History Channel aired some new programs covering the subject of
cheating in Vegas (and other jurisdictions).
Very appropo to the vpFREE groups is the program covering the "Ron
Harris" scandal. This was the scandal that followed the American Coin
scandal. Ron Harris was an employee of the gaming board who abused his
position by devising a scheme to reprogram the EEPROMS (chips that
store the executable program of a video poker machine) during Gaming
Board field audits of casinos' inventory. Gaming Board auditors would
show up unannounced at a casino for an equipment audit, and
unbeknownst to them they would actually reprogram the EEPROMS with the
"Ron Harris" approved equipment thinking all along that they were just
performing an audit. Afterwards Ron Harris or a surrogate would make a
visit to that casino to trigger jackpots or free credits on the now
reprogrammed machine.
This History Channel program is a must see for all the naysayers that
chronically pooh-pooh me whenever I bring up the subject of gaffing.
Very sobering and striking are both the lack of proper regulatory
oversight and also the relative technical ease in which the gaffing
was performed. It goes without saying that in a system without the
neccessary regulatory constraints the potential for cheating is
enormous given the revenue involved.