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Cheating Fruit (Slot) Machines 535

Posted by timothy from the who'd-a-thunk-it dept.
ebbdr writes "Ever think that fruit machines cheat you? You would be right, at least in the UK. This article provides proof that fruit machine outcomes are predetermined and that the players inputs have little, if anything to do with it. And it lets you download the emulators and machine code required to test the hypothesis for yourself...."
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Cheating Fruit (Slot) Machines More

Cheating Fruit (Slot) Machines

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  • Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bad_fx ( 493443 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:15PM (#6140681) Journal
    It thinks it's running on a real physical fruit machine and acts in exactly the same way in all circumstances (except money doesn't actually come out of your PC).

    Whew, thank god they put in that disclaimer, or I would've wasted the next 7 hours sitting here waiting for that one big payout from my PC.

    • Re:Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)

      by ainsoph ( 2216 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:23PM (#6140718) Homepage
      As you know, some people are so stupid they might actually think that they could somehow win money using it. The disclaimer protects them against such idiots. Count yourself lucky you knew better. Imagine if you were the person at the 7-11 buying a pre-packaged muffin in the morning and couldnt figure out the instructions.

      Directions: Unwrap muffin, place in mouth, chew.

    • Re:Damnit! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Zirnike ( 640152 )
      Was I the only one who saw 'fruit machine' and thought of this? [penny-arcade.com]

  • Vegas Machines?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:15PM (#6140682)
    for the love of god, does anyone have the ROMs for the machines in vegas?? i'd love to see what the hell is going on there

    • Re:Vegas Machines?? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JJahn ( 657100 )
      Vegas is completely regulated as well, so I would expect that they are all predetermined also.
    • In the US the DMCA would keep you from ever publishing anything you discovered.

    • Don't Trust Machines!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:05PM (#6140897) Homepage Journal
      The problem with digital gaming machines is that it is too easy for the programmer to add twists to the algorithms that tweak the odds. It seems odd that they would bother, since the laws of probability come out in the casino's favor, they don't need to tweak the algorithm, just do a little basic math first.

      As I recall, the Nevada casinos are required to post the expected payout and odds on the machines. For example, the expected payout might be 98%. That means the casino collects on average 2 pennies every time a patron shakes the hand of a one armed bandit with a dollar bet. The casinos don't need to pull any tricks beyond calculating the expected payouts for the different states of the machine and make sure the expected payout is less than one.

      It is disconcerting knowing that there are machines which go even further.

      As I understand, a well run gaming commissions tries to assure that casinos don't bend the rules any further than that.

      • Re:Don't Trust Machines!!!! (Score:4, Informative)

        by topham ( 32406 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @11:06PM (#6141083) Homepage
        It was explained to me by my boss at one point in time that machines in the U.S. (not sure of the locale, sorry) may be required a payout a certain percentage of the time, BUT, the machine plays ITSELF when no-one is using it.

        Any wins which occur at that time are LEGALLY counted as customer wins...

      • Re:Don't Trust Machines!!!! (Score:5, Informative)

        by lbonser ( 591757 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @12:13AM (#6141318)
        In Nevada, the source code for any legal game is reviewed by the state Gaming Control Board before approval. So it's pretty tough (but not impossible!) for a programmer to add such twists. And when a really big jackpot is hit, the casinos have internal audit personnel that tear the machine apart to check for any sort of tampering. At this time, they also review the chips to make sure they are approved chips. Many Nevada casinos advertize 98% payback, but by law, the payout can be as low as something like 78% (not sure the exact amount, but it's down in the 70's); which means on the average, the casino makes a lot more money than just a few pennies. The payback for some table games is even worse (some are better... in Blackjack, the odds constantly shift back and forth between the player and the casino). I work for a company that makes a computer system that interfaces to slot machines; I get to play slots everyday... A good job if you can get it ;-) I also have friends that work in casinos and for actual slot manufacturers. I'm not a mathmetics expert, nor even a gaming expert, but I do sorta know a bit about it. If anyone's interested, you can check out all the rules and regulations at: http://gaming.state.nv.us/

  • where'd they get the rom from? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wakkow ( 52585 ) * on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:16PM (#6140686) Homepage
    I can't seem to find -where- they got the ROM from? Seems like a crucial part of it to say what particular model/version.. I mean, even the screenshots have different quality graphics [fairplay-campaign.co.uk].

    Not to say they're lying, but I'm not convinced of their "proof". Anyone else see something I missed?

    • Re:where'd they get the rom from? (Score:5, Informative)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:26PM (#6140732) Journal
      They aren't lying, the ROMs are likely to be originals, and the machines' owners are not breaking the law.

