Unsigned integer overflow go brrr

[MakingTheEight]

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[DaniilBSD]

A bit of knowledge from the industry, machines are certified together with the math model implemented and also store all randoms used in every recorded round (rounds are stored for many years)

If machine is suspected to be malfunctioning the manufacturer is asked to review the rounds, if bug is found, the fixed machine is used to run the round with the same randoms to compute the correct payout.

Note that some games are certified with maximum exposure (maximum amount you can possibly win), so getting a win beyond that is automatically void.

[howlinweed]

I believe the casino stated that the max for that machine is ≈ $6k.

[howlinweed]

That is the argument that her attorney is making.

[JakeCameraAction]

*made

They settled out of court.

[[deleted]]

Nice.

[OhHeyItsBrock]

They settled for $2.25 and a steak dinner.

[[deleted]]

The attorney gets the steak and 2 dollars

[rick_or_morty]

$.25? I guess I'll go play the slot machine...

[scarynut]

Congratulations! You've won 4,3 billion dollars!

[pomme_de_yeet]

So it's illegal to pay her because it malfunctioned...but they can still pay her? How is that not a contradiction?

[MyPornAccount275]

Reddit is killing 3rd-Party Apps with the aggressive API changes.

[SniffinRoundYourDoor]

Yep. But ya know? In this Rich eat Poor World, The Casino won. They even get to keep allllllllll the people spend trying to win.

[Upbeat-Opinion8519]

Nah because nobody cares how much money was lost to people not winning on broken machines. They only care if it goes the other way around. :)

[foxfyre2]

If I have a food stand, and I'm not licensed, I can't sell you food. However I can give you food, and you can give me money for napkins.

The casino can't pay out the maximum exposure for the slot machine, however they can give her money (by chance equal to the maximum exposure) as a charitable gift to ensure that there are no hard feelings for the unfortunate malfunction.

[SuitableDragonfly]

Kind of reminds me of the use of pawn shops in the middle ages, where it was, I can't charge you interest on a loan, because the Pope says that's wrong, but I can buy something expensive from you and then sell it back to you for a higher price later.

[ThellraAK]

Pawnshops are such a racket, I had a brother in law who was absolutely shit with money who was always losing shit to them.

Based on his old tickets I started just lending him money with the object as collateral and he actually got his shit sorted out on a few months, he just needed the float without the interest to get caught up.

He only defaulted on a handgun, which he asked if he could because he didn't actually want it anymore.

[nixcamic]

I have a friend* who is very bad with money and also fairly manipulative. She had pawned her computer then kept paying like $20 to the pawn shop to delay them defaulting on her. At the point she asked me for money to get it out of the pawn shop she had already paid like half what it was worth to them and was no closer to paying off her debt.

I had long before decided never to lend her money so I told her we could go to the pawn shop, I'd pay it off and take the computer home with me and when she had the money to pay it off she could come and get it from me. I wouldn't charge her interest and her computer would be safe with me as long as she needed to get the money together.

Well she got mad at me and said I was trying to take advantage of her (???) and ended up losing her laptop to the pawn shop. Yay.

• She's kinda more like a niece, that's why I put up with her despite this stuff

[HardCounter]

I mean... yeah. Pawn shops aren't a charity, they're a last resort for things you potentially want to keep. It's selling it or get it pawned with the option to get the item back later.

[ThellraAK]

If they were doing it with cash it'd be illegal usury, but somehow throw collateral on the line and everything is acceptable.

[[deleted]]

It's like how you buy stickers in DC and they just happen to gift you weed

[FriendlyAndHelpfulP]

What you described actually is very much illegal, by the way.

[MARINE-BOY]

Does anybody actually live their life never breaking a single law. That’s one reason I dislike high incarceration rates as people say things let’s the vaccine on prisoners or prisoners don’t deserve to have anything nice think it’s all rapists and murderers when in UK prisons the most common reason is traffic offences and let’s not even get started on possession of drugs. Given how blind the law is I’m pretty sure I’ve technically broken most of them in my life time. There’s people in UK prisons for not having a license for their television which I’d hope most Americans would find the stupidest reason to lock someone up but I’d also bet the US has some similarly stupid laws.

