Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich—Then Vegas Made Them Pay

[brentspeak]

Basically, what happened here is that two gamblers discovered that a particular video poker machine used in Vegas and elsewhere contained an exploitable bug in its programming: press a certain sequence of buttons at certain intervals on these machines, and wins were guaranteed. The two gamblers didn't create the programming bug, or hack into the machines, or use any external device to beat the machines; they just knew what buttons to push and when to push them. They did nothing illegal.

And that pi$$ed off the House.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich—Then Vegas Made Them Pay
By Kevin Poulsen
10.07.14

(snip)

At 1:30 pm on October 6, 2009, a dozen state and local police converged on Andre Nestor's split-level condo on a quiet, tree-lined street in Swissvale. He was dozing on his living room couch when the banging started. “State police! Open up!” The battering ram hit the door seconds later, splintering the frame and admitting a flood of cops into the house.

Nestor says he started toward the stairs, his hands over his head, when he came face-to-face with a trooper in full riot gear. “Get on the floor!” yelled the trooper, leveling his AR-15 at Nestor's face. Nestor complied. The cop ratcheted the handcuffs on Nestor's wrists, yanked him to his feet, and marched him into the kitchen.

For the next two hours, Nestor watched helplessly, handcuffed to a kitchen chair, while the police ransacked his neat home. They flipped over his mattress, ripped insulation from his ceiling, rifled his PC. At about 4 pm, Nestor's roommate, Laverde, arrived home and was arrested on the spot as an accomplice to Nestor's crimes.

snip

The Las Vegas prosecutors charged Nestor and Kane with conspiracy and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Passed in 1986, the CFAA was enacted to punish hackers who remotely crack computers related to national defense or banking. But in the Internet age the government had been steadily testing the limits of the law in cases that didn't involve computer intrusion in the usual sense. Kane and Nestor, the government argued, exceeded their otherwise lawful access to the Game King when they knowingly exploited a bug. The casinos only authorized gamers to play by the rules of video poker. “To allow customers to access previously played hands of cards at will, would remove the element of chance and obviate the whole purpose of gambling,” assistant US attorney for the District of Nevada Michael Chu argued in a court filing. “It would certainly be contrary to the rules of poker.”

Reader comments from the article:

In other words the game can only be fixed in one direction. Its illegal to be a winner unless you own a casino, is that what I'm reading?

- Yes. The casino mafia is selling an illusion that you can get rich. If you do get rich by the use of any skills, they will make you regret it dearly.

-- Sounds like normal corporate America to me.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. the RULES OF POKER?

This reminds me of the Creed of the Gypsy: What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine.

At least when it comes to money in the pocket of a mark in a casino.

They program the machines to extract maximum dollars from gamblers, and if they figure out how not to lose, they violate the RULES OF POKER? What a crock.

[dilby]

2. It's not gambling if you are guaranteed a win everytime.

These guys used an exploit that should not have been in the system, the correct thing for them to have done is notify the casino once it was found.

[brentspeak]

3. The machines are programmed to favor the house

And to pay out as little as possible.

By your reasoning, shouldn't the House reveal to all gamblers ahead of time that the machines are essentially fixed?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. Should do, and do do.

Any casino that didn't reveal precisely what (it thought) it's machine did would be in deep trouble if caught.

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. They do. They are required by law to state the avg. percent returned.

They found an exploit in the system to gain an unfair advantage. Pretty simple. You don't like the game, or you're losing it (as this guy clearly was - read the article), then don't play.

[brentspeak]

13. Not quite

http://casinogambling.about.com/od/slots/a/percentage.htm

Most slot players have seen the advertisements or billboards proclaiming that the XYZ casino has the loosest slots in town. These ads may even say that the machines have a 98 percent payback percentage. In the casino you may see a sign reading that machines in a certain carousel have a guaranteed return of 99 percent. While all these claims may be truthful, they can be deceptive to the average player.

