Are Slot Machines Honest? - An Investigative Report

All of the stories in books relating to slot machines and video poker are based on the assumption that those machines act in a random manner. This means we’re assuming that those gamesSteve Bourie is the author of the American Casino Guide, the most comprehensive publication available for information on any U.S. casino/resort, riverboat or Indian casino. His guide has been published annually since 1992 and is now the biggest selling book in the U.S. on the subject of casino gambling.  Steve's website is www.americancasinoguide.com  aren’t programmed to avoid giving a player a winning slot combination or poker hand and the opportunity exists on each pull of the handle, or push of a button, for any possible winning combination to occur.

We know that there are gaming regulatory agencies that are supposed to provide the public with protection from playing on a rigged machine but how is it done? and how effective is it?

Being the nosy guy that I am, these were a couple of questions I was curious to get answered and it ended up taking me on a little bit of an adventure. Not only did it result in this story about the regulatory process for electronic gaming machines but it also led me to question the motives of a national news organization.

In the United States there are only four states that have their own facilities for testing electronic gaming machines: Montana, Mississippi, New Jersey and Nevada. For the other states that offer legalized casino gambling but don’t have their own labs almost all rely on the services of Gaming Labs International - an independent testing firm based in Toms River, New Jersey.

It only made sense to start with the biggest state first, so in February 1997 I called the Nevada Gaming Control Board to ask for permission to visit their testing lab in Las Vegas. They told me I needed to get permission for that from Bill Bible, the Control Board’s chairman, so I wrote him a brief letter explaining that I wanted to write a story about the lab for my book. Twelve days later I received a reply from him stating that I was welcome to visit the lab but that some parts of it were confidential and would not be accessible to me. He only requested that I call that department in advance to make an appointment. A few days later I called and made arrangements for a visit on March 18 at 3:00 p.m.

Not being a computer expert - just a curious casino gambler - I wasn’t exactly sure what I should ask and about 10 days before my trip I started to ponder questions I thought might be appropriate. Then, on March 12, just six days before the scheduled visit, I was watching television when I switched channels and caught a story on the ABC News show PrimeTime Live about slot machines. The segment was titled "Against All Odds" and featured their chief investigative reporter Brian Ross.

The story focused on the computer chips in slot machines and began with parts of an interview with Frank Romano who, Ross said, was banned from the industry because a company he owned with two partners was charged with rigging its video poker machines to avoid giving out royal flush jackpots.

Ross went on to say that the public knows little about the inner workings of machines and that PrimeTime conducted a four-month investigation into the industry that included numerous interviews with industry officials, the reading of confidential documents and the viewing of secret video tapes of an interview with a former state gaming official who was involved in a slot cheating scandal.

Ross said that Romano claimed he didn’t know anything about the cheating at his company and that he had persuaded a federal judge of that fact. Also, Romano had no qualms with talking about the "secrets" of the gambling industry even though Larry Volk the person at his company who programmed the chips to avoid giving the winning hands had been murdered: Volk was shot to death at his house in Las Vegas shortly before he was scheduled to begin giving testimony about how he programmed the chips to cheat.

Ross said Romano claimed the computer chips made cheating possible and that the true "secret" of the industry was that the chips of many machines were programmed with a "near-miss" feature which didn’t directly affect the odds of the game but did lure players into playing longer.

Romano then gave an example where a slot machine would line up two 7s on the payline and have the third 7 settle below the payline making people think they were close to winning. He said those kind of results were programmed into the machines on purpose.

Ross said the casinos pay out up to 98% on these machines and that Romano claimed the industry came up with this idea as a way to get the dollar volume up by keeping the players at the machines for a longer period. Romano claimed it was "cheating" and that the industry was "teasing" the player by making them think they were close to winning.

The next scene shifted to an interview with gambling addiction authority Valerie Lorenz who, Ross said, wasn’t surprised that the industry would do such a thing.

Next was an interview with Bill Bible, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board who said that cheaters would be caught and prosecuted. Ross commented that most of the Board’s cases involved players cheating casinos and asked Bible if it also applied to casinos that cheat customers. Bible replied that it did and that his department inspects computer chips both before they’re put in the machines and also after they’re out in actual play.

Ross then questioned how good a job the state did in examining the chips because of allegations raised in a six-hour series of supposedly "secret" videotapes with Ronald Harris, a former Gaming Control Board employee who was involved in a slot cheating scandal. Harris was a computer expert in the gaming lab where the machines were tested and the videos were made by the attorney general’s office while questioning him about his cheating activities. Harris was eventually convicted of felony cheating charges.

