legislators know where the real money is, and most of them are bought and paid for …
I believe there are still hundreds of basis points separating the legal minimum payback % in Nevada (75%) from what the current range of paybacks %s on the Strip currently is.
Not that a bribe would necessarily hurt, but the interests of the state and the casinos are mostly aligned. If the casinos want a lower minimum payback %, the state will give it to them either way. The casinos get more, the state gets more. The state raised hotel room taxes to pay for the stadium for the Raiders, the hotels didn’t say boo about it.
Vegas metro is probably the “cleanest” place in Nevada. I wouldn’t live in the rest of Nevada for all the money in Vegas, I’m sure the crap that goes on in the boonies would curl your hair.
Please do not think of this as being judgemental, as I am not making a moral judgement.
But the entire value provided by gaming is entertainment. For the consumer the outlay per hour is the primary concern and every modern slot machine reports this every single month.
There are zero slot machines that will be profitable for a player over time.
They will all average a 1-15% transaction tax over time, and while gaming commissions are interested in topics like gambling addiction, their primary motivator is tax revenue.
As an example, Nevada has a 6.75% tax on gross gaming revenues. If casinos were to try and float the odds they would also be committing tax fraud.
The number are reported in my above cite, as an example for one report from Reno.
Also note that the casino’s don’t have control over the payouts a game provides, that is set by the manufacture and the manufacture gains approval from the State per game.
If you are under the assumption that you can “make money” from these devices you are mistaken. Of course that is the entire goal of the industry to sell you the dream, and it is also a big justification on why many places outlaw them. As a consumer if you enjoy playing them, I highly suggest you approach them purely as entertainment, and walk away if you think that you can tell a “hot” machine, which most likely you cannot.
Joshua: Greetings, Professor Falken.
Stephen Falken: Hello, Joshua.
Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
Full Disclosure, I worked for a company that developed ticket based slot games and lotto from 1995-1999.
nitpick: In many countries slot machines are required to display the odds of winning, or the average payout. In the US, perhaps it varies from state to state?
Depends what you mean. I could walk up to one of those lottery-esque slot machines, win $10,000,000 on the first go, and not have enough time left in my life to put that many coins back into slot machines 
But yes of course the average payout per dollar put in is always less than one.
The averages for 50 calculations for the paytable under Nevada law is the only restriction I can find.
Note how they require the machine to go into a tilt condition if more than three of those runs in a row are more than 4% off the theoretical payback percentage.
The gamblers fallacy or the tendency to look for patterns in past events that don’t have any predictive value is a normal human behavior.
It must not vary much. I have been in casinos all over the USA and Canada and have never seen such a thing.
Some places do require the payback percentage of the machines to be shown; England, China, and at least some states in Australia are examples. It is usually done on an “Information” screen the player must press a button to view.