Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine • Hacker News Board

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#211

Post by webinvest » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

jeltz wrote: post #185

Uberphallus wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. In Spain first the state takes a cut from the moment a coin goes in, and from the remainder they're bound to return 65% of the money collected, minumum. The machines have a government-certified black box to perform this accounting. Now, the law doesn't say anything about prize structure, and it's common knowledge that big prizes tend to appear within 10 plays when it's "cooled down", because machines inc…

In online gambling the games are never (or virtually never) rigged. Online slots also almost always pay out 96% or more. You make less money in the long runig you do not let your players win, but I assume small places like bars do not like that volatility.

It is still pointless to put in $1 and expect to receive an average of 96 cents. If you like speculation with less gambling, try call option debit or credit spreads on stocks or ETFs with a low bid/ask spread. It’s more sophisticated, more skill based, and has a higher EV.

And if you get good at it or are already good at it, let me know.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#212

Post by csharptwdec19 » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #133

abaracadab wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it sounds like skill + luck: key in the hole gives random chance of winning. Honestly, these kind of lawsuits are ridiculous. People need to sue General Mills for false advertising instead because sugary cereals causing diabetes; or any other big-food company brainwashing children on YouTube kids.

No, that's now how it works, according to the article, which is going by what the manual shipped with the cabinet states. The machine will not allow a win no matter what until a set number of losses has happened. The default shipped setting is to not allow a win until there has been 700 losses. Some other vendor in Arizona is noted as having been sued because he ran his games at a required 2200 losses to allow a payo…

Fun fact: Actual Gambling machines are also audited on the reg.

A college friend works for my state's gaming commission. During a 'drinking talk' about digital signatures, she told me an interesting part of her job; not just going through the slot machines and validating the payout settings, but also checking the EEProms MD5 Hash* to make sure that it was in a list of 'approved' code hashes.

* - This was 15 years ago, I -really- hope they use something better nowadays.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#213

Post by namelessoracle » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #199

namelessoracle wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alot of modern arcades actually have unlimited play models or "play as much as you want for X time". They make their money off food/drinks/alcohol. At least the last few I have been too. I guess people for the most part had decided if you were gonna drop 50 bucks you might as well buy a new videogame and play it at home. The scummy part is the "ticket" games, where you have a chance to win below dollar store grade pr…

Those arcades you mention (where you pay a flat rate and get unlimited playtime) are sadly the minority. What you see in most places these days are ticket machines, claws and other pseudo-gambling machines.

both Main Event and Dave and Busters have unlimited play cards that are popular? (you can't play the ticket games with the cards though) What big arcades are there still other than places like those?

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#214

Post by headmelted » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

bgarbiak wrote: post #170

psyc wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is random claw machines a recent scam? About 30 years ago, my siblings and I went through a claw machine mania phase. We sampled every machine in a 30 mile radius, and found that the ones that slipped, always slipped. And the ones that gripped, gripped pretty frequently. Once we figured out which claws would actually grab, we won constantly. We collected around 50 stuffed animals over the course of a year. Or maybe w…

I’d assume so. Back in primary school I got a friend who was pretty much perfect at claw machines (and at Tekken). Later I’ve noticed they made it more difficult (shorter timelimit, limited number of moves, etc.), but never expected they would turn this into a vulgar scam.

I knew right away, so maybe it's regional.

I was told the machines are programmed with a certain value above which they'll pay out, (e.g. once the machine has taken £200, allow a win, then repeat).

If the machine is not ready to pay out then the claw just releases on the way back up to make it look like you came close to winning.

Likewise block-stacking machines - it's a little harder to tell with those though as you need to get all the way to the top before you'll know. The block very clearly jumps to the next space on the top row if you time it correctly and it's not ready to pay out.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#215

Post by effingwewt » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #176

bgarbiak wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d assume so. Back in primary school I got a friend who was pretty much perfect at claw machines (and at Tekken). Later I’ve noticed they made it more difficult (shorter timelimit, limited number of moves, etc.), but never expected they would turn this into a vulgar scam.

Most machines I've seen can be configured at least on 3 parameters (names might be diferent): -Base grip power -Improved grip power -Probability of improved grip. Some have two actuators with different powers, some actually introduce a delay in the grip with a single actuator, and so on, so it might be not exactly like that. What I mean, they're set up according to the wishes of the operator. Sometimes it's the same…

Seeing this as a kid/teenager who spent a lot of time in arcades between 1985-2000 or so was really eye-opening.

My uncle managed the local Aladdin's Castle and was constantly tweaking the claws when people would win too much. Also the games where a light spins and you stop it- I saw many times where it landed square on jackpot and stalled a half second then moved to the next slot, and this was just for tickets and $.10 plush toys.

Now as an adult having seen this and having been in software so long, I knew instantly these new 'fish games' were totally rigged. People play quarters on a table top arcade game that shoots at fish,like a top down Duck Hunt. I have some family members/friends for whom this is super addicting. They spend hundreds/thousands over time but don't see it because of that time they won $200.

When I try to explain how weights work, how video slot machine games are rigged too...they never believe me.