Parts of the "secret" tape are then shown with Harris claiming that the state’s gaming regulations weren’t being enforced and that the machines were "deceptive."

Harris: I remember reviewing one, and it was a thousand times more likely that the three 7s would line up directly above the payline than on the payline. I mean, doesn’t that seem deceptive to anyone here?

Ross commented that the attorney general’s office told PrimeTime it couldn’t prove any criminal wrongdoing based on Harris’ allegations and that they never looked at all into the alleged "deceptive" features on slots.

The interview with Bible then continued with him confirming that Harris was a former employee who had a great deal of knowledge about the industry and that his allegations were still under review. Bible denied that any cheating was allowed by him or the board and he pointed out that Harris just didn’t have much credibility.

In the next scene Ross said that two other former employees of the lab, without any criminal backgrounds, also believed that the machines were "deceptive." He interviewed Gordon Hickman a retired employee who said that the machines were very prevalent. Ross said that in a confidential memo to the attorney general’s office Hickman claimed that he was ordered to okay machines that "display near-misses in 7s a third of the time just above the payout line." Ross said Hickman thought the machines were "deceptive" but he was ordered to approve them anyway. The machines in question were manufactured by International Game Technology (IGT), the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic gaming machines and a company which controls about 75% of the market.

Next was an interview with Tom Baker, president of IGT, in which he’s shown a copy of the Harris video. Baker denied that his company’s machines were "deceptive" in the way Harris described them on the tape. Ross challenged Baker by asking if his machines were "deceptive" and again questioned whether or not IGT was teasing customers into thinking they were close to winning when they played those machines. Baker replied that Harris said a lot of things, however, Harris was a convicted felon but Baker and his company were not. Ross responded by showing Baker a copy of Gordon Hickman’s confidential memo to the attorney general’s office about the same subject. Baker then denied there was any favoritism given to his company that he knew about.

At that point Ross pointedly asked if IGT programs its machines with a "near-miss" feature. Baker answered by saying his company’s machines were programmed in accordance with the law. Ross then asked if the law allowed the "near-miss" feature. Baker said he personally didn’t know, but if his company was doing it then the law allowed it.

A voice-over from Ross then commented that gambling industry critics have concerns about the regulations that are in place and the scene shifted back to gambling addiction expert Valerie Lorenz who said the casino industry makes the laws in Nevada and she questioned if any other business would be allowed to get away with deceiving the public in such a manner.

The next scene shifted back to Bill Bible with Ross questioning him as to whether or not he thought the public was treated fairly when playing gaming machines in Las Vegas. Bible replied that he had no doubt the public was indeed treated fairly.

The final scene went back to Romano who said that the machines were designed to entertain the public as well as to take their money. Ross then asked if a casino customer is better off going to the machines or to one of the table games. Romano replied that they’d be better off going home and that ended the report.

It didn’t take long for the effects of PrimeTime Live’s broadcast to be felt. The very next day U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a longtime opponent of legalized gambling, requested an immediate investigation by two federal agencies. "I have asked the FBI to investigate claims of illegality and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate illegal trade practices," Wolf said.

The segment also became a subject of discussion that same day in the Manitoba Parliament when Gary Doer, an opposition party leader, called for a government investigation into the matter because a Winnipeg casino used slot machines manufactured by IGT. "If the computer machines are programmed in the United States to have this kind of near-miss operation to entice people, particularly addicted people, to keep going, I want that stopped here in Manitoba," said Doer.

The show also sparked a call in the Nevada legislature for its own investigation, but with a slightly different twist: they wanted to know who leaked the attorney general’s confidential Ronald Harris videotapes to ABC News. "That entire piece is hinging on the unsubstantiated allegations of a convicted felon," said Nevada Assembly Minority Leader Peter Ernaut. "What is said on those tapes is secondary to how they got public."

The Nevada legislature didn’t seemed too concerned about the allegations raised in the broadcast because they believed they weren’t valid. "Our programs do not create a near-miss scenario and every symbol is randomly selected," said Brian McKay, general counsel for IGT. "We don’t make deceptive machines. We never have," he added.

Well, this certainly was an interesting can of worms that had been opened. It surely gave me some additional direction for the questions I wanted to ask but, actually, I was already familiar with the subjects raised in this report.

