How slot machines are designed to be addictive • Hacker News Board

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#191

Post by kruczek » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 10:08 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #167

greggarious wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is reasonable when machines list a maximum reward of say 10,000$ and then it says has someone win 2000x I disagree. It should be trivial to code a machine to not display a number greater then it's maximum bet. Forcing slot makers to honor their machine's output will incentivize them to better bug test their products.

Memory gets randomly corrupted over time. So, you can make things unlikely, but impossible is more difficult than you migh think. Having shat said, some penalties for this is reasonable. Aka, treat it as a maximum payout.

> Memory gets randomly corrupted over time.

That's not a good excuse. Same memory gets corrupted on machines which are processing our online money transfers and yet we don't see problems when buying things online. Why? Because there are layers upon layers validating data integrity, so that even if something gets corrupted, no invalid payment is made.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#192

Post by Retric » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 10:51 AM UTC

kruczek wrote: post #191

Retric wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory gets randomly corrupted over time. So, you can make things unlikely, but impossible is more difficult than you migh think. Having shat said, some penalties for this is reasonable. Aka, treat it as a maximum payout.

> Memory gets randomly corrupted over time. That's not a good excuse. Same memory gets corrupted on machines which are processing our online money transfers and yet we don't see problems when buying things online. Why? Because there are layers upon layers validating data integrity, so that even if something gets corrupted, no invalid payment is made.

Banking uses audits after the fact, the number listed on you bank statement is often incorrect. EX: all the people who end up with far more in their checking accounts that they should have. And frankly, casinos are using the exact same process two systems that compare results to correct things after the fact.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#193

Post by nottorp » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 11:35 AM UTC

folli wrote: post #159

nottorp wrote: post #77

Unreadable. Too bad, the title seemed interesting. Also, sound?

I think this article is worth to activate JavaScript.

I never turn off javascript. It's still unreadable. Are you using a phone? Some posters were saying it made sense there.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#194

Post by majos » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 1:00 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #174

majos wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a USA point of view: it's highly regulated at the state level. State gaming commissions hire third-party labs to audit the mathematics and software to make sure everything matches what the manufacturer says it does. Can you point me to more info on this "auditing" process? For all the recent coverage of "algorithmic fairness" (an area where I do some research) I'm not aware of any other usecases where mandator…

One of the most popular labs in this line of work is GLI (Gaming Laboratories International) http://www.gaminglabs.com/ Here's a doc from their site about RNG testing: http://www.gaminglabs.com/pdfs/GLI%20Comp%20Sub%20Req%20V1.2...

Thanks, this is pretty thorough. Do you by chance know how these verification systems arose -- goverment intervention or, somehow, from within the industry?

It's remarkable to me that good software verification practices (well, trusting this document and knowing only a little about verification in general) is up and running for casinos, not banks or other important software users.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#195

Post by joezydeco » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

majos wrote: post #194

joezydeco wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most popular labs in this line of work is GLI (Gaming Laboratories International) http://www.gaminglabs.com/ Here's a doc from their site about RNG testing: http://www.gaminglabs.com/pdfs/GLI%20Comp%20Sub%20Req%20V1.2...

Thanks, this is pretty thorough. Do you by chance know how these verification systems arose -- goverment intervention or, somehow, from within the industry? It's remarkable to me that good software verification practices (well, trusting this document and knowing only a little about verification in general) is up and running for casinos, not banks or other important software users.

From my experience, which is a very small intersection of a software validation background combined with work in the gaming industry, labs like GLI sprung up from demand. Gaming laws were written to require independent verification from the start which seems smart.

That said, labs like GLI don't really comb the entire code for bugs. They're looking for obvious things like backdoors, flaws in random number generation, payout table problems...blatant things that would make a machine fail against the player.

Bugs still do happen. Google for "$42 million jackpot denied". You'll find multiple instances over the years, and you'll also quickly see that the actual amount in question is almost always $42,949,762.95.

Why is that number special? =)

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#196

Post by majos » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 4:16 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #195

majos wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, this is pretty thorough. Do you by chance know how these verification systems arose -- goverment intervention or, somehow, from within the industry? It's remarkable to me that good software verification practices (well, trusting this document and knowing only a little about verification in general) is up and running for casinos, not banks or other important software users.

From my experience, which is a very small intersection of a software validation background combined with work in the gaming industry, labs like GLI sprung up from demand. Gaming laws were written to require independent verification from the start which seems smart. That said, labs like GLI don't really comb the entire code for bugs. They're looking for obvious things like backdoors, flaws in random number generation,…

Heh. Overflow? Funny (maybe not to "winners").

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#197

Post by kopos » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

socialist_coder wrote: post #162

hollander wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a mechanical slot machine I can understand the reel thing. But with electronic screens, software making up reels, how do I know that the software does not fool me even more? Take the given example with first slot 1/16, second 1/32 and third 1/44 chance of winning big. Now assume the generated numbers are really random, and that day or week the machine has given two big prices. Then a third big number combination…

One of the regulations is that each reel is independent. You cannot change any reel outcome based on what the other reels are doing, and you cannot change any reel outcome based on past results. I'm not 100% sure this is the case but I'm pretty confident.

Not necessarily. The math for video slots can be changed to handle that functionality, but it has to be fair and RNG driven. And of course has to be audited.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#198

Post by joezydeco » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

majos wrote: post #196

joezydeco wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, which is a very small intersection of a software validation background combined with work in the gaming industry, labs like GLI sprung up from demand. Gaming laws were written to require independent verification from the start which seems smart. That said, labs like GLI don't really comb the entire code for bugs. They're looking for obvious things like backdoors, flaws in random number generation,…

Heh. Overflow? Funny (maybe not to "winners").

Technically a 32-bit underflow (2^32-1, or 0xFFFFFFFF), but you've got it.

Remember, kids: don't mix error states and return values.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#199

Post by sigi45 » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

smallstepforman wrote: post #60

Disclaimer: I design the machines and games for a living. 1) regarding near miss, with basic math knowledge you can easily calculate the odds of near miss. Eg. with 2 special symbols per 30 symbol reel, for a 3x5 reel game, you have a 1:5 chance of seeing the special symbol per reel, or once per spin for a 5 reel game. The odds of a 4 symbol near miss is (1:5)^4, which is 1:625, or once every 30 minutes. With a bank…

Do you have much experience in taking a look who is playing your slot machines?

I mean do you really go to places and check it out for a few hours?

Here in germany there are small casinos. Not real casinos but with a few machines like 5-20.

I went to such a place because there was a pool table in thenext room. I saw, while playing pool, how a few people used multil machines at once, feed those machines 10Euros and more (around 11$) in a quick feshion.

Do you think, that those people, who play on a saturday afternoon enjoying this? i mean do you really think "yes the experience im providing for them through my job is is an activity they enjoy and the enjoyment stands in relation to the amount of money they are spending".

I only thought "holy shit, poor people, throwing there hard earned money away" I felt sorry for those people. so sry that i was thinking if or how i could approach them.

My pool table for 2 hours and 4-5 drinks was cheaper of what one person was putting in those machines.

I think they are addicted.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#200

Post by sigi45 » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 9:18 PM UTC

A general thought about gambling:

If you lose, you give someone else your money. If you win, you take money from someone else.

Doesn't feel fair or nice or cool or whatever. It feels strange to give or take money from someone else.

Alone the fact, that my winning is not just winning but taking money from others makes it broken. I do not want to have an advantage over others per pure chance.