      Confused?

      The law (at least around here) does not state that the machine has to be truly random. The law merely specifies a minimum average payout. The machine probably has to cheat in order to meet the lawful minimum payout, without (obviously) exceeding it by too much.
    • The first picture is of the actual, physical hardware running the rom. The second is just a simulation of the physical interface.

    • Re:where'd they get the rom from? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by terpia ( 28218 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:32PM (#6140769) Homepage
      That's exactly what I was wondering from minute one of reading the site. They make not only make no mention of how they obtained the roms, but there is nothing saying "we'd like to, but cannot disclose how these roms were obtained/delivered". These are the only ways that I can think of:

      • Someone unlocked a machine and stole the board, and put the chip on a rom reader and dumped the code. Obviously, highly illegal.

      • Someone has a connection on the inside with someone who has access to the raw code. Not likely, (job security issues) unless someone with access to the code recently got sacked or is otherwise disgruntled. Again, obviously highly illegal.

      • This could simply be a hoax.

      Of course, if the Roms were obtained illegally - there's a perfectly good reason as to why they wouldn't disclose how they were obtained. But nonetheless, when someone is accusing a big money industry of something so severe and underhanded it seems to me that they shouldn't take the readers who are keenly interested in this for granted and expect them to believe all of thier accusations without some sort of vague effort to let the readers know that the information they are relying on is in fact somewhat trustworthy.


      Plus, if they disclosed their methods, people may be able to test the Vegas and Reno machines in the same manner, which suck up more money than all of the UK machines easily, at least I'd imagine they suck up more money given the extraordinary volume of machines and players in Vegas.

      • I'm not sure exactly how they get the ROMs, but I imagine it's the same way people get hold of the ROMs for arcade machines, such as those used in MAME.

        It's certainly not a hoax, emulators of (UK) fruit machines and roms for them have been around for a while now, it's not like this site is the only place you can get them.

      • Re:where'd they get the rom from? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:44PM (#6141000) Homepage
        Someone unlocked a machine and stole the board, and put the chip on a rom reader and dumped the code. Obviously, highly illegal.

        Not if you own the board. Spare parts from slot machines are pretty easy to come by. There is a whole trade in used machines, cabinets, etc.

        Slot machines are pretty common in the UK, most pubs have one. It is no more difficult to come across parts legally than it is to find parts for any other common appliance.

  • Randomness in slots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:19PM (#6140696)
    The Random Number Generator (RNG) can be
    made to change its percentage by simply changing it's seed number. There
    are several ways this cam be done.

    1) Change the Eprom Chip with a new program and/or seed number which any
    computer technician can change a chip.
    2) Use an Eprom that has a cyclic program that will keep changing the
    seed number after predetermined numbers of cycles.
    3) Posibly change the seed number through a signal from the master
    computer or mainframe. There is no doubt that all these machines are
    hooked up to the mainframe for monitoring and/or recording data for
    expert review. It is known fact that comp cards and players records
    are fed back to the mainframe, why not other data.

    It is for this reason why I am an advocate for all Gambling to come under
    a Federal or State controlled Gambling Commission. All of what I say is
    not intended to infer that there is any tampering with slot machine
    programs and controls. I can only say from my experience as a computer
    programmer, that if the possibility exists, the probability resides.
    Therefore only an astute Gaming Commission that can oversee these
    computers and their control, will clear up this doubt and mistrust about
    slot machines.

  • This is a surprise? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrleemrlee ( 192314 ) <(mrleemrlee1) (at) (comcast.net)> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:20PM (#6140699) Homepage
    I don't know how it is in Britain, but it's well-known that U.S. slot machines pay a fixed percentage that is set by the house. The symbols that come up on the reels aren't random, and aren't advertised as such. So I'm not entirely clear why this is news.

    Maybe these kinds of machines are different in Britain, or maybe they're advertised differently ...

    • Re:This is a surprise? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PurpleFloyd ( 149812 ) <zeno20@@@attbi...com> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:26PM (#6140729) Homepage
      I'm not familiar with British gambling laws either, but they make one accusation that is particularly damning: some machines have a "double or nothing" feature after a big payout; one of the site's accusations is that the "double or nothing" games are rigged so the player never wins. Still, some of this does seem fishy: their ROMs seem to feature cabinet art and other machine decorations rather than just display outputs, and the tests have been statistical rather than based on the programming.

      A really convincing argument would be based on the ROM's internal code rather than on statistical analyses of the emulator output. After all, as long as an emulator is used, there is no way to know whether the ROM really has "cheater code" built in, or whether it's an emulator bug that is causing the analyses to come up wrong.