Payback is the overall percentage that a machine will return to the player in the long run. These figures are programmed into the machines computer chip and are set by the manufacturer to the specifications that the casino wishes to use for that machine. This may be anywhere from 75 to 99 percent. Some states regulate the minimum payback that a machine can return.

Many players believe they will win more on a machine that pays out 99 percent compared to a machine that pays out 94 percent but this is not necessarily true. The payback percentage is the profit that the casinos can expect to earn over the lifetime of the machine. The average player will never play long enough to see the overall return. Just because a machine has a payback of 99 percent that does not mean you will win back $98 for every $100 you play through the machine.

You might play $100 through a slot machine with a 94 percent payback and win $5,000 and then sit down and play $100 through a machine with a 99 percent return and lose it all in a few hours. There is no way of gauging the overall return if you only play a machine for a few hours or even a few days a year. The casinos can do have a way of checking the long term payback because they have access to the coin meters in the machines.

All of the slot machines have meters that record every coin put in and every coin paid out. In the new coinless with machines with bill receptors they would count the “credits” played through the machine. It all works out the same. If you receive a hand paid jackpot these meter reading are recorded on the pay voucher that the attendant takes to the cage when they get your money. Most casinos now have automated computerized systems that track all of this information from the machines into a central database. They (the casino) can look in any machine and determine the payback for any given period of time but you as the player will never be privy to this information.

[Dreamer Tatum]

15. Duh. They won't tell you at the machine level. Did you expect that? nt

[brentspeak]

19. Are you really that dense?

First, you claimed, without any good reason, that listing the average payback % is the same thing as the casino admitting that their machines are fixed. Then, you completely ignored the entire point of the article I linked to, which was that the listed average payback % the casino reveals is actually misleading.

[Travis_0004]

28. Its not misleading at all

If you understand statistics then it should be obvious.

If somebody can win 20k on a slot machine, then lots of people have to lose 20 bucks.

Plus everybody knows the odds are in the casinos favor. It isnt really a secret.

[brentspeak]

33. I'm sorry -- where did you come from?

Sounds like you have no idea what's being discussed here.

[DesMoinesDem]

6. Excuse me sir, there is a problem with this machine. I'm winning money on it.

Could you please fix it so I lose? kthxbye

[belzabubba333]

8. that is exactly the stupidity of gambling- along with that you give that money

to some slimy republican who will put it in mitt romney's (or whom ever is running) pocket

[closeupready]

11. Yup - nonsense.

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. Would you disclose ...

a poker playing opponent's "tell"?

How is that any different? ... except the opponent has a lot less money.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. "You Spot Another Man's Tell . . ."

"you don't say a fucking thing! I could have let him chew on the Oreos until he was flat broke."

Thanks Matt Damon!

[1StrongBlackMan]

24. I know ...

being a poker play, myself. I have dumped hands ... in order to keep the "teller" playing and telling.

[Dr. Strange]

18. He did.

He'd been switching between game variations and racking up a modest payout. But when he hit the Cash Out button to take his money to another machine, the candle lit at the top of the Game King and the screen locked up with a jackpot worth more than $1,000. Kane hadn't even played a new hand, so he knew there was a mistake. He told a casino attendant about the error, but the worker thought he was joking and gave him the money anyway.

[gratuitous]

7. Gangsters have higher ethics than casinos

"What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me?" Doyle Lonnegan, The Sting.

[NutmegYankee]

9. And that justified a SWAT style raid?

What a ridiculous over-reaction. Thankfully the charges fell apart, but damn.

[Blue_Tires]

29. He's actually lucky to escape this adventure with his balls intact

We've all heard stories about how casinos used to handle this in the not-too-distant past...

[KamaAina]

10. This would make an awesome movie

[KurtNYC]

22. Oceans 1

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. Sounds like the guys need to sue the casinos.

Given that they weren't found guilty of any crimes, seems to me the casinos owe them the money.

