Advantage play / cheating / crime....where is the line?

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

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Originally Posted by Mission146

As far as the exact process of causing this, only the manufacturer, the guys to actually do it and anyone they may have told would know that. There was a list of steps as to how it was done once published, but many people claim that list is incorrect. I don't know whether that list is incorrect or not.

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The only person to make the claim that the process was incorrect was Rob. He did it earlier in this thread and later in this thread. It is obvious in the articles written about Kane and Nestor that the authors were in contact and received information from IGT technicians. Would those IGT techs really give out the correct formula to get to the big jackpot. I don't think so. I think they intentionally engaged in some disinformation to protect against it happening in the future.

It is Rob and only Rob saying that bit of information was not correct. Only someone that was actually doing it would know that.

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It would not be at all surprising that something gets lost in translation with what the writer put in the article, for example, let's start with this:

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Keep playing at the $1 level until you win a big hand. An $800 royal flush is perfect.

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Okay, but there is no $800 Royal Flush because the Royal Flush pays 800-for-1 with a Max Bet and is a $4,000 Royal Flush. On almost all machines, playing only $1 at the $1 denomination would yield a $250 Royal Flush. There are a few rare exceptions I have encountered in which a Royal Flush pays a solid 500-FOR-1 regardless of the number of credits bet, or the occasional Spin Poker machine where one can ONLY bet one credit per line and it doesn't short the Royal...but in general, no, it's 250-FOR-1 or 800-FOR-1.

I'm not denigrating the WIRED article because it is extremely well-written and flows well, but it starts off on this procedure immediately being wrong about one of the most fundamental aspects of video poker. With that, it doesn't surprise me at all that it would be inaccurate about the finer technical points of the procedure.

I've never done it, so I don't know what's true or not true, but according to Singer's later post, you put the money in before you hit, "More Games." The article says you hit, "More Games," put the money in, hit, "More Games," again...etc.

I've also spoken to at least one other AP who does not claim to have done this play successfully, but who does claim the recipe listed in the article is wrong. I don't know if he found a machine with this glitch, tried it, and it didn't work, but that's my assumption. I don't know if he wants to be identified and I don't know if what he is saying is 100% true. Again, I have no personal experience whatsoever with this play.

But, that the article would be wrong about it? The article doesn't know what a Royal pays. Anybody ever see a $0.20 Video Poker denomination? That would pay an $800 royal.

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Originally Posted by smurgerburger

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

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Originally Posted by Mission146

I'll tell you this, in general, the eye in the sky is more concerned about you counting cards than it is with the machines.

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Who told you this? This is an absolute myth. You know what the absolute top thing surveillance is looking at? Employee theft!. Suspicious and/or higher limit machine wins would probably be second. Card counting is actually pretty low priority, unless a card counter or team is playing fairly high amounts and camping out.

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Mission is correct. That surveillance is more concerned with employee theft than AP is both true and irrelevant.

Card counting is going to be at the top of the list of AP they look for. Machine bugs or "suspicious machine wins" are not even on the list.

They may well observe handpays but that would be to look for employee theft or error. They *might* look for.multicarding if they have recently been told to crack down.

There is no chance they are looking for undiagnosed machine glitches. These things are incalculably rare.

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You have it backwards on who is correct.

You're telling me that surveillance has time to sit there and watch the hands leading up to a handpay to detect something weird? No, I don't think so. Kane wouldn't have gotten the play busted up so quickly if not for hitting several hand pays in the high-limit room in a very short amount of time using the same hand on two occasions.

The only thing I'm aware of that some casinos look for is a different signer, (because I tried it once) it may not be true with every single casino, but in many of them the person who hit the button that triggered the jackpot must be the one who gets paid and they do pay attention to that. Again, that would have nothing to do with looking at the actual events on the machine beyond who is hitting the buttons.

KewlJ, is the one who said:


" You know what the absolute top thing surveillance is looking at? Employee theft!."

Sir, I never said employee theft wasn't. I said they are looking for card counters with greater priority than they are looking at machines. I never said or implied that card counters were #1 priority, just that they are looking for them more than they are watching what is going on on individual machines to hit a handpay.