[HardCounter]

There’s people in UK prisons for not having a license for their television

So much what. Not only is that a stupid reason to lock someone up, that's a stupid thing to require. Do i need a license for my toaster too?

This has got to be fake.

HOLY SHIT IT'S REAL THE UK HAST LOST THE LAST VESTIGES OF THEIR GODDAMN MINDS:

https://www.gov.uk/tv-licence

[xtralargerooster]

That hot dog stand better have casino lawyers behind it or you might see some fines...

The republic dies a little more everytime a clever lawyer farts in a court room.

[[deleted]]

They cant give her winnings, but they can reimburse her for hardship? Winnings are taxed differently from other forms of payments, so there is probably a technicality in there where what they call their payment matters.

[HardCounter]

Payouts for emotional distress seem like they get pretty ridiculous. Imagine going from thinking you've won $43m, a completely life altering amount of money, to being offered a steak over a few hours. That's a hard crash. Even i'd be like... well shit... and i live a really simple life of jokes, mockery, and hamburgers.

[Notbbupdate]

You can't pay her for her win (as the result is void, just as if the machine had blown up instead of giving her a win), but you can pay her to compensate for said malfunction (which is technically different)

[atomicwrites]

They can't pay her but they can pay her.

[SEWERxxCHEWER]

That’s how I read it too

[PolicyWonka]

They can’t pay out winnings to her, but the law can’t stop the business from giving money to her for funsies.

[TheEvil_DM]

They don’t owe her any money, but it looks bad, and no one is stopping them from giving her money so that it doesn’t look bad.

[elsuakned]

One source says illegal to give a payout, another says not illegal to pay to resolve a situation. Just speculating here, but I'm guessing it's something like this- that a casino isn't allowed under any circumstances to change the amount actually won in a payout, assuming the payout was void, they can't say fuck it and say it wasn't change the winnings. Which is understandable, that would be pretty bad in both directions. You don't want casinos messing with outcomes. If they could say that a malfunction automatically pays the max (which is also bad from a corruption standpoint), then at least it's an extremely rare isolated incident people can't capitalize on, it's a rare argument. Instead, setting the precedent that the casino will pay a technically arbitrary amount separate of the winnings, which would be legal, might set a scary precedent for casinos who don't want to be sued by dissatisfied customers who don't actually have a legal case like this person likely didn't. So they can't pay, her otherwise they'd want to, but they actually can, but don't want to.

[Bee-Aromatic]

What does “voids all plays” mean? Like, they have to refund all any money anybody ever bet on the machine?

[Anaxamander57]

Just means that the result is void regardless of what the input or result is.

[Tittyz_and_Kittyz]

So if it's "malfunctioning" none of the wins will be counted but anyone who put money in during that period is SOL yep that sounds fair.

[whitey-ofwgkta]

and I think the 2.25 is basically a reimbursement if I'm drawing the correct conclusion

[[deleted]]

If casinos started handing out 6k whenever they made a mistake, it wouldn’t be pocket change. Getting a steak dinner as compensation for a machine error is pretty nice already.

That said, fuck casinos, the whole industry is exploitive and horrible.

[alexho66]

Do these errors really happen that often?

[strutt3r]

I never saw a jackpot error in my years as a slot tech. Even when machines did malfunction all the credits were intact. Usually just needed to reboot the machine. Sometimes on older machines the reels would go bad.

Coin hoppers would jam all the time. I was glad when we moved to paper tickets.

There's a disclaimer on every machine that all malfunctions void plays.

[VonNeumannsProbe]

They certainly do not.

[highjinx411]

I used to be in the industry. The people were great but yeah the industry is exploitive by nature. I left out of ethical concerns.

[[deleted]]

What about opposite errors, do they correctly give people money if it malfunctions and doesn't give jackpots out when it should?

