I want to start this out by making a very clear statement:
I DO NOT BELIVE THAT THE CASINOS ARE CHEATING. I am accusing no one in this post of violating any laws, any regulations, or switching machines to the benefit, or detriment, of any one player. I am not in any way suggesting that this is happening nor do I have ANY proof that it is. I cannot be more clear about this. All I am doing in this post is trying to extrapolate what some people might think based on news today, NOT what people are doing.
Ok, with that out of the way........
One of the more hotly contested urban legends surrounding casino slots is whether or not the machines payback percentage can be immediately changed by casinos to different levels via technology. On the one hand, you've noticed that one day casinos slots are allowing for more play and maybe even paying out then suddenly, on say.......Friday night when the casino is busy, suddenly the play goes away the jackpots stop rolling in and it appears that the machines have all gone dead.
"Balderdash" say the Casino operators, "That is too small of a sample size and we'd have to go to the gaming board to change the chip and that's just not practical, NO WAY this is true."
Except, maybe it is?
The article is fire-walled so I'm not going to quote here, only to encourage you to go read this.
In short, Full House Resorts Inc. may have just said the quiet part out loud. Namely, that the Konami Gaming Slot Management System resulted in record profits.
The system in question is called SYNKROS and while details of it's functionality are sparse on it's website there are a couple of important things to note in the "slot" section....
"From Ticket-In-Ticket-Out (TITO) to Patron Tracking, SYNKROS supports the tools necessary for smooth slot game operations and growth. Leading advances and features built for continued optimization and performance keep players connected with the conveniences they enjoy and loyalty benefits they expect, all with comprehensive administrative analytics and control."
I'm not sure about you, but the bolded above seems to me to suggest that casinos CAN, in fact "flip the switch" on machines concerning payout percentages. I'm not suggesting that this can be used to trigger a jackpot, that would be illegal and I do not believe anything illegal is happening. But I do think that it IS reasonable to assume that casinos can adjust payback percentages on slots at their whim. In most cases I now believe that they have pretty much cate blanche to do this provided they remain above State minimums.
How wide spread this is, and whether or not say, a Konami system could be used to control an Aristocrat slot machine? I have no idea. But that some level of control is available, and allowed by gaming regulators, can no longer be denied?
Of course, there are some troubling concerns that this type of software raises.
1. How fine is the control that these systems allow? Is it POSSIBLE that they allow a casino to lower the hold on one machine, say, a machine that a YouTube Vlogger is currently filming themselves play?
2. Can they increase the hold on a player who has been winning?
Look, and let's be very clear here and say this again: I DO NOT believe that the casinos are cheating. And again I DO NOT believe that the casinos are cheating. One reason is because they don't HAVE to cheat, the odds are in their favor on every game inside of them. The other reason is that, if players believed they were not getting a fair game, they would go elsewhere, but I think the lesson from this is that they CAN certainly change the hold on slots without changing the EPROM chips as they claim, and that lack of transparency leads to doubt.
Even the publicly available description of SYNKROS states that it allows for "upgrades of EPROM chips remotely and instantly". That's a pretty big thing, because EPROM chips control slot hold.
As with anything, the lack of transparency surrounding slot hold is going to be the elephant in the room. A good gambler knows and understands the odds and house edge on every game in the casino, except slots. This has always been a problem that casinos have faced convincing players that these machines are straight, fair games. Hell, even on Video Poker, where the house edge is openly discernable via the pay table that is on prominent display, some people believe casinos can change the Random Number Generator Not true by the way, but some believe it. (Although it IS an open question whether or not a RNG is truly random, but that's due to limitations in computer power, not human intervention)
News stories like this just increase this skepticism and might end up doing more harm than good in the long-run. I would encourage casinos to become more transparent about their slot hold percentages going forward.
Because, based on this, I think the answer as to whether or not they CAN flip the switch is that Yes, they can. What we don't know is when and what the rules are around flipping said switch, or how often it happens. And that's going to raise questions.
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