Sir, in my post #102 I was not responding to your post. I was responding to smurgerburger's.

The one that referred to me?

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Originally Posted by Mission146

The one that referred to me?

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Mission, be careful when you get into a debate with Bosox. Most people have a hard time following what he’s saying. I’ve been begging Dan to hire a translator so we can figure out where Bosox is coming from. Until then, we’ll all have to just guess.

All in all, a very interesting thread. I’m on the side of you and KJ on this one. There are too many things that don’t add up with Singer’s story. Regardless of who’s right or wrong, it’s a riveting story.

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

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Originally Posted by quahaug

Maybe I'm missing something but has anyone actually said what this supposed play is/was?

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quahaug, this is the article I came across yesterday. It is not the same article that I read a few years ago, so there are other articles out there. You will note how quickly these guys drew attention. Singers claim is that he executed this play, undetected, for 6 years prior to these two players to the tune of 3 million dollars.

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

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From my understanding, shit came down mainly because they were double claiming the SAME jackpots BACK to BACK. Some surveillance guy at Silverton(I think) got suspicious when he noticed the same guy hitting the same 4 of a kind jackpot in the same sequence (aces with a kicker I think).

What I'm a little fussy on, and I think I have confirmation on this, but I want to double check again. There was no need to trigger a hand-pay jackpot to take advantage of this bug. If that's the case, If done right, there was a chance that you could go forever without ever being noticed. Given that there are hundreds(thousands?) of bars, stores and casinos around the world. I don't see why you couldn't pick up between $500 and $2000 per multiple locations per day, the bigger the place the more you could take without being noticed. Assuming Rob played this, Rob could have, should have, made much more money on this play over the years he was playing it. I would think you could make 150k a month easy, but I have no clue how many machines were available that had the double up on them so that would put a limit on you.

It's easy to say after the fact how you would have done it. The problem with that is.... you have no clue what others know, you have no clue if IGT already knows, or when they will know, you have no clue if they will spot this via accounting or some machine audit. So there can be a sence of urgency to get as much money as you can, while you can. Of course, after a year of doing something like this, I would have to assume they have no clue. And if Rob did know about this, well we have proof that some other idiot could stumble onto it and fuck it all up, so you need to get the money while the getting is good.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

I waited ten years to bring this up, and other than for legal safety the reason is valid and it's not due to bragging rights. I am a known person in the vp world who was not able to be entirely honest in multiple forms of media after my first four years of playing professionally using my strategy. I was constantly criticized for writing in Gaming Today for years about hitting hi limit jackpots week after week. I was called a liar and every name in the envy book. People wondered where I got the $640,000 cash I put up as escrow to take on Fezzik and the LVA crowd.

I've chosen to attach an explanation to all that ten years + later. I've been labeled a con man, a losing player, and whatever else AP's could think of as their way of pretending I couldn't be for real. Well, imagine how satisfying it all was back then as I was the one playing the with best advantage ever in video poker.

Oh, that 5th card flip over stuff? Simple diversion and entertainment as I piled up the profits.

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Assuming everything that you are saying is true, let me then ask you this: Why run around for years advocating and defending what essentially amounts to a video poker betting system other than for bragging rights? That's totally irresponsible and sets people up to believe in a system that has a mathematical expectation of losing. How many people could have lost how much money thinking they could win just by adopting a system that varies bets and gradually progresses upward in denomination?

They were calling what you were saying bunk because, without the double-up glitch, it is bunk. I just don't understand why talk about it at all if you either could not or would not come out with what the play actually is. There's no need whatsoever for diversion if you just don't say anything at all about it.

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First off (and I addressed this earlier somewhere) I played my strategy the first four years after becoming a professional gambler, upwards of 150 or more sessions. And it was successful--I won about $375k in the process, and I would have kept playing it forward had it not been for the find.. Additionally, I taught it to people back then and I still teach it today. The time I offered to bet the WoV math crew that I could play ten sessions as they witnessed me and win at least 8 sessions out of 10 and end up with at least a $25,000 net profit was legit. If they had accepted I would have won.