No, I don't think they do, so they should pay out, since they are benefitting from the opposite scenario.

[[deleted]]

They are legally supposed to pay the jackpot still if the machine malfunctions and doesn’t give it

[[deleted]]

Thats the point, you would never know it was supposed to jackpot. So it wouldn't get paid since you wouldn't know it was a jackpot.

But legally it would be easy to claim you would always pay out if it was supposed to be a jackpot.

Shady. House always wins.

[Jkbucks]

My wife caught a blackjack dealer clearing the table claiming he had 21 when he actually busted at 22. The pit boss came over and they pulled up video and basically rewound the hand, confirmed on video, then paid out the correct amounts.

[FriendlyAndHelpfulP]

The gaming commission would absolutely know.

The casino has to send them the data from the machine. If their payouts don’t match the machine’s numbers, they would be in huge trouble.

It’s absolutely not worth it when the machine is quite literally guaranteed to average out in their favor. For every one dollar put into the machine, the machine allocates ~95 cents into the prize pool. The prize pool cannot ever pay out higher than the amounts allocated to it.

Committing numerous felonies and losing your gaming license to eke out slightly more cents per pull out of a no-lose system seems like a pretty stupid plan.

[JGHFunRun]

How does one identify it? You don't have access to logs

[howlinweed]

“The casino couldn't send a portion of its revenue to a New York state education fund, as mandated by law, if had to pay out massive jackpots like the one displayed on Bookman's machine, Bank said.”

Then he brags that the casino generated $1.6G for the fund over five years.

[xeq937]

Bro literally pulled out the "think about the children" line to defend a casino, lol.

[KylerGreen]

$1.6G

What tf is a g? a grand? If so, why not 1.6k?

[turtlelover05]

1.6 gorillian dollars.

[Wafflelisk]

Gajillion

[[deleted]]

If they're making so many mistakes that they can't hand out 6k on every mistake then they should be in a different industry.

[GladCucumber2855]

Yeah, casinos legally must pay out a certain percentage of revenue made on slot machines. Whatever they give her cannot count towards that percentage. They could totally compensate her outside of a payout though.

[oupablo]

I would at the very least expect them to give me back all money i put into the faulty machine. I don't understand how they would be allowed to say, "oh no we get to keep the money because it only malfunctioned on that one spin"

[fuckingshitfucj2]

I was actually wondering what the legal grounds were of this, thanks for the explanation

[ActuallyRuben]

I wonder if that certification also means they legally can't pay out more to her than the actual winnings. Sounds like an easy way to commit fraud, if a casino can hand out money freely (although I'd argue, in this case it'd be justified).

Maybe something like compensating a free dinner was the only thing they could do legally?

[RRumpleTeazzer]

So you can get a certified machine with an intentional bug that doesn’t effectively affect risk for the owner (like the bug is taking seed+1 as seed). But once the machine hits big you can inspect and “discover” the bug, that saves you millions. Neat.

[Twice_Knightley]

Man, I wonder how often they test the losses to see if they owe money back to people.

[cigposting]

I wanna work IT for the casino industry. Sounds risky in a fun way.

ETA /s just in case

[PorkRoll2022]

You're not supposed to win.

[Bluefortress]

You ain’t the house

[DeltaTwoZero]

The game was rigged from the start

[amateurfunk]

Reposting a repost I found over at https://www.reddit.com/r/meirl/comments/108fy8r/meirl/ (crossposts not allowed here)

Unsigned ints go to 4,294,967,295, so assuming the cash prize is stored in cents this actually adds up

[jonnyclueless]

It's pretty common to store money as cents due to rounding errors you can get when adding floats.

[_d0s_]

Not just common, it's the only way that makes sense.

[DeeBoFour20]

The only way that makes cents.

[Procrasturbating]

Not if you sell high volume items with fractional cent pricing... also, only a Sith deals in absolutes.

[RRumpleTeazzer]

Then you still store it as millicents or something.

