Casino Insider Tells (Almost) All About Security 232
An anonymous reader writes "ComputerWorld has up a story on casino security technology, exploring the world of facial recognition technology and various other systems in casinos such as the Bellagio, Treasure Island, and Beau Rivage. Industry veteran Jeff Jonas reveals some of the secret scams he learned from the casino industry such as the infinite hundred dollar bill, the hollowed out chip cup, the palm (trading cards), the specialty code (inserted by rogue programmer into video poker machine) and the cameraman, as well as detailing how casinos strike back against fraudsters and cheats.'"
Biggest Scam (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:waiting for the MIT movie (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If you vary your bet according to the count, you get the advantage. You need to be proportionally more as the count goes up, to make up for the small bets you made when the count was down.
Again, close. If you work with a team, then the next guy will not be playing at all during a low count. If you are counting, they you don't vary your bet at all. But when the count goes up, you signal the Big Player to come in. They place a large bet-- something that would seem suspicious if YOU put it down, but is normal for him. He only bets that amount and doesn't vary.
In that case, your advantage is EXACTLY THE SAME (~0.5% per count)-- but the EV will be greater. The more you bet, the more you'll earn, but the rate will be the same. If you have a 1.5% advantage, it doesn't matter if you bet $100 or $10,000. You will only "earn" 1.5% of that.
Uhhhg. Never rely on the dealer. They don't know what they're doing. They're just a flawed gaming machine made of flesh.
No. No it doesn't. It's useless to count the tens unless you are also counting the low cards that balance it. It's useless to know that five 10s have left the deck, unless you know how many low cards have also left the deck. The whole point about counting is to know the estimated composition of the remaining deck.
Example: You are counting the tens. 6 tens come out of the deck. You assume a count of -6, and lower your bet. I am hi/lo. I see those 6 tens come out, and then 12 low cards. I KNOW a count of +6, and raise my bet to take advantage of it. Guess who is coming out on top
And she could just have easily have been wrong. She doesn't know what the next card is. Neither does a counter. A counter just knows the estimated composition of the deck, and can vary their bet or use an "index play". IE: Basic Strategy says 12 vs. 2 is a hit, because that move is the best possible play statistically. But at a count > 0, it becomes stand, because now that move is the bes possible play statistically. That doesn't mean the next card is a 10. It just means that you'll lose less by standing than by hitting.
You cannot point to a single hand and use that as proof for anything. Remember, 12,000 hands is where "long term" begins. Everything else is indistinguishable from luck. If anything, the dealer was taking a blind shot hoping for a tip.
Casino Security isn't a Magical Mysterious Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Casinos would like you to believe in Ocean's 13 size IT rooms and facial recognition and such. The truth is that most casino security is low-tech (cameras and people). The largest cheating ring that was broken up recently involved a gaming commission, law enforcement, and the casinos themselves busting a partnership between outside cheaters and the employees working at the table. You have to remember, the states view cheating as bilking them out of the exorbitant taxes they get to rake from casinos since casinos are evil like cigarettes and okay to tax at obscene rates.
If some casino is using facial recognition scanning software etc, they probably are just peeing money down a drain. More likely, its hype designed to scare off cheaters. I think its a dumb idea to create this image though.
In Stalin's Russia, there wasn't a dossier on everyone, but the fear of a dossier on everyone was what helped keep the masses in check. Cultivating a fear in casino goers that they are under watch at all times and being scanned isn't in the interest of the big casinos. Casinos are the last place you are free to be free. You can let your hair down, have a politically incorrect drink, and inhale politically incorrect air.
Go to a casino, have fun, and remember that the cameras are more likely watching employees than they are watching you.
Re:Magic slot machine sequence (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I was a 1-person programming powerhouse developing all of the code by myself, there are several other factors which would make it nearly impossible.
1) All of our games go through a rigorous testing process. This testing is much more than is done on actual video games due to the fact that simple errors could be the difference between a player correctly being payed out $100 and incorrectly being paid out $1,000,000. And yes, this has happened
2) After we have done all of this rigorous testing, we submit both the completed game and all of our source code to be certified and re-tested by an independent firm [gaminglabs.com]
This is an example of how things currently work today. 10-15 years ago however, there were not nearly the regulation on video slot machines that exist today, nor the sophistication with the development of them. Given the state of some of our earlier frameworks in our code archives, I could imagine how something like this might have happened.
Re:Untrue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Untrue (Score:-1, Insightful)
It's the people who talk about opportunity costs as "losses" in the context of hobbies and entertainment that drive me nuts. Spending 8 hours a night sleeping, one hour a day reading Slashdot, and one hour a day eating food represents ten hours of $100/hour consultancy you could have been doing. (Apparently they don't teach about the value of leisure activity in whatever lifehacker/self-improvement/douchebaggery.com economics they taught you either.)
But let's try it your way -- fact is, most recreational activities cost money. Recreational activities with expected negative rates of return, such as casino gambling, by definition, cost money. So phrased in your terms of opportunity costs, even if the original poster had broken even, he's still made a profit.
That profit can even be quantified. Use the house advantage calculator, plug in your casino's house rules, your starting pool of money, your minimum bet, your maximum bet, and an expected error rate to reflect how well/poorly you can play perfect basic strategy. You'll get a percentage probability of ruin, and a rate of return per hand. For example, if you play 100 hands, at an 0.995 (-0.5%) rate of return, you can expect to end up with 60% (0.995 ^ 100 = ~0.6) of your money left at the end of the game. Starting with $100, and playing at the $25 tables, you have a very high risk of ruin - you'll probably run out of money way before you get to hand #100. Starting with $1000, and playing at the $5 tables, you have a very low risk of ruin. You'll probably walk out, 100 hands later, having lost about 40% of the (0.4 * $5 * 100 hands), or $200, of the $1000 you've gambled.
If the guy uses those bet sizes, and plays 20 hands an hour (a hand can take 2-3 minutes at a $5 table, full of relatively inexperienced players), he can expect to get five hours of fun for his $200. That is, his fun has an expected value of -$40/hour. He's paying that cost the instant he sits down at the table. (He's working, just as hard as if he was sitting in an office. He's producing something of economic value to waitresses, bartenders, and blackjack dealers. It's just that the pay sucks :) To the extent that he loses less than $40/hour playing, he is indeed making a profit over the expected value of his evening.
Re:Untrue (Score:3, Insightful)