U.S. (PA) - Some answers are provided on casino cheating
Some answers are provided on casino cheating
Paul Carpenter. Last Updated: December 3, 2006, The Morning Call
Let this be a lesson to anyone thinking of trying to cheat a slot machine in one of Pennsylvania’s new casinos.
Sections 1518 (a) (7) (i) and (b) (1) (ii) of the state Gaming Act provide prison terms of up to five years for a first offense, plus fines of up to $150,000.
Lehigh Valley Local Links Section 1518 (a) (7) (ii) says people who operate casinos may ‘’use a cheating or thieving device…in performance of the duties of employment.'’ No jail, no fine, no nothing.
If you don’t believe it, I’m sure the people at the state attorney general’s office will send you a copy of the law. That’s what they did last month when I submitted a list of detailed questions about whether slot machine casinos can defraud and cheat customers.
Spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen did not answer a single question, but did send me a copy of the 82-page law plus all recent amendments.
Actually, I already had read all of that, but I felt I should mention at least part of it after he went to all that trouble.
I also sent my questions to state Sen. Robert ‘’Tommy'’ Tomlinson, R-Bucks, the chief architect of the legislation to allow slots, and to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The people in Tomlinson’s office never replied except to say he received my questions. T
here was, however, a list of answers from Douglas Harbach, a PGCB spokesman.
Most of his answers were vague or simply said he did not know the answers, but he was specific about one item. I had asked if there is any law or regulation to prohibit casinos from defrauding customers by rigging slot machine computer programs so that tantalizing ‘’almost hit'’ displays frequently come up.
‘’Yes,'’ Harbach replied, and cited Section 461.7 of PGCB regulations, which supposedly requires ‘’random selection'’ on slot machine reels. (Incidentally, it also says this: ‘’The odds of any winning combination shall not exceed 50 million to 1.'’ So, unless customers have a copy of Section 461.7, they’ll never know the chance of winning a jackpot is 1 in 50 million, because the PGCB does not require casinos to reveal odds.) Anyway, I contacted one of the world’s most respected experts on slots and told him about PGCB Regulation 461.7.
Roger Horbay, of Elora, Ontario, is president of Game Planit Interactive Corp. and has served as a consultant for various organizations interested in slots, including the gambling industry itself. He looked at Regulation 461.7 and got back to me the other day.
Horbay said that in the 1980s, computerized slot machine programs were developed to frequently deceive players into thinking the spinning reels had come within one little click of a big payoff.
That specific program was outlawed in Nevada, he said, so the slots industry simply modified the programs to use ‘’unbalanced reels. Since it’s not from a secondary draw, it’s [legal]. It’s a random draw, so it’s OK.'’ But the deceptive ‘’near-miss'’ result is the same, Horbay said, and that is what Regulation 461.7 allows. ‘’Their regulations do not prevent [contrived] near misses,'’ he said, even though such fraud is illegal in places such as New Zealand and Australia. And so it goes.
The casinos can cheat you but if you cheat them, it’s off to prison.
By the way, one of my questions last month was whether there was any ban on casinos ‘’offering free alcoholic drinks to customers as a way of lessening their inhibitions and encouraging them to engage in reckless gambling habits.'’
The answer to that came this past week, when Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation that specifically allows casinos to ply customers with as much free booze as they can guzzle.
Sen. Tomlinson, oddly enough, helped move that bill just one day after I asked him about the free drinks issue.
paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176 3Read and write comments about this article. | View Recent Comments The government in cahoots with the casinos to get as much money as possible but stop you from winning!?! Say it ain’t so!! Butcher-3802 at 12/03/2006 - 01:08:22 PM Papa told me that the house always wins. That, of course, is why they are in business.If our family played poker other betting games we used matchsticks or pennies. Sarah-1209 at 12/03/2006 - 10:50:18 AM Anyone who plays slots thinking they can make money is nuts. Slots should be for entertainment only. They are computers that have random number generators. They decide whether you are going to win or… Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call