I knew that American Coin was the company that Frank Romano had been associated with and that it was involved in the biggest cheating scandal in Nevada gaming history. In July 1989 the Nevada Gaming Control Board seized about 1,000 of the company’s gaming machines in 93 southern Nevada locations (mostly bars and taverns) after it discovered that they contained unapproved computer chips. The company’s video poker machines had been altered to avoid giving a royal flush and their keno machines had also been programmed to avoid giving out the top jackpots.

Eventually, the company surrendered its license and paid $1 million in fines. Authorities also pursued a criminal case against the company but were later forced to drop those proceedings when their star witness Larry Volk, the American Coin programmer who said he had been ordered to program the rigged chips, was shot in the back of the head and killed outside his Las Vegas mobile home in October 1990. A suspect was later arrested and tried in the case but a jury didn’t convict him.

Romano, who was a one-third partner in the company along with his brother-in-law and father-in-law, claimed he never knew of the cheating scheme. In a later bankruptcy proceeding against his partners a federal judge agreed with Romano’s claim of innocence and ruled in his favor.

As for the "near-miss" scenario I knew that this issue had been raised before with Universal Distributing, a Japanese slot manufacturer, that had specifically developed a "near-miss" program for its slot machines. When showing a non-winning combination on their slot machines Universal’s program would put two symbols on the payline and then place the third symbol just above or below the payline to make players think they were close to winning. When the Universal machines were originally approved for use in Nevada the state’s regulators weren’t aware of the problem. In 1988, however, the Nevada Gaming Control Board discovered the "near-miss" scenario and filed a complaint against Universal. The Board then held a series of hearings to discuss the "near-miss" issue and officially ruled it illegal. This resulted in Universal having to reprogram about 15,000 of its machines throughout the state.

Well, if the "near-miss" had been ruled illegal in 1988 then why would PrimeTime Live broadcast a report that would purposely lead its viewers to believe that it was in use today? Maybe what I had heard about the illegality of the "near-miss" was wrong? I knew this was an issue that I had to bring up during my visit to the testing lab.

The five-story State of Nevada office building at 555 East Washington Avenue is about 10 blocks north of the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas’ downtown casino district. I went to the second floor to meet Greg Gale, Chief of the Audit Division for the Gaming Control Board, who brought me to meet Mark Robinson, the Lab Manager for the board’s Electronic Services division. They explained that Gale was temporarily supervising Robinson’s area because the department’s chief recently retired and that Electronic Services would be on its own again once a new chief was in place. All of my questioning was directed to Robinson, but occasionally Gale would supply an answer to help clarify an issue.

The main thing that we’re looking at though is its random generation. How does it pick the stops that it’s going to show you? Or, how does it pick the cards it’s going to show you? And we’ve developed over the years a pretty good understanding of the various ways you can generate numbers randomly using a computer.

They primarily get a platform approved, like a spinning-reel slot machine or a video poker machine. Then all of the minor variations, like changes in pay tables, or in the case of poker you go from regular poker to deuces wild, to jokers wild, to any possible combinations you can think of...

Gale: We should probably say that before you can actually submit a device to the lab for its inspection approval you need to have a license in the state of Nevada. That’s really the initial step. You have to apply to us and you have to submit to a background and financial investigation. Once you have that license in hand you can then submit your device for approval.

Robinson: Once we’ve reviewed it and we find that it meets all of the regulations and technical standards then we recommend it for field trial and the chairman administratively approves a field trial at a location that the manufacturer has selected. They go out and install one or more machines at that location and we administer a field trial where we observe the machine for problems on the floor. We also have the location tell us about any problems they may have with it.

Gale: Like pouring a soft drink down the coin acceptor to see if it will trip the coin hopper!

Just having the machine on for hours and hours and hours - you know - days continuously, sometimes generates different problems than you’ll see in a lab environment. Some of the mechanical problems will also show up a lot more in the field than they will in the lab.

Gale: Now, with Megabucks and some of the larger slot machine payoffs, many times the manufacturers will actually seal the EPROMS into the boards themselves where people can’t take them out, or they’ll put them behind a locked door where only they have the key. But, we’re talking about Megabucks which is 6,7,8 million dollars a jackpot and it’s installed at 135 casinos in the state so they’re very concerned about security over their programs. But we detect modification through the inspection process. That’s how you know something’s been tampered with: you pull it out and you read it.

Robinson: Also, the tape could be missing but the chip could be just fine. So, if you do go after a machine that had been taped and the tape was gone maybe somebody just took the chip out and put it back in again.

