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Thread: Oregon Lottery scamming people through incorrect "auto-hold" on video poker

  1. #1
    There are lots of scams in the world of gambling. Sometimes even large casinos cheat players.

    But you know who is least likely to scam someone in gambling? The government. While the government might be bumbling, inefficient, corrupt, or overly bureaucratic, you still can at least count on them to offer you a fair game on machines they own, right?

    Right?

    Apparently not.

    Read on for an amazing story of the state of Oregon cheating its own players at video poker... and continuing to do so even when caught red-handed.



    Lose Your Money 20 Times as Fast as in Vegas

    In 1984, Oregon voters were convinced to approve a lottery, to begin in 1985. At the time, a big selling point was that casino-style gambling would be prohibited.

    Just 7 years later, the law was revised, and the first legalized, state-run video poker games appeared in 1992. 23 years later, they are still running.

    As you know, Jacks or Better video poker returns 99.54% at "full pay", and somewhere between 95-98% on most other machines.

    So what was the return on the Jacks or Better game on the video poker machines owned by the Oregon Lottery? 97%? 95%?

    No. Their return rate was 90%. You read that right. They were offering the worst Jacks or Better video poker in the history of video poker. In fact, every variant of video poker they offered had a return rate of 90%, with the exception of two of them, which were 92% and 94%, respectively. So the very best video poker offered by the Oregon Lottery had a 94% return rate, which was already among the worst of the worst. And their typical machines offered just a 90% return.

    How bad is a 90% return? At these 90% return Oregon machines, you will lose your money more than 20 times as fast as you would at a full-pay Jacks or Better machine.

    But that's not the scandal here. While it's true that the paytables were MUCH worse than industry standard, and while it's true that players were not warned of this, you can at least say the game was still fair, albeit running at very poor odds. The scandal is the fact that, despite operating machines with a hugely inflated house edge, the Oregon Lottery still rigged the games to cheat people.



    Let the Game Give You Advice... Just Not the Correct Advice

    Video Poker is not like a slot machine. Slot machines require no skill. You click "Spin", and whether you win or lose depends only upon the odds of the machine and dumb luck. Video poker, on the other hand, requires the player to make decisions. These decisions will greatly affect the player's odds to win. To put it simply, a 3-year-old could play slots and have the identical chance to win as I would at the same machine. However, if that same child tried to play video poker, he would be absolutely terrible at it, and would lose a fortune. So correct play at video poker really matters. All strategy in video poker comes from determining which cards to hold, and which to throw back.

    While perfect video poker strategy has already been determined and easily made available on the web, most casual gamblers don't know how (or care) to learn to play perectly. They have a general idea of what to do, but still make plenty of mistakes.

    The Oregon Lottery machines supposedly solve this problem for novice players by automatically holding the right cards after the hand is dealt. While the player can override the hold suggestions, the player is led to believe that the machine is advising them correctly.

    For example, at a Jacks or Better machine, if the player is dealt: Jh 8h 2h 3h Tc

    ... then the machine would (correctly) auto-hold the four hearts, and all you'd have to do is click the DEAL/DRAW button to try and make your flush.

    On the surface, this seems like a nice thing to do for players, as removes the need to learn perfect strategy, and greatly minimizes the potential for mistakes. Who needs to learn perfect strategy if the machine is already advising you of the right play to make (and in fact already holding the right cards for you)?

    However, there's one problem. The machines are not auto-holding the cards utilizing perfect strategy. In fact, the auto-hold makes several egregious strategy mistakes which will typically cost the player a lot of money!

    Would you like an example?

    Meet Justin Curzi.



    Justin was playing video poker in Oregon in 2014, and found a perplexing hand.

    He was dealt 2-4-5-6-7, with 4 different suits. The obvious play here would be to hold the 4-5-6-7 for the open ended straight draw. Curiously, the machine auto-held the 2-4-5-6, thus cutting his chances to hit the straight in half. He continued playing and found other mind-bogglingly incorrect auto-holds.

