Are the machines fair?
Pub Date: 1/1/2003
Though the world of video gaming can seem flashy on the surface, when you get behind the scenes, you'll find a lot of math majors, computer nerds and government bureaucrats.
It's a staid scene to be sure, but It's vitally important for both players and owners that gaming machines operate fairly, reliably and consistently day in and day out. The 50 employees and enforcement agents of the state's Gambling Control Division are dedicated to the same principles.
Ensuring machine integrity is a long and complicated process, so two experts Terry Geurin, who heads up the state's leading machine supplier, IGT/VLC, and Cliff Dodge, chief engineer at Montana machine manufacturer Summit Gaming will walk us through the basics.
Though Summit, IGT/VLC and the several other companies that produce machines for the Montana market employ a variety of sophisticated techniques and tools, the basic structure of each machine is, for the most part, the same.
The inside of the machine houses all the "peripheral devices" that ensure its sovereign function. Excepting the occasional progressive jackpot, there is no linkage between machines or any other connection with external devices.
The machine is broken up into various compartments: the "logic" compartment, which houses the machine's Central Processing Unit (CPU)'; the monitor compartment, which controls the video display screen'; the printer compartment, which prints win tickets for players and audit tapes for government regulators'; and the bill validator and coin comparitor compartment, which ensures that bills and coins are legitimate.
All the various compartments are connected by what's known as the "main wiring harness," a network of wires that transports commands from the logic center the figurative brain to the peripheral devices and back.
Most machines require just a single computer for operation not very different from the one on your desk.
"The CPU board has the potential to be as powerful as an ordinary PC," says Dodge. "Ours are imbedded with a powerful microprocessor and can be interfaced with devices like hard drives and some of the same audio and video controller hardware found in many desktop PCs."
One of the most important devices driving the machine and likely one of the most interesting to the player is the Random Number Generator (RNG). This is the device that "chooses" the numbers that will hit or cards that will be dealt during a particular game.
The RNG is a set of complex mathematical algorithms that produce an unpredictable "index number" a set of digits that can be thought of like a figurative dealer which then "shuffle" the figurative cards or keno balls to produce totally random results.
"The RNG is basically just a program within a program," explains Geurin. "The code is written by a programmer, then downloaded into a chip."
Geurin says It's crucial for players to understand that the RNG selects its numbers before each game begins and that one game has absolutely no bearing on the next. "The machine doesn't know or care how much was bet, whether the last game was won or lost, or which numbers the player selected," says Geurin.
"Some people think because one keno game hit most numbers in, say, the upper-left corner, the next time the game is going to spread them out. That's bogus. The game has no recollection what occurred before it," says Geurin.
The machines are mandated by law to pay out a precise minimum percentage of wagers, which in Montana is set at 80 percent. However, because of competitive considerations, the actual average payout is over 90 percent.
To ensure that the machines are paying out at the appropriate percentages, the state formed an outside agency within the Department of Justice the Gambling Control Division (GCD) which examines, tests and approves payout tables as well as every other aspect of machine operation.
Dodge cites a long list of specifications each machine must fulfill before being submitted to GCD everything from specific lines of code for the various chips to how the machine will react to a power outage.
Physical state lab inspections and approval of a machine typically take no more than 30 days, but if the investigation turns up discrepanices, the process can stretch over several months.
"The approval process is lengthy and detailed," says Dodge. "It could take anywhere from one to six months to be completed. Depending on the project, when you add the research and development time into the equation, 12 to 18 months from beginning to release for each new model is not uncommon."
Geurin says it can take his company up to five years to get a machine from drawing board to casino floor.
Manufacturers and regulators have developed several built-in safeguards to protect against the chance of operator or player tampering.
One of the most important security devices is known as the EPROM, or Electronic Programmable Random Only Memory.
"The EPROM the silicon chip which stores the machine's program has a calculated signature number called the checksum," explains Dodge. "The checksum is unique to each EPROM so the chip's contents cannot be changed without affecting the checksum."
Dodge says state regulators regularly perform random field checks of the EPROM's checksum to verify that the approved version of the program is what is actually "resident" in the machine.
Geurin puts it more simply: "Given the game program is controlled by a chip the EPROM there's no way that an operator or anyone else could manipulate the payout or any other machine function without being a highly-trained computer programmer with access to an individual manufacturer's source code."
It's no wonder, then, that in the nearly two decades video gaming has been legal in Montana, GCD has never turned up a case of a casino owner "gaffing" his machines.
"It wouldn't make any sense," said Ben Kamerzel, head of the GCD's technical bureau.
"Even if an owner did have access to the source codes, compilers and other programming tools necessary to alter his machines, he'd be risking so much for so little," Kamerzel said.
The penalties for "gaffing" a machine include heavy fines and, more importantly, the possible revocation of the gambling license.
"If your license is pulled in one jurisdiction, it means you're through in all of them," said Kamerzel. "In a place like Nevada, where the win is worth $10,000, cheating could be a profitable proposition, but in Montana, where the stakes are so low, it doesn't make any sense."
Though gambling is, at bottom, a game of chance, to keep the games fair and reliable requires thousands of hours of research and testing.
So remember, next time you're enjoying a game at your local casino, the hours of programming and engineering that are selecting that 3...5...64...13...
Source: Gaming Player Magazine, published summer of 2002 by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.