      • Re:This is a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pm ( 11079 )
        They didn't say that you never win on the "double of nothing" games, they said that it's predetermined whether or not you will win. So you have an option to play double or nothing as to whether you can guess if the next number will be higher or lower than the number that they show on the screen. It is predetermined that you will win or lose this regardless of the number that they show and what you happen to choose.

        This isn't a claim that you can't win - but that winning is predetermined.

        • Re:This is a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by PurpleFloyd ( 149812 ) <zeno20@@@attbi...com> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:52PM (#6140849) Homepage
          Take a look here [fairplay-campaign.co.uk]. According to the page, after the player wins a certain number of "double or nothing" games, the outcome is always a loss. The machine will not allow players to win more than 25 pounds (30 if you choose the other game available, which also has a loss point programmed in).

          Also, note that casinos are based on statistics, not on regulating individual payouts. While on the whole the casino will always win due to the massive scale it operates on, there is the opportunity for individual players to beat the odds and leave with more money than they came in with. Not allowing the player to win, with no element of chance whatsoever, is illegal almost everywhere. I imagine that this would fall under fraud laws at the very least, due to the fact that these machines are advertised as gambling devices based on random events.

          • The emulator sounds like it is operating correctly - the game, and all double-up/nudge results, are determined at the start of the game. The article proves that this is pre-determined, but not that players are being ripped off. The nudge results (at least in the slot machine software I wrote) were exactly a fifty-fifty chance, regardless of choice (and this was a legal requirement - slot machines are games of pure chance; no user skill element is allowed, regardless of how it appears).

            The game on the page

    • Re:This is a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cpaluc ( 559921 )
      That's the same here in Australia where, I believe, we have the highest number of of pokies (slot machines) per capita.

      Where I live, the machines actually have little stickers on them that state the percentage return of the machine (usu. about 85% i think). The stickers must be compulsory - otherwise I don't see why the manufacturers would put them on.
      • The stickers must be compulsory - otherwise I don't see why the manufacturers would put them on.

        Would you rather gamble on a machine where there is an apparent "guarenteed" payout, or the machine next to it without the sticker?

    • Re:This is a surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tetrad ( 131849 )
      The symbols that come up on the reels aren't random

      Wrong. In the US, the slots are indeed random, although of course the odds are balanced in such a way that the house wins in the long run.

      The difference between a game of chance and a scam is that a game of chance has fixed odds while a scam has fixed outcomes. If the British fruit machines are in fact behaving as described, their outcomes are fixed and they are a scam.

  • In Soviet Russia, the machine cheats on you! Or.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:21PM (#6140706) Journal
    Heh, I remember the gool ol' Random Runner, before it had its programming upgraded. It would offer you exactly the same gamble as the article mentions, ie. two flashing lights with 'win' and 'lose', you hit a button and one of the lights stays on. What you did on the Random Runner was keep the button depressed. If you lost, too bad, but if you won... the next level bet would start but you'd win automatically, and the next bet, and so on.

    Random Runners were popular with proprietors as well, as it was easy to obtain ROMs for these machines that would drastically lower the payout. Seeig this kind of machine is like a red flag for inspectors; they'll be sure to inspect the ROM in the machine.

  • At least it's in the UK... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...because if this had happened in the US, lawyers would have already delivered a C&D to get the website shut down, and the guys who uncovered this would've been slapped with a huge DMCA lawsuit over their duplication of the functions of the machine on a PC.

    The issue of massive, provable fraud (of which Joe Average is the victim) would have been glossed over in favor of the copyright infringement nonsense (of which Huge Heartless Corp is the "victim").
  • Q) What is a lottery (in the US sense of the word)?
    A) A tax for people bad at math.

    • A) A tax for people bad at math.

      Or, cheap entertainment.

      People aren't excited while skydiving because they expect to plummet to their death, but most of them do know it's possible.

      I doubt if anyone in history who has ever won the lottery put more into it than they got out. It's this possibility which excites people, let them have their fun.

      • Re:Reminds me of the lottery... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:49PM (#6140842)
        People aren't excited while skydiving because they expect to plummet to their death, but most of them do know it's possible.

        I doubt if anyone in history who has ever won the lottery put more into it than they got out. It's this possibility which excites people, let them have their fun.

        Of course, if you drive a few miles to the store to buy a lotto ticket, your odds of dying in a traffic accident are similar to your odds of winning (both about 20,000,000:1).

        Maybe playing lotto has more in common with skydiving than most people think.

      • Or, cheap entertainment.

        For some people a dollar or two for some pleasant fantasies isn't really that steep a price. I never play it myself, but I can see the appeal.