Then, on a case-by-case basis, depending on what we see is wrong with it...if it’s labeled with an approved label number we’ll start by comparing that chip with the approved chip and see how different it is. Is it completely different or just a couple of bytes different? Then we’ll actually go in and analyze what the effect of the difference is. We will also talk to the manufacturer and say "how did this get out without going through the approval process?" and we try to work it through there until we eventually determine what the problem is with the chip.

We had the case of American Coin back in 1989 where they were specifically putting in gaffed chips that produced no poker royal flushes. They lost their license on it as opposed to an administrative error on their part where it’s a good chip, but somehow it got through the cracks and it didn’t get submitted to the Board properly but there doesn’t seem to be any malicious capability in the chip - somebody was just sloppy with the paperwork.

Gale: After it determined that a losing combination was selected then it went out and got different symbols to display to make it look like you just barely missed a jackpot.

Robinson: More frequently than it should.

Gale: But you’re right (about it being outlawed) since regulation 14 was amended back in 1989 to prevent that type of activity.

What Gale was referring to here was the section of Nevada’s gaming laws that was completely updated in 1989 and applies to "manufacturers, distributors, gaming devices, new games and associated equipment."

Regulation 14.040 pertains to minimum standards for gaming devices and parts of it specifically state "All gaming devices submitted for approval: must use a random selections process to determine the game outcome of each play of a game. Each possible combination of game elements which produce winning or losing game outcomes must be available for random selection at the initiation of each play. The selection process must not produce detectable patterns of game elements. After selection of the game outcome, the gaming device must not make a variable secondary decision which affects the result shown to the player." The wording in those regulations seemed to adequately sum up the state’s position on the "near-miss" scenario: it’s illegal.

After the interview we took a brief tour of the lab. I guess I had visions of a sprawling lab with technicians in white coats scurrying about in a high-tech environment. Instead, it was just a rather small room - about the size of your average McDonald’s dining area - with nobody there and work benches strewn with electronic equipment plus a few slot machines. The highlight was seeing the area where the approved chips were kept. It consisted of a series of storage cabinets that were covered with a heavy-gauge metal screen and padlocks.

My visit left me with the impression that these guys were obviously very good at what they did and there seemed to be a lot of safeguards in place to prevent cheating on a machine. It just seemed that the department was kind of small for the massive amount of work it needed to do.

A check of Nevada’s gaming records for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1996 showed there were 185,610 slot machines throughout the state. Hmm, let’s see, if there are six people that go out and check on the machines and they can do a maximum of 100 machines a day - it would take them 1,856 days, or five years, of working seven days a week, to inspect every single machine!

Of course, Nevada’s gaming industry really hasn’t had much in the way of scandals so maybe their system works just fine. But what about the other states? Do they do it differently?

On May 15, 1997 I went to 1601 Atlantic Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey to meet with Richard Williamson, Supervisor of the Technical Services Bureau at the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement. We were joined by Keith Furlong, Public Information Officer for the Division and we spoke in Williamson’s office located in a state building just a few blocks west of the boardwalk’s casinos.

All of the other times we go and do inspections is when the casino is calling us to change the payoff percentage, do denomination changes, put bill acceptors on, or do some kind of a modification to the game. We go in and the casino creates the on-site inspection paperwork which spells out what’s happening. Then we go in, we inspect the games and sign off on the paperwork. We give a copy to the principal that’s on-site for the Casino Control Commission so they have our signature that the games are working as approved. The games goes up and we come back and document it in our database.

A lot of times the tendency by a manufacturer is to make these machines real user friendly and sometimes they can go to excess and give them (the casino) the ability to change payout percentages without any notification to management or the regulators. So we would have them remove anything that could compromise the integrity of the game.

The next thing we’ll do is a mathematical review of the particular program that operates the pays and plays of the game. When we do that review we’re doing it to make sure that it’s in gambling compliance with the minimum payout percentages mandated in this jurisdiction.

The final step is to do an emulation of the game. We take it into the lab and then with our electronic equipment, rather than just playing the game, we force pays and we force losers.

For instance, we require that all machines lock up on the top award. So, if you receive the top award, say a royal flush, then you should not be able to throw those cards away. Then we check that the meters are working properly; that the pays occur and record properly; and that the machines will lock up on single awards over $1,200 because that’s an I.R.S. rule.

It won’t say that in the law. It was a policy adopted by the Commission about the time that video pokers were approved because of a field test. They went out and they watched people play and it was determined that someone who was very unskilled at playing poker could lower the payout percentage of the game below the minimum standard just by continually making poor selections. So they thought they should raise it 2% so that even a poor player would have a better chance with the added 2% payout.