Next, as axel understood and said here, this double up play has nothing at all to do with my play strategy, other than I did use my special plays that deviate from optimal strategy in order to have a better, quicker method of hitting quads or better.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

It would not be at all surprising that something gets lost in translation with what the writer put in the article, for example, let's start with this:

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Keep playing at the $1 level until you win a big hand. An $800 royal flush is perfect.

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Okay, but there is no $800 Royal Flush because the Royal Flush pays 800-for-1 with a Max Bet and is a $4,000 Royal Flush. On almost all machines, playing only $1 at the $1 denomination would yield a $250 Royal Flush. There are a few rare exceptions I have encountered in which a Royal Flush pays a solid 500-FOR-1 regardless of the number of credits bet, or the occasional Spin Poker machine where one can ONLY bet one credit per line and it doesn't short the Royal...but in general, no, it's 250-FOR-1 or 800-FOR-1.

I'm not denigrating the WIRED article because it is extremely well-written and flows well, but it starts off on this procedure immediately being wrong about one of the most fundamental aspects of video poker. With that, it doesn't surprise me at all that it would be inaccurate about the finer technical points of the procedure.

I've never done it, so I don't know what's true or not true, but according to Singer's later post, you put the money in before you hit, "More Games." The article says you hit, "More Games," put the money in, hit, "More Games," again...etc.

I've also spoken to at least one other AP who does not claim to have done this play successfully, but who does claim the recipe listed in the article is wrong. I don't know if he found a machine with this glitch, tried it, and it didn't work, but that's my assumption. I don't know if he wants to be identified and I don't know if what he is saying is 100% true. Again, I have no personal experience whatsoever with this play.

But, that the article would be wrong about it? The article doesn't know what a Royal pays. Anybody ever see a $0.20 Video Poker denomination? That would pay an $800 royal.

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I've played the machine Kane got caught on, and it is or was a $1/$2/$5/$10 triple-play. All $1 games paid 250 for a $1 royal. And there's no way Kane would ever be playing just one credit anyway. The way he got to his $8200 jackpot is by getting dealt two Aces on one of the advanced BP games, and hitting four Aces once w/o a kicker for $800 while not improving on the other two hands. An $820 win, which bumps up to $8200 at the $10 denomination. This is IF that article was right about the game he was playing.

There are $.20 denomination games available. But again, that is not a game I've seen in the Silverton although I don't typically look for them. Besides, there's none in the hi limit room of course.

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

Next, as axel understood and said here, this double up play has nothing at all to do with my play strategy, other than I did use my special plays that deviate from optimal strategy in order to have a better, quicker method of hitting quads or better.

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Those aren't even, "Special Plays," at that point. You're basically playing a different paytable with huge pays on Quads, Royals and SF's...so they just become the mathematically correct decisions, I would imagine.

As far as the first paragraph, I've already acknowledged that such results are possible, but are not the mathematical expectation playing negative expectation games.

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

I've played the machine Kane got caught on, and it is or was a $1/$2/$5/$10 triple-play. All $1 games paid 250 for a $1 royal. And there's no way Kane would ever be playing just one credit anyway. The way he got to his $8200 jackpot is by getting dealt two Aces on one of the advanced BP games, and hitting four Aces once w/o a kicker for $800 while not improving on the other two hands. An $820 win, which bumps up to $8200 at the $10 denomination. This is IF that article was right about the game he was playing.

There are $.20 denomination games available. But again, that is not a game I've seen in the Silverton although I don't typically look for them. Besides, there's none in the hi limit room of course.

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Precisely my point, the article was wrong about one of the most fundamental aspects of video poker, so there is no reason to believe it would get the specific procedure 100% correct. As others have mentioned, maybe Kane told it to them but intentionally gave misinformation (if the process for it you are saying is true)...basically the only difference is eliminating one step and reversing the order of two steps between what you said and what the article said.

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

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Originally Posted by quahaug

Maybe I'm missing something but has anyone actually said what this supposed play is/was?

