[pessimizer]

I don't think that casino games should be illegal, but I certainly think they should be required to advertise the odds of each bet in a comprehensible manner: "For every $1 you spend at this machine, you should expect to win .95¢."

I'd like to see the odds written that way under every craps bet, and see how many people keep playing.

[sokoloff]

Most non-novice craps players I know know the odds fairly well. (The odds on a craps table are actually not that terrible for the player, among casino pit games.) And a "hot" craps table is a tremendously enjoyable place to spend an hour or two.

(It's Roulette, particularly American Roulette, that has some of the most dreadful odds for the player.)

"Hot" meaning the players are [temporarily] on a winning streak.

[ShorsHammer]

Craps is a strange game in that at 5x odds the house advantage is 0.3%, then there's other bets on the table where it's over 15%. I'm guessing without those other bets and naive punters the tables really aren't worth it to the casino.

It's also quite fun. Paying 30c for every $100 bet really doesn't seem like a bad deal for what you get.

[Someone]

”For every $1 you spend at this machine, you should expect to win .95¢."

Psychologically, I think that’s a very bad way to phrase it. It tells you what will happen is for you to win, and even can easily be interpreted incorrectly.

I would use something like “On average, if you bet a dollar 20 times, you’ll lose it”.

I wouldn’t expect it to help much, either. Does this strategy really work for cigarettes, where they use photos of lung cancers?

[jacobolus]

> Does this strategy really work for cigarettes, where they use photos of lung cancers?

From my understanding these have a measurable impact reducing cigarette purchases and motivating smokers to try to quit.

A web search turns up https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-069575/en/

[tedunangst]

Are they not already? I actually happen to like roulette, and it seems straight forward to me. There's a bunch of numbers that pay out 36:1 and there's 38 numbers. It's pretty obvious what's going on without the need to print 0.94736842105 on the mat.

[int_19h]

You might need to calibrate your definition of "obvious", unfortunately.

http://thresholdresistance.com/2015/04/16/mcdonalds-new-thir...

[perl4ever]

Suppose they lied about the odds. How would you prove it?

e.g.

int getRandomNumber() { return 42; }

[dbcurtis]

The Nevada State Gaming Commission has pretty much solved that.

The thing I find ironic -- deploy a voting machine -- Maker: "Oh, no, we can't let you look at our code, it's waaaaay too complicated for you to understand. Trust us." But deploy a slot machine: "Nevada: Show us the code or go fish." Maker: "OK."

[icelancer]

And the penalties for lying are severe, most importantly.

[dahfizz]

I'm curious if there's any effort made to verify the code being reviewed is actually the code being run on the machines.

[Animats]

Yes.

"Provide, as a minimum, a two-stage mechanism for verifying all program components on demand via a communication port and protocol approved by the chairman. The mechanism must employ a hashing algorithm which produces a messages digest output of a least 128 bits and must be designed to accept a user selected authentication key or seed to be used as part of the mechanism (i.e. HMAC SHA-1). The first stage of this mechanism must allow for verification of all control components. The second stage must allow for the verification of all program components, including graphics and data components in a maximum of 20 minutes. The mechanism for extracting the verification information must be stored on a Conventional ROM Device."[1]

[1] https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2...

[int_19h]

Do we have anything like this for voting machines, in any states? If we do, how does it stack up in terms of security and transparency requirements?

[perl4ever]

Is this really a solved problem? If so, then wouldn't the solution be applicable to the emissions control scandals recently?

[perl4ever]

What if the code says "return rand();" but the compiler changes rand() to 42?

[hervature]

Roulette doesn’t have that bad of odds. Blackjack under suboptimal play could be worse. Keno is by far some of the worst games in a casino.