    • Re:Reminds me of the lottery... (Score:4, Funny)

      by outsider007 ( 115534 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:34PM (#6140777)
      that's why we need an open source lottery.
      here's how it will work:
      everyone sends me a buck and when I have a million, I'll pick a name from the people who sent them in (at random)
      I won't take a cut because I'm such a nice guy.
      • I know this is a joke, but this is very similar to what the mafia does.

        If there is a pick 3 game (1 in 1000 shot) in your state which pays says $500 on a $1 ticket, the local mob is probably offering $700 dollars on the very same ticket.

        Now they are both terrible bets, but at least the mob is offering you better odds than the government.

        Of course the gov't will cry bloody murder, because it wants to keep its lottery monopoly.
    • Funny how half the people who proclaim this truth play the lottery themselves.

      A lottery is more like a negative insurance. With insurance, you pay a small amount against the tiny chance that a big disaster will befall you, so that you'll be able to carry the financial burden at least. With a lottery, you pay a small amount against the tiny chance that your number hits, so you'll be thumping your nose at those people who told you lotteries are for people who are bad at math.

  • How else would they work? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcglo[ ].net ['bal' in gap]> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:25PM (#6140725) Homepage Journal
    I've thought about this myself. The whole key to a slot machine or a fruit machine is that you need to be able to set the "payout" percentage, typically something high like 98%. 98% means that the player gets back $0.98 on every $1, assuming he plays an infinite amount of times.

    The only way to guarantee this is by determining what the payout is as soon as the money's in the slot. The "pick high or low" and all of these other things are just meant to help keep the player interested, so that the player keeps playing.

    Slot machines use other tricks, too: You can play on multiple lines, or you can play multiple coins for higher bonuses. Obviously the bonuses are multiples of the number of coins you play, so they have zero effect on probability. Multiple lines increases the probability you'll win per spin, but it doesn't affect the probability per coin, which is what matters to the proprietor.

    This isn't a scam or cheating or anything like that. It is the same principle behind coin-op arcade machines: You pay to play. On a machine that has 98% payout and takes quarters, that means you pay (theoretically) half a cent every time you spin. In reality, you spend more or less than that depending on random outcomes, but over millions of plays on thousands of machines it means a good twopence on the pound for the Brits and two cents on the dollar for Americans.

    Companies, that is. Not for the players.


    • except that in the UK it's usually 20-30 pence in the pound, not 2 pence in the pound.

      And even if it meets the 80% payout quoted, it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth that it's intentionally making you lose irrespective of your choices (although, lets be honest, does this surprise anybody?)

      ~Cederic

    • Re:How else would they work? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jon_eaves ( 22962 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:48PM (#6140837) Homepage
      In Australia (or Victoria at least) it's 87%, and it's done by manipulation of the payoff tables. So, a Royal Flush pays 500-1 when in fact the odds are much higher. (For video poker type machines)

      The industry is heavily regulated and government monitored. I had a friend who built the hardware and software for some of the systems, and they have hard-core maths people working for them.

      Very funny story though, there was a machine that was in one of the suburbs that had a very high frequency of migrants (Vietnamese) that was consistently paying out above the 87%. The company was suspicious they were doing something illegal causing the machine to pay out when it shouldn't.

      Turns out the guys playing the machine were statistics professors (from Vietnam) that had analysed the payoff tables and found a weakness in the payoff and under certain "unusual" circumstances (like breaking 3 of a kind and throwing away 2 Kings to go for Royal Flush) the payoff could be increased.
      The maths guys at the company were somewhat embarassed as they had to change the tables to account for this.

      • I have written slot machine software myself (Score:5, Informative)

        by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @04:31AM (#6141938) Homepage

        Though I doubt I am one of the friends of which you speak, I have written slot machine ("pokies") software for Tatts Victoria.

        I can confirm that it's heavily regulated, and the RNG used is carefully analysed for randomness, with the the payoff tables (and to a lesser degree, the ordering of the symbols on "fruit machine" types) controlling the payout (which usually varies between 83% and 91%)

        The results are only "pre-determined" at the time of the user starting the roll, but are completely random nonetheless. In other words, when the user pulls the arm (if the machine has an arm), the results of the roll (and any related results, e.g. from a "double-up") are randomly pre-selected, then the reels are spun to those positions.

        What struck me most was the incredible security and redundancy the system has. In Victoria, the legal accounting requirements are very stringent, and the manufacturers themselves have a long list of attacks they have to be proof against (from long experience - everything from massive magnetic fields to electrical cattle prods have been used to defeat a slot machine's defenses).

