"mickeycrimm" Wrote:
Woudn't you call what the Nevada Gaming Control programmer, Ron ???
whatshisname, did a "reverse gaffe?" He programmed some VP machines
to hit a royal if he made a certain sequence of bets.<<
Think you're referring to Ron Harris.
Harris, who was a technician working for the Nevada Gaming Commission at the time, inserted a computer program into a device that was used to check slot machines.When Control Board officials used the device they inadvertently downloaded a cheating program into the machine. Harris noted which devices had the program, machine numbers/locations in Vegas, Reno and Atlantic City--there were around 130--as well as the necessary sequence of coins to trigger a jackpot. (For example, one coin, then four, then two, etc..) He got caught in January of 1995 when he and an accomplice got too greedy; his friend "won" a $100,000 keno jackpot at Bally's Park Place in Atlantic City (now Caesars and a HET property). The eye-in-the-sky caught his play sequencing on tape, resulting in his arrest and he immediately squealed on Harris. R.H. pled guilty in 1996, served his time and has since been released. (He was added to Nevada's "List of Excluded Players" on February 20, 1997.)
In an ironic and related twist here's an example of the opposite--that's a manufacturer cheating players. Larry Volk, who was a programmer for American Coin Company, was scheduled to testify that the company's owners (the La Vecchia's) ordered him to design a program that prevented the Royal Flush possibility with a max coin bet. Volk, however, met with an untimely death when he was murdered outside his house on October 1, 1990, before he could testify. Although the suspected assassin, David Lemons, was found "not guilty" when the case went to trial, he confessed to the murder for hire several years later. (Lemons claimed he found religion, but then there's no double jeopardy.) Even more bizarre is the connection to the aforementioned Ron Harris. Harris was the member of the Nevada Gaming Commission who conducted the Volk interview shortly before he was murdered. (No, I'm not implying any connection--sure there wasn't--but nonetheless find it strange.)
Still, all this gaffing occurred in 1989, the infant years of video poker technology. It's my opinion that the wherewithal exists to put a "cheating chip" inside a video poker device. However, I don't think it happens because the risks far outweigh the benefits. (As an aside, the interior of the latest devices look radically different from the older MPU's.) Linda
Linda Boyd
Author: "The Video Poker Edge"
amazon.com/major bookstores
"Boyd's Eye View": Free Forum
http://www.midwestgamingandtravel.com
Best Software:www.videopokerpractice.com
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