Slot machine multiplies deposit by 10 - Must have been made by Diebold

[El Fuego]

Slot Machine Multiplies Deposit by 10

The Associated Press
Friday, August 4, 2006; 7:22 AM

BRIDGEPORT, Ind. -- Gamblers raked in nearly half a million dollars over two days on a slot machine that multiplied by 10 the amount of money that players put in, a newspaper reported.

Caesars Indiana lost $487,000 before a player notified officials of the problem with the machine, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., reported Friday. Kathryn Ford of Louisville, Ky., realized something was wrong July 23 when she and her husband sat down at two of the machines, called Extra Money. When she put in a $20 bill, the machine registered it as $200. She tried another $20 bill and the same thing happened, she said. Ford said she put eight $20 bills in the machine and received vouchers that could be redeemed for $1,600 in cash _ without even playing.

Other gamblers noticed.

"There was even a young woman who jumped in while I was sitting there. She ... reached across me, popped a hundred in, popped out a thousand and then she took off," Ford said.

Ford and her husband reported the problem to a security officer and casino officials determined the machine had a switch set for use in the Philippines instead of the U.S. instructing it to multiply credits by 10.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080400288.htm

[blm]

1. And THAT is how Bush found 11million more votes than he got in 2000.

.

[El Fuego]

3. Yep!

I don't doubt it.

[slackmaster]

2. Machines can malfunction in all kinds of interesting ways

My favorite was a simple broken parking meter that I found in downtown Baltimore, MD where parking is very scarce. I believe it was on Cathedral Street, not far from the old Washington Monument tower. It was stuck on a setting that indicated about an hour remaining.

I got free parking all afternoon!

[Awsi Dooger]

4. That's hardly a rarity

It cracks me up when Steven Freeman talks and writes about how infallible and secure Nevada slot machines are. That's the mythology, what they want you to believe on shows like Las Vegas.

I've lived in Las Vegas since the '80s. The stories could fill every page of this forum. When I used to work as a sports supervisor at the Horseshoe we had one guy who would always be broke the night before then make a $550 or $1100 bet the next morning. I thought he was dealing drugs until someone told me he was a slot cheat. Turned out you could shock the machines with a watch simply by rubbing your feet on the rug to generate static electricity. They turned into a runaway or could be stopped from paying out simply by shocking it again.

No, I never did it. No way I'm taking a chance on something like that and having to call my parents from jail. But I have stumbled onto poker machines that were inordinately generous. You cash out 20 credits and the machine spits out 28 quarters. That was an actual example. And yes, I kept playing that one all night:)

Maybe two years ago a friend showed me a cashout ticket from Treasure Island. It was for more than $1 million. Similar to this episode. It was supposed to be slightly over one thousand but the payout was somehow set at a multiplier of 1000. He took it to a lawyer who dealt with the casino. Unlike this case, they wanted to keep it out of the media. The original offer was the maximum single spin payoff from the machine, something like $12,500. But the lawyer argued the client could have been playing and winning multiple smaller payouts, making the total much higher than $12,500. Of course, there was no record of that on the tape or from the machine but TI was so desperate to keep it quiet they reportedly settled for several times the one-spin amount.

So many other examples. At the Flamingo Hilton last year a quarter machine was changed into a dollar machine yet the bill acceptor was not adjusted. So gamblers were getting 4/1 on every bill they put in the machine, $20 turning into $80 in credits, etc. Hard to lose on a machine set at 95% when you're getting 400%.

Also there was reportedly a nickel machine with a 45 coin maximum in which you could put in one coin then hit a key combination and cause the machine to play at the 45 coin maximum. I'm always hearing these stories long after the fact from guys in the sportsbooks, but I believe them since the subjects of the stores are generally tapouts who all of a sudden are betting thousands per game, until they blow it all.