Ask the Slot Expert: Suspicious activity at the slots

Question: Have been to Everett, MA Encore Casino 5 times in last 3 weeks. There is the same group of persons, not gambling, but hovering around slot machines that are actively winning. As soon as the person leaves the machine, they go over and deposit a voucher, press a lot on the machine. The machine shows win win win and in 2 minutes they’ve won a great deal of money. One person won over $1200, another over $600. It is constantly happening.

We called attention to security, and one security man watched as it happened and verified what we told him was happening. The persons in this group are in cahoots. We feel there is something wrong going on. That it is a scam. Have you heard of this going on?

It seems they’ve found a way to make fast money on the slot machines while not playing the machine, but manipulating something and gaining significant sums in a minute. These are loiterers, not your typical attendees or guests at a casino.

Answer: Have I heard of something like this going on? Yes, I have.

Nevada, and other jurisdictions, periodically check the programming in slot machines to ensure the program in a machine matches the approved program and has not been manipulated. Thirty years ago, still in the relatively early days of computer-controlled slot machines, Nevada's gaming lab technicians would remove the game chip from a machine and put it in a device that would compare the bytes on the chip with those of the approved program.

The program in the slot machine was stored on chips that could be reprogrammed and the device the technicians used to verify the chips was also able to reprogram the chips. Ron Harris, the Gaming Control Board's computer wiz at the time, programmed the chip-checking devices to reprogram the game chips when they were used to verify chips.

The game programs were gaffed so they would hit a jackpot after a certain sequence of coins were played. As far as the Eye in the Sky could tell, a player who altered his bet from spin to spin got lucky.

I heard the following story at a slot seminar. Casino management was sure that a player was cheating their video poker machines. It was very unlikely for a player to win as much as he had won. The casino pored over the surveillance footage but they couldn't see anything this player did to manipulate the machines.

On a long shot, the casino showed the footage to a testing lab. One of the lab employees said, "I recognize that guy. He's one of the programmers who worked on the machine."

Depending upon the jurisdiction and the manufacturer or lab, employees may be prohibited from playing machines or devices they worked on or tested, or they may be prohibited from playing all Electronic Gaming Devices, or they may even be prohibited from gambling in a casino completely.

A few years ago, I saw some suspicious behavior in a casino. A group of two or three people would sit at a machine, play for a little while, and then cash out a ticket. I never saw them put any money in a machine. I saw them do this quite a few times.

One of the slot floorpeople I was friendly with came over to say hello to me. I told her that there was something wacky about that group. They never put money in the machine, but they're somehow able to cash out.

She said that she knew who they were. They were regulars who, apparently, get an insane amount of free play. They would download, say, $20 of it to a machine. Then they would play $20 worth of spins and cash out whatever was left. Rinse. Repeat. That's how they were able to play and cash out without ever putting a bill in the acceptor.

Today I'm wondering whether someone is going to think that I'm doing something suspicious at the casino. Some machines at some casinos don't support Cashless Gaming. When I want to play one of these machines and use money from my Cashless account, I go to a machine that does support Cashless and download money to it. Then I cash out into a ticket, which I can then use in the unsupported machine. If someone isn't watching what I'm doing closely, it looks like I'm going up to a machine and cashing out a ticket without ever putting any money into it or playing it.

What you saw sounds a bit like a cheating scam that surfaced a years ago. The cheats had knowledge of the program running a slot machine. They built a simulator to mimic the machine. One member played the machine in a casino and recorded the game play on his cell phone. He would then send the video back to the team. The team used the video to sync their simulator with the casino machine. The simulator was then able to determine when the RNG was going to have a winning outcome. A file of timings was sent back to the player, whose phone had an app that used the timing file to vibrate the phone when it was time to hit the Spin button.

The goal of these scams is to maximize the amount of money one can steal without getting caught. The key to not getting caught is to not draw attention to yourself. That means you shouldn't get too much from one machine, one casino or one jurisdiction.

You said you saw someone win over $1200 once. I suspect that getting a large number of tax forms when you're not playing a high-denomination machine will get a casino to take a close look at you.

The old electro-mechanical slot machines are no longer permitted on slot floors because modern, computer-controlled machines are much harder to cheat. Maybe not impossible, but much harder. And cheating them requires some inside knowledge of the software in the machines.

You did what you could do. "If you see something, say something." Let casino security investigate. There's probably an explanation.

Preliminary data from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey estimates that only 11.1% of adults report being current cigarette smokers.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.