I am not going to tell you how I know this, but I am sensing some blow back from certain segments of the gaming industry about what I am doing here. SO.... I am going to open up on that segment of the industry with both barrels. I am going to reveal the dirty little secret about tribal gaming that none of them want the public to know. This secret is a little outside the realm of blackjack and how surveillance watches it, so you will need to indulge me.
So what's the secret? The "slot machines" in tribal casinos are ripping you off. Let me explain.
In most corporate gaming locations in this country, like Nevada, Atlantic City and other jurisdictions where the casino is owned by a corporation and not an Indian Tribe, the slots machines work this way: Each slot machine is basically a desktop computer. It has its own CPU, and a memory chip called an EEPROM that run the game and display the graphics that you see on the screen. Each machine has its own built in random number generator that determines the outcome of each spin, or hand if you are playing video poker, or ball draw if you are playing a keno game. Everything is self contained in the machine chassis and each game result is determined when you press the "spin" button.
The machines in Tribal casinos operate completely differently. The machines look the same, have the same CPU and EEPROMs, and graphic cards, but they do not have the integrated random number generator on the motherboard. Instead, each machine is connected by a network cable to a server and by the server to a separate game controller. When you press the spin button, the machine polls the server, which gets a game result from the gaming controller, which is then sent to the slot machine and displayed on the screen as your game result.
Each of these game controllers will have a list of possible game results. It is a large list of, say 5 million (more or less) possible results ranging from a "no win" result, all the way up to the top jackpot offered by the machine, or machines on a bank. Most gaming controllers serve 4 to 12 machines arranged in a bank, just like they are on the casino floor. Of this list of millions of game results, there will usually be only one top award a few of the secondary awards, all the way down to no win results, which will of course make up the majority of possible results. As each possible result is sent out to an individual machine, it is electronically crossed off the list, never to be used again.
So what is wrong with that, you might ask. The machines in Vegas probably have about the same odds of giving you the top award jackpot as as the 5 million to one that the tribal machines do. Well, that is true, and in fact the companies that supply the slot machines to tribal casinos and corporate casinos are the same, usually one, or more, of three: Ballys, IGT or Aristocrat. And they set up the machines to pay out "around" the same, whether you are on the strip in Vegas or a tribal casino in Oklahoma.
The difference is that the people who run the tribal casinos can look at that list of results and see what results have been awarded anytime they want. AND they can throw out a list and start over with a new one at any time, without notifying the people playing the games. So whats the big deal about that? Lets say you have a dollar slot machine with a top jackpot of $100,000, and a second highest jackpot of $20,000. The list will have only one top award possibility and maybe five of the second highest award. Each day, that list is checked for which, if any of those results have been hit.
So when the list starts, its 5,000,000 to 1 on hitting the top jackpot and roughly 1,000,000 to 1 on hitting the secondary jackpot. After half of the results have been crossed off the list, the odds are now down to 2.5 million to 1 for the top award and 500,000 to 1 on the secondary. Still long odds, of course, but significantly more in the customers favor than before. So the slot manager can decide, at that point, to throw out the existing list and start over with a new one. WITHOUT NOTIFYING ANYONE. And they can do it whenever and as often as they like. Its just a matter of keystrokes on a server.
And I consider that to be unethical, and that's why I never put a penny in to a tribal slot machine, and neither should you.
That's all for now. Will get in to more of why tribal casinos are such crappy places to gamble (and work) at on another day. Stay tuned.
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