Generally, most of these things can be worked out by going to the individual. If that doesn’t work you go to their boss. If that doesn’t work you go to corporate counsel. If that doesn’t work then you resort to legal measures, but it’s really all one-on-one. It’s not that big of an industry here, we’ve just got 12 entities and we know all of them. So, if you’ve got a problem you just walk in, or make an appointment, and sit in their office or have them come over and talk it out.

My point is that when a game hits that floor it should be in a working condition so that the patron understands how the game works because there’s no place else they can go for the rules other than what’s right in front of them. And, if they do have a question, someone within the casino, be it a slot attendant or whoever, should be able to come over and explain it to the patron so that there’s no complaint that goes beyond that game.

After our interview I took a tour of the testing facilities and I noticed it contained many of the same electronic testing machines that I had seen in the Nevada lab. The only difference here was that the facilities were spread out in three smaller rooms as opposed to being in one room. Also, I guess my timing was better here because I did see a few people working on some projects.

My impression, once again, was that many safeguards were in place for the player. Actually, there seemed to be more safeguards in New Jersey because of their restrictions on the ability of the casinos to go in and make changes to the machines on their own.

Also, it was interesting to discover that although Nevada has almost six times as many machines as New Jersey, they only have about half as many inspectors: just six compared to New Jersey’s 11.

Even with their more aggressive rules, however, New Jersey officials still don’t test every machine on a continuing basis and, just like in Nevada, a random testing program is used. Williamson noted that "it’s not cost-effective" to test every machine and I guess I could see his point. Also, when questioned on the "near-miss" slot machines, Williamson said they were not allowed in New Jersey which is the same situation as in Nevada.

After leaving the state facility my next stop was at Gaming Labs International in Toms River, about 75 miles north of Atlantic City. GLI is a private testing facility that is contracted by gaming regulatory agencies throughout the world to do testing of gaming machines as well as lottery and keno systems.

The company’s president, James Maida, previously worked as a testing engineer at New Jersey’s Gaming Enforcement Division in the mid 1980s. In 1989 GLI was the first independent testing lab to open in the U.S. and it has been responsible for servicing more than 160 gaming jurisdictions throughout the world. The company is hired by regulatory agencies for consulting on gaming issues as well as for auditing programs but its primary function is the testing and monitoring of electronic gaming equipment. GLI is the largest company of its kind in the world and in 1996 Maida was named one of the top 25 most influential people in gaming by International Gaming and Wagering Business Magazine. Besides its Toms River headquarters GLI also has offices in Colorado, Africa and Australia.

I wrote a few months ahead to ask about visiting the lab and made arrangements with Todd Elsasser, Director of Operations, to meet for an interview and a tour of the facility.

Downtown Toms River looks like a typical "quaint" mid-American small town and GLI’s offices were located in a rather large single-story storefront office at 26 Main Street. Elsasser and I spoke in his office for about 45 minutes and then went on a tour of the facility which had a much larger area devoted to testing than either of the state facilities. There also seemed to be about a dozen or so people directly working in those areas, but still - no white lab coats!

Elsasser and I covered a lot of subjects and when I sat down to write this story I called him back to ask him a few more questions. Unfortunately, he never returned my calls and then, after sending him an e-mail to inquire about us getting together, I received a message on my answering machine from James Maida saying "regretfully, we cannot give interviews... we’re a regulatory agency and not allowed to give interviews to the general press. We would not be able to make any statements, nor should we be quoted in your publication." He also suggested that for information on the "near-miss" controversy I should consult the article he wrote for the summer 1997 issue of Slot Manager" magazine.

I’m not sure what happened to make the folks at GLI change their mind but, due to Maida’s request, I can’t go into the exact details of what was said at Elsasser’s office. The truth is, however, that it was pretty similar to what was said in both Nevada and at the state facility in New Jersey: there are safeguards in place to regulate gaming machines in all of the states with legalized casino gambling. The regulations may differ slightly from state-to-state, but there are programs in place to protect the public when playing in a regulated jurisdiction.

Now, what about that "near-miss"? Well, in his article Maida wrote that after the PrimeTime Live story was broadcast he received lots of calls from his clients concerning the "near-miss" feature and he assured them that those kind of games do not exist in North America.

I guess that pretty much summed up the situation: two state regulatory agencies said that "near-miss" machines were illegal and then the president of the world’s largest independent testing laboratory also said those kind of machines were illegal and just didn’t exist. So that’s the end of that controversy, isn’t it? Well, not exactly.