        For example, not only is the casing solid steel, locked and with mil-spec proofing against EMI, the CPU board and coin trays are both locked within separate steel compartments within the unit, and each requires a different key to unlock. All locks have failsafe mechanisms to record opening, and the cabinet door has a randomly-pulsed optical sensor as well.

        Particularly, the win-loss game data is recorded into triple-battery-backed static RAM, in multiple CRC'd locations, with the same data being recorded simultaneously onto physical counters, printed in duplicate to a roll of paper (on some machines), and sent in real-time via encrypted LAN to a central host, which must verify all large payouts. Every coin and every game must be accounted for under any circumstance, particularly power failure in the middle of a game.

        The coin sensors and payout mechanisms were equally sophisticated, and had to accurately deal with punters feeding large numbers of coins very rapidly into the machines, whilst still defeating "coin-on-a-string" style attacks.

        It was an interesting project, but involved considerably more than I first expected. I can say that, after many all-nighters testing, I have come to truly dislike the sound of a slot machine :-/ (Ironically, for some years my next job required me to go to tradeshows in Las Vegas - from the very moment you step off the plane, you're assaulted by pokies on all sides)

    • wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

      by martin-boundary ( 547041 )

      The only way to guarantee this is by determining what the payout is as soon as the money's in the slot. The "pick high or low" and all of these other things are just meant to help keep the player interested, so that the player keeps playing.

      There's absolutely no need to make payout decisions before play starts. Slot machines and related devices are very simple to analyse probabilistically. All you need is to write down the state transition probabilities, and run matrix mutiplications. It's all elementary

  • The "proof" is based on predictable repeating sequences of moves from the machines. Couldn't this be caused by the emulator environment causing (or using) identical seeding for random number generation?

    Of course that doesn't answer the assertion that the outcome of any "gamble" is predetermined, and thus it isn't a gamble at all but "tell me your decision". But: there's no comparison with one (in fact, several) actual machines, so it's not clear this is the same real-world; if the machine randomly arrives

    • >> if the machine randomly arrives at the win/lose decision, does it make it any less fair if it does so before you press the button?

      Except that they save the state of the ROM (including its current seed, including any randomly generated results) immediately prior to making a 'high / low' choice. The machine automatically selects the losing option. If you reload the ROM from its saved state and pick the other, the machine also picks the other, so you still have the losing option.

      Thus it's quite demo
    • Actually the proof is based on the deterministic evaluation of a computer program. His claim is that the game isn't random at all. He does this by using what emulator afficionados call 'save states.' He basically stores the entire state of the machine, chooses an option, and tries the others. In his attempts he has discovered that your destiny is pretermined by the time you choose higher/10/lower.

      Think of it like the first Zelda where you use the save states to always win at the gambling rooms to buy all y

  • can't say i'm surprised... (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_instigator ( 679233 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:27PM (#6140739)
    I keep telling people to play the change machines instead, at least you're gonna break even on each slot session.
  • Yes it is pre-determined, but pre-determined randomly. The odds are (whatever) that you will win or lose. You have a chance of winning. That chance has a certain probability. Just because the outcome is determined before the wheels stop spinning doesn't mean it's cheating/fraud. The spinning wheels are just for aesthetics.

  • OK, so they can reload the previous state, but if the odds of winning are really long (as opposed to absolutely zero) then they could reload the previous state many times, not win, and have no real proof of cheating. The real proof would come with a line of code that went something like this:

    if (user_chooses(DOOR_NUMBER_1 | DOOR_NUMBER_3)

    • D***it. That's what I get for pressing TAB in an IE text entry window. Let me continue...

      if (user_chooses(DOOR_NUMBER_1 | DOOR_NUMBER_3)) { user=loser; }

      Until they actually find code like that, they don't have perfect proof. However, given that the payout on this wager is a simple "double or nothing" I think we could expect the odds to be similar to the odds of double-or-nothing wagers in other types of gambling, which are not that long. So, they certainly have heavy empirical evidence of cheating.

    • Re:Do They Really Have Proof? (Score:4, Informative)

      by neonstz ( 79215 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:40PM (#6140805) Homepage

      I think this quote from the article demonstrates that kind of behaviour:

      This RAM file demonstrates the "hold dilemma". On the second spin, two cherries will appear on the second and third reels, with the option to hold. If you elect NOT to hold the cherries, a cherry will spin in on Reel 1 on the next turn, leading the player to believe holding the cherries would have yielded a win. However, if you DO hold the cherries, a red 7 will spin in on the first reel instead.