    Convinced he found a bug, he contacted the Oregon Lottery. Marlene Messiner, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Lottery, drafted an answer to send him:

    Auto-hold is based on optimizing the player’s opportunity to win the best (highest prize) rather than simply increasing the odds of winning any prize.
    But before she could send it, her superiors corrected her. Messiner was told that they knew Curzi was correct, and that indeed the auto-hold was steering players (without their knowledge) to play suboptimally. She trashed that e-mail before sending it to Curzi, and instead wrote this:

    In your case, the terminal did advise a strategy — granted not the only strategy — for you to have an opportunity to win with the cards you were dealt.
    Then they shut down the correspondence and refused to continue discussing the matter with Curzi.

    He eventually filed a class action lawsuit against the Oregon Lottery, which is still ongoing.

    He found the original draft of Messiner's e-mail through the discovery process.

    Really dirty.

    You can read more about Curzi's (justified) war against the Oregon Lottery here: http://www.wweek.com/portland/articl...s_machine.html


    Curzi's process of discovery also revealed that the machines were paying out only 87% on average instead of 90%, and the auto-hold was mostly to blame. It turned out that the auto-hold was responsible for as much as a 5% difference in return on some machines. That is, players utilizing the auto-hold (which, again, is on by default) had a return of 5% worse than players using their own strategy, which is horrendous.

    He also found that they were aware of this situation dating at least back to 2009, and chose to continue the same course.

    Still not sure if you believe me or that article? Check out the Oregon Lottery's own website: http://www.oregonlottery.org/gameinf...ercentage.aspx

    Auto-hold strategies vary by game, based on the particular features of a game and do not necessarily result in theoretical payouts. Players have the option of overriding the game’s selections anytime.
    What's even worse is the fact that the expected payouts (90% on most machines) are required to be clearly displayed on video poker machines, so players can understand their odds.

    Except it's far lower than 90% if you use its auto-hold advice.

    Oregon Lottery officials are now claiming that the above disclaimer ("Auto hold ... do not necessarily result in theoretical payouts") is good enough to legally qualify as informing the players about the auto hold's deficiencies.

    Yeah, right. Most players either won't read that fine print, or even if they do, won't understand it.

    The question remains... Why does the Oregon Lottery have the machines set to give players improper advice on how to play hands? Obviously it's to cheat people, and these greedy assholes amazingly aren't even satisfied with their already horrible-odds machines.

    They have no plans to abandon this auto-hold policy, and Curzi has calculated that the state has possibly scammed as much as $134 million since 1992 through this auto-hold trick.

    Unfortunately, Curzi's class action suit is still likely to fail, because he has to prove "intent to defraud" in order to win his case. If they are simply trotting out games with a bug in the auto-hold, and then informing players about the auto-hold in a fine-print, confusing disclaimer, they can probably dodge being liable for damages.

    Absolutely despicable.

    Anyway, if you're in Oregon, stay away from video poker.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  2. #2
    Fascinating. I never knew about this. Thanks for posting.

    I have never seen video poker machines in Vegas that have suggested holds. Do they exist?

    At Morongo, and Indian casino here in Southern Cal near Palm Springs, they have some second class video poker games that will actually CHANGE the cards you hold to give you a winner when your hold would have been a loser. It happened to me and it was because the computer said I was due for a win.

  3. #3
    There used to be a few machines here that were set to auto hold. It was only on Deuces Wild and they were scattered. But the auto hold was nowhere close to proper play. It was almost as if the auto hold thought it was a JOB game and not deuces. I used to have them turn off that feature just so it wouldn't annoy me.

  4. #4
    Oregon has Class II video lottery terminals, so it doesn't matter if the paytable is 6/5 Jacks or 10/7 Jacks and it doesn't matter what cards you hold, the result is predetermined.

    I have a video that I will dig up from two years ago at New York's Resorts World casino (run by the NY Lottery). I was dealt four deuces with an ace for 800 credits and I dumped all 5 cards. Redeal was all trash but a "genie" awarded me 800 credits randomly.

    Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about the state of Oregon, but I believe the state did NOT scam its customers and Curzi's lawsuit has no merit.
    Last edited by nerakil; 03-16-2015 at 08:19 AM.

  5. #5
    nerakil if indeed it is Class II gaming, like those video poker machines at Morongo (not all, but some), then indeed what you see on the screen is less important than what appears on the "bingo card" that is also on the machine. So a question: is there a Bingo card on the machines?

  6. #6
    Originally Posted by nerakil View Post
    Oregon has Class II video lottery terminals, so it doesn't matter if the paytable is 6/5 Jacks or 10/7 Jacks and it doesn't matter what cards you hold, the result is predetermined.

    I have a video that I will dig up from two years ago at New York's Resorts World casino (run by the NY Lottery). I was dealt four deuces with an ace for 800 credits and I dumped all 5 cards. Redeal was all trash but a "genie" awarded me 800 credits randomly.

    Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about the state of Oregon, but I believe the state did NOT scam its customers and Curzi's lawsuit has no merit.
    Then why does the Oregon Lottery website have the disclaimer telling people that the auto-hold will result in less than theoretical returns?
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  7. #7
    Everybody has disclaimers. The meds I take to keep me alive have disclaimers and warnings that they can kill me. Watched any TV commercials for medicines lately?

  8. #8
    My point is that they don't need the auto-hold disclaimer if it doesn't actually affect the theoretical return. So Oregon's machines might actually be Class III.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  9. #9
    Last time I was at Barona they had auto-hold. It was quite a few years ago and I was new to video poker at the time, so I have no idea if it held the correct cards. I just remember that it was really boring to play.

  10. #10
    Originally Posted by Chimp View Post
    Last time I was at Barona they had auto-hold. It was quite a few years ago and I was new to video poker at the time, so I have no idea if it held the correct cards. I just remember that it was really boring to play.
    I agree. Even if you're generally following a set strategy, it's a lot more fun to hold your own cards. Otherwise the experience of VP would be mind-numbing.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  11. #11
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    nerakil if indeed it is Class II gaming, like those video poker machines at Morongo (not all, but some), then indeed what you see on the screen is less important than what appears on the "bingo card" that is also on the machine. So a question: is there a Bingo card on the machines?
    The actual lawsuit can be found here. In it, there are photos of the machine screens.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/inde...poker_mac.html

    This article indicates there are no Class II in Oregon:

    http://www.opb.org/news/article/odds...no-in-medford/
    Last edited by Vegas Vic; 03-16-2015 at 09:04 PM.

  12. #12
    We're overlooking something here: were the auto holds based on Rob Singer's strategy?

  13. #13
    Originally Posted by Vegas Vic View Post
    The actual lawsuit can be found here. In it, there are photos of the machine screens.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/inde...poker_mac.html

    This article indicates there are no Class II in Oregon:

    http://www.opb.org/news/article/odds...no-in-medford/
    It said class III casinos not machines.

  14. #14
    I have never had an opportunity to play a class II machine. So am I to understand that if I am dealt 4 aces with a kicker on DDB, and I discard them all, I will still get $2,000. It doesn't matter what cards I hold ---the result is already determined??

  15. #15
    Originally Posted by regnis View Post
    I have never had an opportunity to play a class II machine. So am I to understand that if I am dealt 4 aces with a kicker on DDB, and I discard them all, I will still get $2,000. It doesn't matter what cards I hold ---the result is already determined??
    Not exactly. And that's the only answer I can give you. The games will correct a bad hold you make to give you a winner. But I don't think it will cancel a winning hand. Since I haven't played this in ten years I haven't tried to learn more.

    Edited to add: I found this article about video poker and Class II gaming:

    http://www.casinocenter.com/class-ii...oker-machines/

  16. #16
    Originally Posted by quahaug View Post
    It said class III casinos not machines.
    From that article:

    "The Coquilles have proposed a Class II facility in Medford, which can offer video gaming machines but no tables. There are currently no Class II facilities in the state."

