Comment by specialp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by specialp | Hacker News Reader

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Casinos make money by providing games with various house edges to gamblers. Gamblers and casinos know this, and if it is unfair you have the choice to not gamble. Suppose there were a glitch with the machine that caused it NOT to pay out as it should... The casino would be liable to pay back that money to gamblers under numerous gaming laws. Would you then say that they should not have to pay it back as gamblers should assume risk when they gamble? Also, if it were found that the casino knowingly had a glitchy machine out there that did not pay out there would be people going to jail for that.

If there were a vending machine that gave me all of the money it had in it as change after hitting a combination of buttons, and I travelled to every machine in town and did this, I would be stealing. This is no different. If they calculated the house edge wrong and launched the game to players that would be a different story as the players played in good faith and it is the casino's fault that they did it wrong.

Let's say you lose more than you should have mathematically. Do you get to disable the machine, mark it off with tape as evidence, seize your lost money, have everyone involved in the production of that game arrested, and only then try to figure out what happened?

It is highly likely that software-driven games could have a bug. Therefore the casino could have decided that electronic machines are too risky. Or they could have paid for some kind of insurance. I think the casino, just like many banks and retail stores, are using technology that they do not understand and are unwilling to pay or learn. They want more profit. Let the seller beware.

Risk assessment != allowing someone to steal from you. Surely the casino knows that any game can be fallible and they could take a loss from it. I guess banks know that their computer systems could have problems and they can lose money from it. But what if I noticed if I exchanged a certain amount of money between my checking and savings account a few times, it doubled my balance? And then I repeated this many times knowing that there was an error in their system?

Now the bank if I had gotten away with it and could not be detected would then chalk it up as a loss and part of the calculated risk of having computerized banking. However if they knew I did this on purpose and took their money should they chalk that up as a loss and allow me to get away with it? No they would want that money back from me and possibly have me arrested for fraud.

The two gamblers in this story broke no laws and did not steal anything yet they were treated as criminals (and still are by the IRS). How is that fair? If anything, the casino should sue the maker of the machine.

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