In the August 1997 issue of Casino Journal, a respected trade publication that follows the casino industry, writer Jeff Burbank reported that while a "near-miss" on the payline is outlawed in Nevada, a "near-miss" above or below the payline is perfectly legal in that state.

Burbank interviewed Ellen Whittemore, the former deputy attorney general for gaming in 1988 and 1989 who was responsible for writing Nevada’s Regulation 14 which pertains to the "near-miss" situation. She said that a "near-miss" above or below the payline was legal and that actually it was better for the players because it meant that players could more easily win jackpots.

What Whittemore was referring to here was the "virtual reel" technology used in today’s slot machines. At one time slot machine jackpots were limited by the number of stops on each reel but that isn't the case anymore.

Previously, if a machine had three reels and each reel had 22 stops, then the maximum number of combinations that particular machine could show was 10,648 (22 x 22 x 22). Therefore, a $1 machine couldn’t offer a jackpot of more than $10,648 or it would lose money. Someone then came up with the idea of a "virtual reel" that could offer many more combinations by using a computer chip to create a make believe reel with as many stops as were needed. This way a $1 machine with, for instance, three 50-stop virtual reels, would have a maximum number of 125,000 (50 x 50 x 50) combinations. The only problem is that the actual reels in the machines still only have 22 physical stops, so the computer must tell the reels where they should stop. This is known as "mapping" and since there are more "computer" stops than "physical" stops it necessitated that many of the winning symbols appear more than once. Whittemore said that because of the virtual reel technology and the random number selection process it is just natural that "near-miss" combinations would appear more frequently above or below the payline. The Nevada Gaming Commission held extensive hearings on this subject and on September 22, 1988 it filed a stipulation declaring it legal.

Pretty confusing, isn’t it? Well, the important thing to remember here is that although a "near-miss" is acceptable above or below the payline, it can’t be programmed into the machine. It is only allowed when it’s the result of a random number generation process that just happens to put those particular results on the reel. If a "near-miss" is purposely programmed to appear either above, below, or directly on the payline, then that would be illegal in any regulated gaming jurisdiction.

One of the major problems when discussing the "near-miss" issue is that different people may have different interpretations of what it means. In this instance Whittemore used it to refer to combinations appearing above and below the payline. Traditionally, however, the "near-miss" got its name from the Universal Distributing incident and only applied to a "near-miss" directly on the payline which was purposely programmed into the machine. Which brings us back to the PrimeTime Live report.

Did PrimeTime Live mislead its viewers to think that any kind of "near-miss" was legal on Nevada’s slot machines? I believe they did. At no point in the show did they ever actually define what a "near-miss" was and they also implied at the beginning of the program that the "near-misses" were occurring directly on the payline. Additionally, they never mentioned the fact that a "near-miss" on the payline is illegal in Nevada. This was a simple fact they could have easily looked up in the state’s gaming regulations and it’s hard to believe that they didn’t know about it.

It seemed that the ABC news show had its mind made up going into the story and set out to find any source of information that could help lead to their preconceived conclusions. After all, their two prime sources were a convicted slot cheat and a former gaming industry official with a bias against Nevada gaming regulators. Although the news show portrayed Romano as one of a select few willing to talk about the gambling industry’s "secrets," the fact is he wasn’t exactly pleased with the state’s regulators. This became much more apparent on April 16, 1997, just five weeks after the show aired, when Romano filed a $6 million lawsuit against the state Gaming Control Board, the state Gaming Commission and state Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa for violating his civil rights in the handling of his American Coin case.

I realize that television is a competitive business that often relies on sensationalism to sell itself, but I’m sure we would all like to think that a major news organization would try to present a balanced presentation of a situation and let the viewers decide for themselves who’s right and who’s wrong. That just didn’t seem to be the case here. If they wanted to be fair they should have at least hired an independent lab to check the claims of their sources and report those results in their broadcast.

Eventually, the initial controversy over the "near-miss" issue died out and no hearings of any kind were ever held. Chances are pretty good, however, that this issue will continue to linger and the industry will one day have to come up with a way to permanently resolve it.

And how does this story affect you? Well, at least when you walk into a casino and play a slot machine in a regulated jurisdiction you can be assured that measures have been taken to assure you of a fair game. You can also be assured that a "near-miss" won’t be programmed to appear on the payline, but I suggest that you don’t look above or below that payline to see what else is showing!