    If there are no Class II facilities, there are no Class II machines. The tribal compacts are for one or the other ( II or III) with their corresponding type of machines.

  17. #17
    Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    My point is that they don't need the auto-hold disclaimer if it doesn't actually affect the theoretical return. So Oregon's machines might actually be Class III.
    I just got back from Oregon yesterday. I stumbled onto the machines there by accident and did my homework. The machines, though they are called Video Lottery Terminals, actually operate with RNG's.

  18. #18
    I just told this story on vpFREE. But I will recap it here. In 1988 my step-dad owned a tavern in Canby, Oregon. There was a video poker machine that had "for amusement only" on it. But that wasn't the case. The bar/tavern owners payed off winners to induce action. It was an illegal industry. The machine in my step-dad's tavern was owned by the guy that owned the juke box and the pool tables. Jim got a 25% cut of what the video poker machine made with no downside risk to himself as the slot route operator assumed all the risk.

    In 1992 the State of Oregon went gangsta and took over the industry. They outlawed private ownership of video poker machines. Then they bought and installed their own machines. It's called the Oregon Video Lottery. The State copycatted the illegal operators by giving the small business owners, bars, restaurants, and taverns a 25% cut of the money. This is a nice shot in the arm for a small business as the average take is about $100,000 a year for the owners.

    In 2005 they brought video line games into the mix. Initially they had a 95% cap on payback and a $600 max jackpot. In 2011 they took the $600 cap off and now the jackpots go to up to the multi-thousands. In 2015 they replaced all the old machines with modern equipment from IGT, Bally's and Spielo. The machines in Oregon have to be out of sight but if you stop at a Denny's to eat, then take a look around. You will find six machines somewhere in the building. Denny's will even comp you coffee and soda pop if you play them.

    There are 12,000 machines in Oregon that gross $900,000,000 a year. That's an average of about $200 a day per machine. If you see this sign outside a small business then you know they have machines:

    Name:  oregon lottery.jpg
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    Last edited by mickeycrimm; 03-21-2017 at 06:27 AM.

  19. #19
    Now, the question begs to be asked. Did I find anything exploitable in Oregon? Yes, I did. But it's a pain in the ass and not worth that much money. I cruised the main drags on the eastside for three days. You know, the streets that have all the business's on them. I stopped at every joint I seen the Oregon Lottery sign. There are six machines inside. Only one machine out of the six has the potential plays. I have to find the right mix of numbers or it's no play. So if it's no play then i have to load back up in the car and head on down the street. Sometimes when I go inside there is someone playing the machine. I'm not about to sit there and sweat how long that person is going to play so I can check the machine for plays. So now I have to load back up and head on down the street again. And I had to deal with traffic jams. You can forget it when the traffic is up.

    I made $936 in three days. But I forked out a little over $300 for hotels, meals and gas. I do much better in Montana. Oregon might be worth a couple of trips a year.

  20. #20
    The auto-holds in Nevada were bad. I only found one spot and even then it wasn't perfect. The Carson Nugget had 20-coin nickel 17/10 Loose Deuces (101.6%) with a reversible sequential royal that payed $10,000. The auto-hold played perfectly except for the sequential. I had to make a decision on the play whether to pay attention to the sequential or not. I could play two machines at once just tapping the deal/draw buttons to get out a $2000 an hour wager. If I payed attention to the sequential then the wager per hour went way down. So I said to hell with it and didn't pay attention to keep the speed up.

    A hand like this X-KH-QH-X-10H is worth a hell of a lot more than a hand like this KH-X-QH-X-10H. It's because in the first example, when you hit the royal half the time it's going to be sequential. But it's rare that you will be dealt a three-card royal with the cards in perfect sequential position so I ignored it to keep my speed up.
    Last edited by mickeycrimm; 03-21-2017 at 07:01 AM.

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