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Comment by abduhl | Hacker News Reader

The article is unclear about this but what is the illegal part here?

“The cheating method involved dice sliding and sliding occurs when the shooter slides one or both dice across the table in order to prevent the cubes from rolling,” the documents said. “The dice will be in the same position as they started, allowing the shooter to control the outcome of the game.”

What portion of this is illegal? The casino should be running these games so that this isn’t possible.

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I'm pretty sure the official rules of table craps said that the dice have to both tumble at least once and bounce off the wall. If you slide the dice, the tumbling part doesn't happen.

It seems strange that it wasn't noticed? The mentioned game is meant to have fewer dealers operating it, but it says pretty explicitly that it should be supervised and have >=1 dealer.

https://aruzegaming.com/table-games/roll-to-win-craps/

The company says the table can be operated by a single dealer, and many casinos do just that... It's a cost-saving measure that they can get away with because the electronic table doesn't use betting chips; but it also means that there are less eyes to spot the cheaters.

When the betting and cash in/out process is handled entirely digitally... surely the dice roll is about the only thing the dealer is even handling? I just don't understand how they don't notice the lack of them rolling.

Are you trying to argue that it goes from illegal to legal as long as no one is watching?

How did you read that out of his response?

I think he just is asking how the dealer didn't notice the cheating.

I don't see any arguments their making. They simply stated/asked a question, then provided some information and a citation.

I'm baffled at how that is somehow an endorsement of cheating and that its okay to cheat if no one sees them?

I don't think anyone is arguing that it should be considered a valid roll. But being illegal in the criminal sense? No way, that's a bit much.

Yeah, why are the official rules of table craps part of the US legal code?

If you show up to a casino and don't play by its rules, that's fraud. If you show up to a chess tournament and use an engine to win $1 million, that's fraud, too.

There's an implied contract when you play a game that you are going to play by the rules.

This is why card counting isn't illegal, by the way, because it's within the rules of the game. Same with understanding the imbalances in a roulette wheel. See:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-04-06/how-to...

Right, but casinos hate card counters, and will kick them out if they discover what's going on. So why isn't card counting simply against the rules of the game?

Seems pretty ridiculous for a casino to get to write laws in the first place. But then we have some game rules that, if broken, are arbitrarily promoted to criminal acts, while others will simply get you corrected or booted. Seems pretty messed up.

Although card counting isn't illegal, it's also not tolerated, and if they casino thinks you are doing it you'll be asked to leave, or escorted out.

It is the Nevada legal code, not the US one, and the rules of craps don’t have to be part of it, there just needs to be a law that says if you intentionally violate the rules of a game in order to make it non-random, that’s a crime.

But it wouldn’t be crazy if the rules of games were defined by statute — they are in Pennsylvania, for example (or at least blackjack is).

The Nevada Gaming Commission maintains the rules, but I'm pretty sure they aren't statutes and the NGC can change them without passing a law (and they have done this for slot machine randomness, by the way). In many states without a gaming commission, the rules of gambling games are defined by statute.

I don't think the grandparent is opposed the idea of that case not being considered a valid roll. The issue is that doing so is somehow a criminal act, which is beyond the pale. Laws just simply shouldn't be written for stuff like this. Getting the state to enforce your business model is gross. The fact that we have other examples of this (copyright enforcement comes to mind) doesn't make any of it ok.

But that's not illegal

The definition of fraud is deception with the intent of enriching yourself.

How is it deception to slide the dice on a craps table? Someone should be supervising the table to ensure rules are followed. (And certainly there are plenty of people who walk up to a craps table without knowing all the rules in the first place; that's an expected and accepted part of learning the game.) If the casino didn't staff the electronic craps tables properly, and the tables themselves had software unable to detect certain kinds of rolls the casino doesn't like, that should be the casino's problem, not the player's.

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