[abaracadab]

So it sounds like skill + luck: key in the hole gives random chance of winning.

Honestly, these kind of lawsuits are ridiculous. People need to sue General Mills for false advertising instead because sugary cereals causing diabetes; or any other big-food company brainwashing children on YouTube kids.

[kbenson]

No, that's now how it works, according to the article, which is going by what the manual shipped with the cabinet states.

The machine will not allow a win no matter what until a set number of losses has happened. The default shipped setting is to not allow a win until there has been 700 losses. Some other vendor in Arizona is noted as having been sued because he ran his games at a required 2200 losses to allow a payout.

Actual gambling devices are much more regulated and have much better payout odds most likely (depending on what's winnable), but more importantly are actually random.

These games are not chance, and they aren't skill, they're a scam that market themselves as a game of skill.

[csharptwdec19]

Fun fact: Actual Gambling machines are also audited on the reg.

A college friend works for my state's gaming commission. During a 'drinking talk' about digital signatures, she told me an interesting part of her job; not just going through the slot machines and validating the payout settings, but also checking the EEProms MD5 Hash* to make sure that it was in a list of 'approved' code hashes.

* - This was 15 years ago, I -really- hope they use something better nowadays.

[kbenson]

Yeah, I've hear as much before. That's one of the things that makes this worse, these cabinets are (were?) a loophole that allows fleecing people without oversight. It's not like gambling is in your favor when you do it at a casino, but you can usually trust that the state has kept it from being egregiously unfair.

> checking the EEProms MD5 Hash* to make sure that it was in a list of 'approved' code hashes.

> This was 15 years ago, I -really- hope they use something better nowadays.

I dunno. If the hash is generated and displayed by the hardware on a separate LCD display (or a serial you attach) and maybe a bit of non-flashable code, that seems pretty good to me, especially that it's regularly spot checked in person. Something like that is far harder to fake and fool real people with successfully for an extended period, IMO.

[josephcsible]

"something better" was referring to the MD5 algorithm in particular. It'd be really easy today to make a fair firmware and a rigged firmware with identical MD5 hashes.

[kbenson]

Ah, that's true. I was thinking less of the specific hashing used, but MD5 is problematic so that's likely what they meant. I thought they were referring to the process in general.

[wu_187]

The lawsuit is not rediculous. These are marketed as being games of skill, which means there's always the ability to win on every turn. This is obviously false and people lose tons of money on this thinking it's fair.

[numlock86]

> something is "ridiculous" because there are much worse cases to be taken care of

Yeah, same can be said about "brainwashing kids on YouTube" (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway) or "false advertising" of cereals ... what is your point?

[542354234235]

It isn’t luck, because the game has a 0% chance of winning until X number of loses. That is like saying that getting heads on a coin toss is a game of luck, except they are actually using a double tails coin for 700 tosses. A game of luck or chance requires some chance that you could actually win on a given play.

[nkrisc]

That’s just luck.

[542354234235]

It isn’t luck, because the game has a 0% chance of winning until X number of loses. That is like saying that getting heads on a coin toss is a game of luck, except they are actually using a double tails coin for 700 tosses. A game of luck or chance requires some chance that you could actually win on a given play.

[cortesoft]

No, because if you really suck, you can’t win at all.

It is like poker, which is a combination of skill and luck.

[HarryHirsch]

Skill when the machine decides to let you win, no chance when the machine doesn't want you to. It's not at all like poker and very much like the well-known shell game with a pea.

[cortesoft]

It is like poker.... you can play the correct 'skill' move and still lose the hand because of bad luck (losing in the river, for example)

[Caylio]

The machine can only "decide to let you win" if you have the skill to get close, otherwise no chance.

[nkrisc]

If the very last step of the process is that the machine decides if you won or not, it's not a game of skill.

It takes a degree of skill and coordination to pull the lever on the slot machine, yet we don't call them a game of skill because of that.

If you're 100% accurate and you still lose, it's a game of chance.

[Caylio]

Every winner will have made a skillful shot, hence a skillful shot is required to win. It's a combination of both therefore you obviously can't claim no skill is required at all. Nobody says that a slot machine is a game of skill because nobody considers having the coordination to pull a level to be a skillful attribute.

[mafuy]

One gives you a chance to win when you are skillful. If you are skillful enough, you will win eventually just by chance.

The other may never pay out even if you are 100% accurate.

This is a big difference.

[Caylio]

Your "big" difference is useless and changes nothing to the topic at hand. Nkrisc claimed that no skill was required at all, only luck, which is clearly false. I was just pointing out this obvious fact. Nice strawman attempt though.

[Karunamon]

Okay, I can accept that. But poker is still considered gambling, and we wouldn't allow arcade owners to target poker games at children. Why should this be allowed?

[cortesoft]

I 100% think this is a gambling game and should be outlawed in places gambling is illegal.

I was only saying that there is skill involved. Gaming laws never classify gambling games as those that require zero skill. Otherwise, poker, blackjack, even craps wouldn't be gambling, because all bets do not have the same odds, and therefore skilled players do better than unskilled.

[chrismcb]

Poker isn't necessarily considered gambling. It is one reason why some places, like California, have poker rooms.

[dragonwriter]

> Poker isn't necessarily considered gambling

Yes it is.

> It is one reason why some places, like California, have poker rooms.

No, that's because some instances of gambling involving betting against other players are sometimes selectively regulated differently than betting against the house. Its the same reason some places, like, again, California, that prohibit casino gambling allow parimutuel betting on horse races.

[boring_twenties]

California also has legal poker rooms.