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quahaug, this is the article I came across yesterday. It is not the same article that I read a few years ago, so there are other articles out there. You will note how quickly these guys drew attention. Singers claim is that he executed this play, undetected, for 6 years prior to these two players to the tune of 3 million dollars.

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

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From my understanding, shit came down mainly because they were double claiming the SAME jackpots BACK to BACK. Some surveillance guy at Silverton(I think) got suspicious when he noticed the same guy hitting the same 4 of a kind jackpot in the same sequence (aces with a kicker I think).

What I'm a little fussy on, and I think I have confirmation on this, but I want to double check again. There was no need to trigger a hand-pay jackpot to take advantage of this bug. If that's the case, If done right, there was a chance that you could go forever without ever being noticed. Given that there are hundreds(thousands?) of bars, stores and casinos around the world. I don't see why you couldn't pick up between $500 and $2000 per multiple locations per day, the bigger the place the more you could take without being noticed. Assuming Rob played this, Rob could have, should have, made much more money on this play over the years he was playing it. I would think you could make 150k a month easy, but I have no clue how many machines were available that had the double up on them so that would put a limit on you.

It's easy to say after the fact how you would have done it. The problem with that is.... you have no clue what others know, you have no clue if IGT already knows, or when they will know, you have no clue if they will spot this via accounting or some machine audit. So there can be a sence of urgency to get as much money as you can, while you can. Of course, after a year of doing something like this, I would have to assume they have no clue. And if Rob did know about this, well we have proof that some other idiot could stumble onto it and fuck it all up, so you need to get the money while the getting is good.

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After finding this play I attached a $10,000/week avg. win goal to my approach. Where'd I get the $10k figure? It seemed fine because it was more than I was making in my best year of my work career. And I am just not a greedy person, which I attribute to my longevity on this play. If I won a large jackpot, I took a few weeks off from playing until my win avg. got down to my goal, because I was 99%+ certain I'd keep winning regularly.

We look at this from a different perspective. I know it could have all ended earlier and my take would've been much less maybe. But I didn't live in LV, I have a family, and the less time and # of trips I took to Nv. the better. For me. I was driving all over the state just to stay off the radar because I was over-cautious. But for a person who lives there, I agree, the attack strategy would be much different--esp. if you find it these days.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

I've played the machine Kane got caught on, and it is or was a $1/$2/$5/$10 triple-play. All $1 games paid 250 for a $1 royal. And there's no way Kane would ever be playing just one credit anyway. The way he got to his $8200 jackpot is by getting dealt two Aces on one of the advanced BP games, and hitting four Aces once w/o a kicker for $800 while not improving on the other two hands. An $820 win, which bumps up to $8200 at the $10 denomination. This is IF that article was right about the game he was playing.

There are $.20 denomination games available. But again, that is not a game I've seen in the Silverton although I don't typically look for them. Besides, there's none in the hi limit room of course.

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Precisely my point, the article was wrong about one of the most fundamental aspects of video poker, so there is no reason to believe it would get the specific procedure 100% correct. As others have mentioned, maybe Kane told it to them but intentionally gave misinformation (if the process for it you are saying is true)...basically the only difference is eliminating one step and reversing the order of two steps between what you said and what the article said.

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Having done the steps for my own winning hands, I could see the author probably got confused when he either listened to the explanation or tried to write them out properly. What he does is almost combine your own winning hand procedure with that of using an already existing winning hand. His example of that $800 RF shows he's not a vp enthusiast.

In my example of how I figured he got to $8200, I correct that to he was playing TDBP, and his 3 final hands were 4 Aces/3 Aces/3Aces. But who knows?

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

quahaug, this is the article I came across yesterday. It is not the same article that I read a few years ago, so there are other articles out there. You will note how quickly these guys drew attention. Singers claim is that he executed this play, undetected, for 6 years prior to these two players to the tune of 3 million dollars.

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

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From my understanding, shit came down mainly because they were double claiming the SAME jackpots BACK to BACK. Some surveillance guy at Silverton(I think) got suspicious when he noticed the same guy hitting the same 4 of a kind jackpot in the same sequence (aces with a kicker I think).