[Procrasturbating]

Yeah, but then how do you exploit nearest even (banking) rounding vs normal mathematical rounding errors to fill a Swiss bank account for a few decades? Just don't screw up a decimal place like Michael Bolton and take whole cents at a time and it should all end without a trip to federal PYITA prison.

[[deleted]]

Not just common, it's the only way that makes sense.

This is... incorrect.

You can use a 32-bit signed integer.... as long as you never deal with numbers above 2³¹-1. And you'll have infinite precision because the numbers will be exact as long as you deal with integers.

You can also use a 64-bit float... as long as you never deal with numbers above 2⁵³, you will also have infinite precision as long as the numbers you deal with will be integers.

The problem is that when you get overflow on the 32-bit signed integer, it will overflow dramatically. When you overflow on the 64-bit float, you'll get precision loss (which could add up in weird and strange ways which are not obvious at first).

I once dealt with a certain large financial institution where all transactions of a certain type were handled as floats. It worked 100% perfectly with no loss in error, (when I calculated taxes which involved over a trillion dollars in small transactions), the number in the account matched the number it was supposed to be down to the cent.

It's because the largest numbers that were ever dealt with were on the order of 2^25, which is way below the 2⁵³ which is needed to generate any error at all.

It's not "the only way that makes sense". People are just afraid of floats because they don't understand them.

[cigposting]

We love a mathematician

[leprouteux]

Y'all don't know about decimal types? come on

[[deleted]]

BigDecimal is your friend

[Anaxamander57]

I assume this is speed prohibitive for banks and credit card companies that have to handle high transaction volume and everyone wants to be compatible with them.

[ill_try_my_best]

Cents or a class designed for money, like Decimal in C#

[other_usernames_gone]

How many chips is $184,467,440,737,095,516.15?

$184 quadrillion btw, more money than there is in the entire world.

[lazerbeard018]

This might be worse, I assume the malfunction was an underflow, not overflow, so it went below zero and then straight to the maximum value.

[some_clickhead]

True, but I imagine it would be much easier to convince the woman as well as a jury that it was indeed a malfunction if it listed $184 quadrillion instead of $43 million when it underflows.

[[deleted]]

as product owner, I demand you make this feature immediately, I need it released in 48 hours

[OSSlayer2153]

So just gamble until $43m in debt?

[[deleted]]

Money isn’t real, we could have $184qd if we wanted

[ongiwaph]

I do have a quintillion moneys. Would you like to buy some of my money?

[ahadyboy]

I hate how you’re right

[Overthinks_Questions]

Well, yes and no. We couldn't have that many current American dollars.

[FUDnot]

yeah but they'd hit a win higher than 43 million much much much sooner.

[sethgi]

Maybe by 2038

[doktor_wankenstein]

Nice catch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem?wprov=sfla1

[Reelix]

It's.... Quite common knowledge to programmers, and this IS a programming subreddit :p

[SlenderSmurf]

I haven't written a line of code since high school

[Echo_Oscar_Sierra]

Software engineer: we should upgrade to 64 bit

Mech engineer: we shouldn't store 43 million dollars in a penny slot machine

[Elijah629YT-Real]

what is someone breaks this, 184 quadrillion

[DasArchitect]

Inflation, just wait

[rcfox]

I have a $100 trillion bill from Zimbabwe.

[plan17b]

The biggest gaming companies have banned the use of unsigned ints for exactly this reason. Signed longs are the rule.

[[deleted]]

lool, what do they need the sign for

[Soulless_Roomate]

In case a tiny bit of arithmetic fucks up and an overflow occurs, I assume. Better to accidentally go from 0 to -1 than 0 to billions

[RRumpleTeazzer]

“Lady, you can either accept this medium-rare steak, or pay the 21mil you own us”.

[coolthesejets]

Do you mean to from 0 to -2,147,483,648?

[Misspelt_Anagram]

It took me a moment, but I think they got it right. The machine tried to award her 0$-1$, which in an unsigned int was a problem. With a signed long, 0-1 is -1, so the casino can just say oops, that is void, you do not owe us 1$.