      The pseudo-code would probably look like this:

      if( something_is_held )
      {
      ....if( player_should_loose )
      ........spin_with_loosing_result();
      ....else
      ........spin_with_winning_result();
      else
      {
      .... if( player_should_loose )
      ........spin_with_result_which_would_have_been_ win_if_the_player_had_held();
      ....else
      ........s pin_with_winning_result();
      }

      (How do I create indents? :)

  • They are money-taking machines. They can be set by the casino to pay back a percentage of the amount taken in (In Nevada, I think the minimum is 75%, but I've seen some that advertise 98.8%... usually downtown vegas) The trick is, this is over time so if you play at the right time, you can hit the machine in a winning streak. Whether you are going to win or lose is determined before you even put the coin in!
    • Whether you are going to win or lose is determined before you even put the coin in!

      Close, if you're going to win or loose is determined WHEN you put the coin in, that's when the RND seed is chosen and the tables fixed in place. The flashing lights, spinning wheels and sexy graphics are just to keep you interested. At least according to the special I just watched on Discovery about slots in Las Vegas - YMMV in other places.
  • Part of me thinks that having some outcomes be predetermined, as long as the statistical payouts are honored, is okay.

    On the other hand, there should be some reasonable randomness in the system if they want to call it "gambling". In a more random system, there could be a night of heavy use where the machine loses money. That wouldn't seem possible with these machine's so closely watching their payouts.

    I'd think that the machines should be checkable to make sure that they're making proper payouts, and

  • Your Point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by A non moose cow ( 610391 ) <slashdot@rilo.org> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:45PM (#6140827) Journal
    From the article: "And in almost all cases, no matter what you chose, the result would be the same.",

    Almost? Hmmmmm.

    Anyway, what does it matter? Everyone knows that those machines have always given out less than they take in. What difference does it make what method they use? My dad has an old British slot machine that is 100% mechanical. Even it has dials inside that allow you to increase or decrease payouts to players. Anyone who buys a slot machine intends to make money with it. If it was a gamble to own the machine, nobody would. Vegas slots are all wired together to collectively "rip you off". Is this really a news flash to anyone?

    If you can't afford to lose the money, you shouldn't put it in the machine.
  • The section doesn't really seem appropriate, unless someone builds a web-controlled robot that plays these things, of course.

  • predetermined can still be random (Score:3, Insightful)

    by obsid1an ( 665888 ) <{moc.ishcm} {ta} {naidisbo}> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:49PM (#6140843)
    Reading this article I can't help but wonder what this group is thinking. Just because the outcome of the next roll is figured out ahead of time doesn't mean it wasn't randomly generated. It was just randomly generated earlier than anticipated.

  • Bah... (Score:2, Funny)

    by tomakaan ( 673394 )
    It's a good thing I play blackjack...
  • Why not just stone [pcable.net] the winners instead?

    (it's not offtopic, if you've read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery)

  • Sometimes skill does make a difference (Score:5, Informative)

    by Len ( 89493 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:01PM (#6140885)
    A few years ago someone won over $600,000 from a machine at the Montreal Casino by analyzing patterns in the numbers that came up. The sequence repeated because the machine wasn't seeding the pseudo-random number generator properly. More info in Risks Digest. [ncl.ac.uk]
  • If I'm not mistaken, this is the same guy who was promoting some sort of campaign against high video game prices. At the time there were a few subtle voices suggesting he was a simple self promoting shill, and judging by the website, he has not disproved them.

    The fairplay campaign was supposed to last the 1st through the 8th. Yet the last news update was the 2nd. Not even halfway through the supposed boycott, it appears he gave up. No further encouragement or updates, not even a fradulent statistic showing
  • A lot of people are missing the point here. The fac that their saving the random seed (and therefore you can completely repeat their sequences) has nothing to do with the problem. The problem is that the numbers generated do not follow a completely set sequence, instead they change depending on your input to make you lose.

    The example they have is that, if you follow the sequence on this page [fairplay-campaign.co.uk], the machine reaches a point that's supposed to be a gamble, but in fact you cannot win. And it's not because the output is predetermined, or the seed is the same and it happens to be a losing bet. It's a high/low gamble, so you should have a chance to win regardless of what the seed was. But if you pick high the machine picks low, and vice-versa. An 'honest' machine would pick the same number regardless of which button you picked.

    Of course, the legal/ethical issue is more complicated than the simple mechanical issue. The basic problem is that machines are never fair, and cannot ever be fair because their purpose is to redistribute money from your pocket to the machine owner. The large number of people who seem to think that gambling is ever fair are deluded or naive. And the problem with the specific machine referenced above is that it has the extremely difficult task of mapping a percentage payout (they mention it's probably 70%) to a more fair operation (high-low with a pair of dice). Therefore, it has to cheat sometimes to ensure it doesn't payout too much. Which is perfectly legal, and really is the only way to do it. If they actually get a law passed saying that machines cannot cheat in any circumstance, it will mean the end of gambling, because no owner in their right mind would take a real gamble, where they could lose all that money they've been raking in.

