Staff Blog
Paper from slot machine experts uncovers “near miss” trickery
In last week's cover story, "Meet Your New Neighbor," I discussed — fairly breifly — some of the ways that slot machines can be rigged to produce "near misses," an illusion that leads a player to believe he or she came close to winning.
If you found that interesting, you might want to check out this paper (PDF), entitled "Unbalanced Reel Gaming Machines," by slot machine experts Roger Horbay, who lives in Ontario, and Tim Falkiner, an Australian.
In the paper, they not only detail the ways that "near misses" are produced — a little complicated, but a fun read for anyone with a slight streak of geek in them — but also take the reader through a history of ways that various kinds of carnival and table games have been "gaffed," or rigged, over time.
 |
| The long, inglorious history of rigging the game (click to enlarge) |
| From "Unbalanced Reel Gaming Machines" by Tim Falkiner and Roger Horbay |
Their point is that by typical standards, the way "near misses" are created looks a whole lot like cheating.
Despite that, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board does nothing to regulate the production of near misses by these means, despite their claims to the contrary. Richard Harbach, a PGCB spokesman, has said that the rules prohibit near misses, but cites only a rule that prohibits an outdated method and doesn't touch the methods described by Horbay and Falkiner.
[...] Evan M. Lopez Writing about casinos in the last few months, I’ve touched a few times on the “near-miss” on slot machines — a process by which a player sees an outcome that appears to be closer to a jackpot than it really is. Although gaming officials deny that these things exist, recent work by Canadian researchers Roger Horbay and Tim Faulkner reveals that the “near miss” is alive and well. [...]