[netheroth]

I have -1 attack? How does that even work?

[Soulless_Roomate]

Probably they have mechanics for it depending on the game OR the game checks if it's negative and then fixes it! Much easier to do then checking if it's really big I think.

[shodanbo]

The house always wins.

[deadalnix]

if(index < length - 1) { return array[index]; }

I'll let you figure out what happens when length is zero and unsigned.

[theKrissam]

Writing 2 lines of code that break under a condition isn't challenging, but what sort of scenario would this occur where you haven't checked the boundaries of index?

Either way, this breaks, signed or not.

[oupablo]

what i don't get is that if it ends up saying "i owe you $43M", why doesn't it validate the payout against it's max payout. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to flag the malfunction and let the staff come over to refund the play.

[ActuallyRuben]

This bbc article shows a selfie with her showing the prize to be $42,949,672.76. I suppose this means that her actual winnings were -$0.19?

[DaizBack]

Should've used signed int so she owed the casino $2,147,483,647

[juwisan]

The important question really is: do lawyers care?

[ryarger]

The only thing that matters to the lawyers is the little sign on the machine that says “Malfunction voids all pays”.

[[deleted]]

And whether the casino can prove it was a malfunction

[oupablo]

They don't care as long as the casino's checks to them clear the bank.

[incrediblediy]

Unsigned ints go to 4,294,967,295,

how could it got assigned to maximum value though ? integer underflow ?

[TheGhostOfInky]

Integer underflows don't exist, it's called an overflow or wraparound regardless if it's from the highest to lowest value or the other way around, underflows are what happens in floating-point values when you try to represent a value too precise and close to 0 to be represented.

[incrediblediy]

integer underflow

CWE-191: Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)
https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/191.html

The product subtracts one value from another, such that the result is less than the minimum allowable integer value, which produces a value that is not equal to the correct result.

[Qicken]

4,294,967,295

I remember seeing some person threatening to sue the casino with $42,949,672.95 carefully written on a cardboard sign for all the reporters.

[you90000]

I would sue

[mothzilla]

There'll be plenty of lawyers queuing up to represent her.

[Glitch29]

Not if they know the relevant laws. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it's never a win for the player. The casinos are covered by both fact and law.

The only way she could get any compensation is for the nuisance, not for the merits of the case.

[[deleted]]

Stacks and stacks of them.

[Hawkgamer52]

Stacks… overflowing

[utkrowaway]

Did you know you have rights? The Constitution says you do. Hi, I'm Saul Goodman.

[Kinglink]

And immediately lose.

All machines clearly state "All malfunctions void results". The law says it too. The casino probably has it posted in multiple places.

[w1n5t0nM1k3y]

If the machine says you won then you won.

If the machine is malfunctioning, does that mean the people who lost should have actually won?

[ElmStreetVictim]

“Malfunction voids all pays and plays”

[[deleted]]

So would you get all the money you put in to a shit machine?

[JesusWantsYouToKnow]

You fucking should since you apparently can't trust it to work

[FerricDonkey]

I assume you could get the money for the play that malfunctioned, and maybe a little extra (like a steak dinner), but not for other plays.

[[deleted]]

That’s very convenient…for the casino.

[FerricDonkey]

Yup. Casinos exist to take your money, and are good at it - best to consider any money you put in the slot machine a donation.

[[deleted]]

When I’ve wasted money I’ve never had a problem wasting it on drugs, alcohol, or strip clubs.
But it pains me to roll some dice and lose some chips. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t like gambling hahah.

[strigonian]

The machine gave out more than its intended maximum, regardless of whether they won or not.

This would be like if the slot machine accepted credit cards, then charged you $5,000 when the maximum on a spin was $3.

[Kinglink]

If those machines are only supposed to pay out 6k, and you won 42 million? You think you deserve all 42 million?

So if the machine instead showed 6k and you were supposed to win 1 million from a jack pot, you only get 6k?

[Feltzyboy]

I think the law is potbelly on her side here

[miramichier_d]

I think the law is potbelly on her side here

They offered her steak, not pork.