  • Psychology of gambling (Score:2, Informative)

    by gringer ( 252588 )
    Something I have a vague recollection of from my lectures in Psychology can be applied to gambling machines.

    Apparently, the most effective way to get someone to keep doing something is to provide a reward at random intervals [of button pressing, lever pulling etc.], centered around some average. It doesn't matter how large the reward is, just as long as it is something. Most studies were carried out on rats, but humans [ithaca.edu] are so similar to rats that you might as well generalise.

    For "Fruit Machines", you can

  • How (IGT, perhaps other) slot machines work (Score:5, Informative)

    by fo0bar ( 261207 ) * on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:52PM (#6141027)
    I've lived in Nevada for a little over a year now, and know several people who work at IGT [igtonline.com], a gaming manufacturer. Some of the things I learned suprised me, some didn't. All I know is the odds are definitely not in your favor. Is it illegal? Hell, no.

    First off, the article (yes, I read the article). The author's biggest peeve is that the outcome of the "double or nothing" option on the fruit machines is determined before the user even chooses. Big whoop. Whether the magic number is determined before or after you choose is meaningless; it does not affect the odds.

    Second, a previous poster mentioned the RNG. In IGT slots (and I would imagine most modern ones), the RNG device is a super-sensitive measurement device that detects tiny vibrations in the chassis. This is a much better way of seeding a number generator than any software-based solution. No, banging on the chassis won't increase your odds, but it will cause the machine to tilt and will probably get the attention of a security guard. ;) Also, the machine uses this entropy to re-seed itself thousands of times per second, not just once in the beginning.

    Lastly, there's the method for choosing if you win or loose. As soon as you press the "spin reels" button (or pull the handle on machine that still support that), the outcome is already known. Let me repeat: THE OUTCOME IS KNOWN before the reels start spinning. The actual spinning of the reels is just eye candy.

    This part takes a bit more explaining: say each reel have three symbols on them (we'll call them A, B, and C; in reality, the reels have maybe a couple dozen). In this example, C is the most favorable; you get a jackpot if you get three C's. You would think that this would mean that you would have a 1 in 27 chance of hitting the jackpot (3^3). Nope. The internal mechanism works like so: Okay, you have 3 symbols on each wheel. Inside the program, there are 3 arrays of symbols, but the number of elements inside the array is much more than 3. Say these are the arrays:

    • Reel 1: AAABBBBCCCCC
    • Reel 2: AAAABBBBCCCC
    • Reel 3: AAAAAAAABBBC
    The machine picks a random element from each array. Do you see what's going on here? There are more Cs in the first reel array, making it very likely to hit a C on the first reel. Next is a slightly less chance to hit C again. The third time is nearly impossible. Yet it builds you hope up, thinking you're about to hit the jackpot.

    Is this deceitful? Yes. Does it prey upon the stupid? Yes. Is it illegal? Nope. These methods produce a certain payout percentage, and the techniques for producing them are "public" knowledge, usually regulated by your state's gambling office.

    In conclusion, stick to blackjack.

    • I'm a longtime Nevada resident and agree with the entire point of your post. However, your point of contention is somewhat unrelated to the point of the article. The article is stating that the machines are rigged in a quite different way than Nevada slot machines.

      It's saying that these slot machines are programmed for you to lose. For example, say you have a '2' onscreen and you have to choose between higher (up to 10) and lower (down to 1). If you pick 'lower', you lose, and if you pick 'higher', you

  • casinos are bad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:58PM (#6141050) Homepage
    As a casino employee, I can tell you that casinos are some of the most depressing places in teh world. It is amazing that these people come back, some of them every day (one customer told me he has been there every day for 18 months) and lose and lose, but when they win the sligtest bit they feel like winners. Hey moron, I just watched you put a ton of money in that machine and you're excited about $250? Wow, you're only down $300 now!
    The thing about casinos is that people think, oh maybe I'll win the nix spin/hand whatever, so they keep playing. Then when they do win, suddenly they thing they're "on a roll" and poof their goes the money they just won plus some more.
    You want to know what is even more amazing? At least half of the people who work there are just as adicted to gambling as teh customers. You would not beleive how many of my fellow emploees spend their days off at the casino down the road. See, a lot of them were former customers of the casino i work at, lost a bunch of money and were forced to get a job, so they got one at the casino. One would think that this would cure them of their addiction, but I suppose it is like an alcoholic working at a bar.
    Long story short, don't go to casinos. if you do leave your credit cards and checkbooks at home.