What I'm a little fussy on, and I think I have confirmation on this, but I want to double check again. There was no need to trigger a hand-pay jackpot to take advantage of this bug. If that's the case, If done right, there was a chance that you could go forever without ever being noticed. Given that there are hundreds(thousands?) of bars, stores and casinos around the world. I don't see why you couldn't pick up between $500 and $2000 per multiple locations per day, the bigger the place the more you could take without being noticed. Assuming Rob played this, Rob could have, should have, made much more money on this play over the years he was playing it. I would think you could make 150k a month easy, but I have no clue how many machines were available that had the double up on them so that would put a limit on you.

It's easy to say after the fact how you would have done it. The problem with that is.... you have no clue what others know, you have no clue if IGT already knows, or when they will know, you have no clue if they will spot this via accounting or some machine audit. So there can be a sence of urgency to get as much money as you can, while you can. Of course, after a year of doing something like this, I would have to assume they have no clue. And if Rob did know about this, well we have proof that some other idiot could stumble onto it and fuck it all up, so you need to get the money while the getting is good.

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After finding this play I attached a $10,000/week avg. win goal to my approach. Where'd I get the $10k figure? It seemed fine because it was more than I was making in my best year of my work career. And I am just not a greedy person, which I attribute to my longevity on this play. If I won a large jackpot, I took a few weeks off from playing until my win avg. got down to my goal, because I was 99%+ certain I'd keep winning regularly.

We look at this from a different perspective. I know it could have all ended earlier and my take would've been much less maybe. But I didn't live in LV, I have a family, and the less time and # of trips I took to Nv. the better. For me. I was driving all over the state just to stay off the radar because I was over-cautious. But for a person who lives there, I agree, the attack strategy would be much different--esp. if you find it these days.

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That's a pretty pathetic win goal for a play that is so strong. If that was all my goal was I would have just played quarter BPD switching up to $1's at $500 an hour and never took a handpay or drew any kind of attention. Switch from quarters up to $2 and make $1300+ per hour.
That's if someone really wanted to be cautious.

Have we established that this could work without triggering a handpay, though? While not explicitly stated, anything I have ever read has at least seemed to imply that the handpay aspect is an essential component.

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

Here are the not so simple facts for most people, and it will be my last post on the subject unless there are any valid questions.

--I discovered the flaw by looking for it or something like it, brought on by a motivation and vengeance for losing as an AP previously. I spent four years in doing so. I started with the question "When is a video poker hand over--but not REALLY over--and I went from there. Double up obviously. Four years in, I sat staring at many machines as the double up option asked if I wanted to double my credits or not as I pushed buttons, all to no avail. Then I saw it--the bill feeder light was on when it never is after the deal button is pushed and until the hand is completely over. So I pushed in a 20, and the surrealism began.

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I am wondering why winning 375k with the other system would be looked at as losing as an AP prior to discovering the double up?

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

Mickey speculates that could be because the information came from Game king and they intestinally gave the incorrect info, thus making Singer seem credible.

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I have tried on occasion to discredit someone by giving information intestinally, but I’m not sure they have picked it up...

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

Here are the not so simple facts for most people, and it will be my last post on the subject unless there are any valid questions.

--I discovered the flaw by looking for it or something like it, brought on by a motivation and vengeance for losing as an AP previously. I spent four years in doing so. I started with the question "When is a video poker hand over--but not REALLY over--and I went from there. Double up obviously. Four years in, I sat staring at many machines as the double up option asked if I wanted to double my credits or not as I pushed buttons, all to no avail. Then I saw it--the bill feeder light was on when it never is after the deal button is pushed and until the hand is completely over. So I pushed in a 20, and the surrealism began.

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I am wondering why winning 375k with the other system would be looked at as losing as an AP prior to discovering the double up?

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I think you would absolutely want to get some big hand pays in there occasionally, even if you didn't use the double up bug, just to get some hand-pays on higher denominations. This would help explain why your income is suddenly so high.