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Comment by matteoraso | Hacker News Reader

>We were doing stuff in the 8-12% range.

If there was a legal way of achieving that kind of edge, casinos would know about it. That kind of gain is incredibly noticeable if you're watching the gambler, which the casino is absolutely doing.

>Every casino game has a vulnerability, even slots.

This is even more alarming. Slots aren't a skill-based game, they're RNG machines with a mean EV that's substantially lower than any other game in the casino. The only possible strategy that I can think of for slots (besides breaking into the machine and changing the RNG) is to hunt down slot machines that award an accumulative jackpot and play them when you calculate that the EV is positive. Even then, this is a rare circumstance and your gains would be small.

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Some slots machines may have a poorly designed RNG. For example it may have too little entropy, and its state may be calculated from multiple rounds of watching the symbols it displays.

In one of Kevin Mitnick's books—can't recall which one, maybe The Art Of Deception?—he interviews anonymous hackers about their exploits, and one of the chapters is about a group of 4 people who did just that. They bought used slot machines, reverse-engineered the RNG in the firmware, found it was vulnerable. They exploited it to win a few million dollars over many months/years and many casinos. They spread their winnings over time, and they stopped when they felt it was too risky to get caught by the casinos.

Slots are designed by psychologists to maximize take. One of the things they do is make sure there's a decent payout every 80 spins on average. Also slots in well viewed spots pay out more because they get more attention. There are a number of strategies that are more detailed, such as the one Mitnick mentions.

People do make money playing slots, but it's real work.

Yes, the more creative and rare the exploit the better it pays, and good ones do provide 10%+ advantage.

Good card players have lots of ways to gain advantages.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/25107-poker-legend-phil...

Did you read the article? He was sued for using an illegal technique and had his assets seized. Like I said, no legal technique will give you the edge that you're talking about. Also, very few decks will have consistent manufacturer flaws nowadays.

The legality is disputable. They permitted everything he asked for.

Point is, he's the most famous card player in the world playing at the highest stakes at a top tier casino.

There are plenty of low profile players who can do the things Phil knows how to do. Casino's have a hard time distinguishing a lucky run from an advantage player they haven't seen enough times to catch their attention. The last thing they want to do is ban a high roller, so advantage players get the benefit of the doubt.

To make it as an AP you need a big bank roll, a lot of discipline to learn the games, access to a community of APs, and a lot of time for traveling and gambling. It's a job.

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