  • Online Casino Slot Machines (Score:3, Informative)

    by NightRain ( 144349 ) <rayNO@SPAMcyron.id.au> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @11:27PM (#6141170)

    I work at an online casino, and this is exactly how our games work. When you press the button to spin the wheels, the result of the game is decided then and there. This includes the results of any bonus games. The amount of your win was decided by the spin, and the bonus game itself will show whatever it needs to to show you that total amount.

    Our terms and conditions for each slot spell this out however, stating the the results of the bonus games have no effect on the actual win amount. Presumably other online casinos work the same way, and I don't think it's too big an extrapolation to state that most physical slot machines work the same way.

  • As someone who used to play these way too much... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cliveholloway ( 132299 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @01:04AM (#6141440) Homepage Journal
    This is common knowledge and not a surprise. These things work on cycles, but the cycles are spiked with extremely baron periods and extremely genorous ones.

    Ten years ago the cycles were a lot more reliable. I used to hang out in an arcade on Leeds railway station during rush hour.

    The way to play was to pay attention to how much other players were dumping in machines. If a machine had received 75% of the jackpot without paying out, as soon as the current player left, go over and put in up to 50% of the jackpot value. Play until you win a jackpot (ignore/gamble smaller wins). 80% of the time, you'd get it. The hard part was to walk away if it hadn't paid by then :) But if you stuck to that, you were pretty much guaranteed to come out up overall. I used to make around 20 quid ($30) a night when I played - over a couple of hours, so the payback wasn't that great :)

    But then the cycles gradually got longer, with longer baron patches followed by an occasional triple jackpot (paid over three pays to avoid breaking the law!). At that point it was no longer statistically worth while playing.

    The manufacturers though are experts at intermittant reinforcement. It took me a while to quit while losing.

    Now I live in California so I don't have to worry about being able to do anything dangerous, addictive or interesting because the State very kindly makes all my bad habits illegal :) To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, "We all go down the library for a wild time" :)

    .02

    cLive ;-)

  • Addiction Machines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dforsey ( 107707 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @01:39AM (#6141563)
    The fabulous property of computer-based slot machines is the total control it gives the programmer over the mark's experience. The sole purpose of the game is to keep you playing until your money runs out. All the govt keep track of is whether the % payoff is within the legal limits.


    Let's take a simple 5 symbol slot machine. With a mechanical device, the player can know they're a loser when the second wheel stops. A video slot machine can keep the suspense going right up until the last symbol... oh look! Two bars! Three! Oh sweet Jesus a fourth bar! That's 5K if the next bar comes around!


    At this point, speaking as a programmer, I'd make damn sure that the winning symbols just drifts past the window before flashing the "Deposit another $5 to NUDGE?" button.


    Since you have total control, the programmer can make the sucker believe they are coming arbitrarily close to winning without actually paying out anything. The idea is to give the sucker a lift, a high, a thrill. A glimpse of that "big win", that will keep him/her putting the money in.


    Not illegal. Just behavioural conditioning. The same thing B.F. Skinner did with pigeons.


    In his experiments the pigeons were taught to repeatedly peck a switch to get a small food reward. If the food was delivered after set number of pecks (even dozens), the bird would only peck away when it was hungry. But if the reward (food) was delivered after a random number of pecks, the bird eventually came to peck at the button continually, even frantically.


    A slot/fruit machine is nothing more than a behavioural conditioning machine that skillfully supplies small, random rewards, all the while sustaining the belief in the player that the big reward is just waiting for the next game.


    Illegal? No. Ethical? Well, gambling is a tax on the stupid.

  • because I just put away 180 bucks at a local casino, and I may have been able to see this article earlier.

  • Great Expectations - NOT! And a tip for winning! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tsu Dho Nimh ( 663417 ) <abacaxi.hotmail@com> on Sunday June 08, 2003 @08:49AM (#6142372)
    And they expected anything different from a "one-armed bandit" (American slang for slot machine) or "tragamonedas" ("coin-gobbler", Mexican slang for a slot machine? The odds are set by the house, to favor the house. Period.

    BTW, I used to travel to Las Vegas to work several times a month, and often chatted with a "slot mechanic" who lived in Phoenix. He fixed the machines, set the odds, and was absolutely forbidden to set foot in a casino in Nevada except in the company of a casino official (they usually brought the slots to him, except in cases of a huge payout). He told me which machines to play ... the ones at the ends of the aisles along both sides of the route leading from the front door to the check-in desk are usually set to pay off small and often. The casino wants incoming guests to see winners. For bigger, but far less frequent payoffs, it's the machines in the middle of the rows.

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