[valerief]

17. I don't think it's possible to live long enough to sue a casino. nt

[Lochloosa]

25. Most accurate statement in this whole thread.

[Blue_Tires]

31. How??

I'm pretty sure the casino's point that their winnings were only from knowingly and repeatedly abusing a software glitch will be the deciding factor, and any earnings were illegitimate...

It isn't that much different than if they knew how to make ATMs spit out extra money...

[Adsos Letter]

14. Sounds like Kane came out ahead

If I'm reading it correctly the article suggests he was able to keep his winnings.

I wonder if Nestor has any legal way to pressure the casino at the track to release his winnings.

[hunter]

21. Electronic voting machine flaws and voter supression schemes rarely get this kind of attention.

Exploit flaws in the system to take cash from a casino, get your doors kicked down.

Exploit flaws in the system to steal elections ... (yawn).

[Politicalboi]

23. I see nothing wrong with what they did

Just like I see nothing wrong in card counting. If you're smart enough to count them, it's the casinos problem not yours. They just played stupid by going back and winning and winning. Had they kept it to a limit, they could have gone on for a long time. With that kind of money you could travel to other casinos around the US over the years. Anyway, I never understood why anyone would put money in a machine that KNOWS what card you need to win. My mother plays those machines for a nickle, but playing a a dollar a hand, is just plain crazy.

I trust the one armed bandit over the computer machines. If you have to read directions on how to play AKA lose your money, maybe you shouldn't play.

[Johonny]

27. It is more like adding to your bet after the cards are dealt in blackjack

They game allowed you to up your bet when the odds were very high you'd win.There is a reason Vegas doesn't allow you to place chips off and on the pile after the cards come out (although really good players use slight of hand to do this). That the game had a flaw that allowed this is insanely funny since it is such a no no of Casinos. I'm not sure if there are formal laws against the practice. The conclusion though is... I can't see how a law against hacking applies. A law against cheating might if there is one that covers this area, but hacking? It sounds like a crazy application of the law. The fact they are using it sounds like the Casinos failed to legislate law for chip adding to begin with or else they'd use them. To me that is their failure to codify "house" rules into the general law and not the gamblers. Either way it would seem crazy to use the law they are trying to use on these men.

[Threedifferentones]

26. It seems like if anyone should be liable for this it would be the maker of the machines.

They produced a defective product, and this guy took advantage.

[Blue_Tires]

30. I love the closing paragraph

About how Nestor is killing Candy Crush with a "trick" he "found" in the internet...

He sure does love his glitches and exploits, doesn't he?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. This reminds me of the "Press Your Luck" game show scandal.

A contestant figured the sequence to avoid landing on a "whammy" and then took the TV games how for $100,000

http://mentalfloss.com/article/28588/man-who-pressed-his-luckand-won

In 1984, ice cream truck driver Michael Larson set a record by winning $110,237 (a combined total of cash and non-cash prizes) in one appearance on the game show Press Your Luck -- and he did it by gaming the system. He had noticed that the Luck board did not rely on luck at all, but was actually running in five predictable patterns -- which he memorized over the course of six weeks, with the help of a VCR. By the time the show's taping was completed, everyone from the host to the contestants were mystified by Larson's amazing ability to avoid the Whammy (the squares on the board which would end the player's turn) and consistently win prizes. For Larson, there were indeed "No Whammies."

Larson's original appearance was aired as two episodes due to the length of his winning streak. Producers initially tried to avoid paying him, since his pattern-memorization might be considered cheating -- but eventually the producers relented, after determining that the official game rules did not prevent a player from reverse-engineering the game patterns. Indeed, producers later revealed in a documentary that they knew there was a weakness to the game (only having five board patterns without any randomness), but the weakness was ignored until Larson's famous performance. Furthermore, in order to get spins on the board, Larson had to answer trivia questions, which relied on his trivia skills.