Why?

It would be illegal if they did that, so I must clearly be wrong.

Last time we went to vegas my friends got mad that I only played a few hands of blackjack for the experience. To me it's all just giving money away.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#216

Post by laumars » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

namelessoracle wrote: post #213

laumars wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those arcades you mention (where you pay a flat rate and get unlimited playtime) are sadly the minority. What you see in most places these days are ticket machines, claws and other pseudo-gambling machines.

both Main Event and Dave and Busters have unlimited play cards that are popular? (you can't play the ticket games with the cards though) What big arcades are there still other than places like those?

Maybe this is a regional thing. In the U.K. have a few arcades like you describe but the vast majority of arcades are side businesses and populated with gambling machines. You see them in places like bowling alleys, sea side amusements, larger family camp sites, etc. Most of those places might throw in an air hockey and pool table or two but aside from that it’s just ticket machines.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#217

Post by kbenson » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

csharptwdec19 wrote: post #212

kbenson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's now how it works, according to the article, which is going by what the manual shipped with the cabinet states. The machine will not allow a win no matter what until a set number of losses has happened. The default shipped setting is to not allow a win until there has been 700 losses. Some other vendor in Arizona is noted as having been sued because he ran his games at a required 2200 losses to allow a payo…

Fun fact: Actual Gambling machines are also audited on the reg. A college friend works for my state's gaming commission. During a 'drinking talk' about digital signatures, she told me an interesting part of her job; not just going through the slot machines and validating the payout settings, but also checking the EEProms MD5 Hash* to make sure that it was in a list of 'approved' code hashes. * - This was 15 years ago…

Yeah, I've hear as much before. That's one of the things that makes this worse, these cabinets are (were?) a loophole that allows fleecing people without oversight. It's not like gambling is in your favor when you do it at a casino, but you can usually trust that the state has kept it from being egregiously unfair.

> checking the EEProms MD5 Hash* to make sure that it was in a list of 'approved' code hashes.

> This was 15 years ago, I -really- hope they use something better nowadays.

I dunno. If the hash is generated and displayed by the hardware on a separate LCD display (or a serial you attach) and maybe a bit of non-flashable code, that seems pretty good to me, especially that it's regularly spot checked in person. Something like that is far harder to fake and fool real people with successfully for an extended period, IMO.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#218

Post by namelessoracle » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #216

namelessoracle wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

both Main Event and Dave and Busters have unlimited play cards that are popular? (you can't play the ticket games with the cards though) What big arcades are there still other than places like those?

Maybe this is a regional thing. In the U.K. have a few arcades like you describe but the vast majority of arcades are side businesses and populated with gambling machines. You see them in places like bowling alleys, sea side amusements, larger family camp sites, etc. Most of those places might throw in an air hockey and pool table or two but aside from that it’s just ticket machines.

Yeah, even in American bowling alleys seem to have "play as much as you want for an hour!" cards. At least the last one i went to did for its arcade.

Bowling alleys make their money off the alcohol and overpriced appetizers in any case. The other stuff is just to get you inside the door.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#219

Post by Zak » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #144

TeMPOraL wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> machines that nobody expects to be fair I for sure did. In fact, on my long list of "someday/maybe" projects, there was this one entry sitting for some 15 years now: build a little machine for the claw crane game, that would time a button press perfectly. I just saw the video where Mark Rober does this to another arcade game[0], so I won't bother anymore - I can already guess the outcome. I also don't know anyone e…

> I also don't know anyone else in my circles who thought the claw crane was a game of chance. Maybe it's cultural/regional? Everyone around me gets explained they're rigged as a kid (I'm late 30s), maybe in your country they prefer to feed the excitement/illusion of kids? I'm Spanish, and we have a saying that goes "fallar más que una escopeta de feria", roughly translated to "failing (to work properly) even more th…

I always thought the games were made more difficult than they appear, or that elements of randomness were introduced to games of skill, such as using inaccurate guns for shooting galleries.

I did not think that apparent games of skill would be rigged so as to be impossible to win when played perfectly until a certain number of losses had occurred. I expected that kind of behavior to be regulated as gambling, and probably outright banned most places that have sophisticated regulations about gambling.

Re: Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

#220

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #161

krisoft wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a bad news for you: youtube tailors their recommendations to each person. I know! It is difficult to belive. Sarcasm aside I don’t know who this Mark person is. Never heard of him, never seen a video from him. And I’m quite okay with that. If you were to ask me what is trending on youtube I would tell you it is woodworking videos, zany snippets from musicals, and people discussing how a windpowered car can tra…

Try reading with a stronger interpretation. Of course I know recommendations are per-person - consider why I wrote that comment anyway. There's also a few videos digging into why Mark Robber's videos are consistently winning the popularity contest while others aren't.

I've been on youtube since the first day. I have no clue who Mark Roper is and have never watched one of his videos, never had them suggested to me. My feed is almost entirely cooking videos. The rest is random electronica.

You are picking a really dumb fight to be frank. It's ok if people have no clue who this Mark person is or what he does.