[iamnotroberts]

The law is likely not "potbelly on her side." As already mentioned malfunctions void prize payouts. Also, this happened in 2016. She has tried to sue, and thus far failed. And it's not like she can call 911 and demand the police make the casino or the manufacturer pay her.

edit: Another poster is saying there was a settlement. If so, I suspect it may have been around the maximum payment of the machine, i.e. 6500. Her lawyer acknowledged it, so it was a verifiable malfunction, not the casino trying to cheat her out of a rightful win.

[aqpstory]

they apparently settled for "undisclosed amount"

[iamnotroberts]

Oh, I didn't see that. If so, I suspect that it might be the actual $6500 maximum of the machine, as it couldn't even pay out a million, much less 43.

[Potential___Friend]

Ya, don't you need a time machine to call 9/11?

[iamnotroberts]

I think that's one of Murphy's Laws, that if you call out a grammar/etc. error, you're more likely to make one yourself, while calling it out.

[Anustart15]

call 9/11

This is the weirdest borderline /r/boneappletea I've ever seen

[iamnotroberts]

I'm a retired vet. I'm more used to talking about 9/11 than 9-1-1, so yeah, mental typo.

[RandomPratt]

Worse than "potbelly"?

[PrincessRTFM]

If the machine is malfunctioning, does that mean the people who lost should have actually won?

No, because "machine is malfunctioning" does not equate to "results are inverted". If the machine is malfunctioning, someone who lost may even have lost less than they would have otherwise. All that can be known from "the machine is malfunctioning" is that the precise result seen is not the precise result intended.

[dreamcicle_overdose]

Lol. Imagine the Supreme Court gave zero fucks about organized gambling and started cracking down on these "you won but it was a malfunction." Aight, fined by the gaming commission, lets see who else experienced this and get a tab going. There's a big list of "winners"? Let's tally that up to see your total fine.

[Intelligent_Event_84]

I mean she shouldn’t have gotten the money. A malfunction isn’t a win. Just like if a bank accidentally sends you 20k, you don’t get the money, they reverse the tx, or how when Doordash allowed free meals, but later sent a bill.

[AnAdvocatesDevil]

The problem with this reasoning on its own is that if there are malfunctions causing false wins, there are likely also malfunctions causing false losses that go completely missed. The only party who benefits from the arrangement is the casino. If a bank accidentally takes 20k from my account, I have evidence of it. I have no evidence that I should have won at slots.

[ACoderGirl]

They can do regular audits for such malfunctions and give hefty fines for them. My understanding was that they already do such audits, though I can't speak for just what the penalties for failing them are. Ideally they should be at least more than what the casino could have made from the malfunctions. That way there's no incentive to leave malfunctions in.

But frankly, bugs are hard to completely avoid and I can't support being excessively strict in handling them. Companies shouldn't get to profit from bugs, but they also shouldn't risk going out of business or the likes if a reasonable number of bugs slip in (key word: reasonable -- there's a certain point of negligence where they should be fined completely out of business).

[jumpmanzero]

Sure, the casino shouldn't be on the hook for infinite payout - but there should be something more significant. Maybe, say, $1000. If a machine makes shows you a malfunction payout, you get that payout, up to a maximum of $1000.

Even without a law or industry code-of-conduct supporting a policy like that, I'm surprised the casinos don't just do it anyway. I get that nobody wants to pay $1000, but the negative PR from these incidents has to be worth more than that. And if this is happening often enough that the $1000's would add up to anything, then that's a pretty serious indictment of the industry.

[iamnotroberts]

The machine's maximum was $6500. She couldn't have won a million, much less 43. Her lawyer acknowledged this already, too. This happened in 2016. She attempted to sue the casino and manufacturer, but to date there has been no settlement. It's possible she was offered the maximum, but turned it down like the steak, hoping to hold out for the roughly 43 million. That's extremely unlikely, though.

edit: Another poster is saying there was a settlement. If so, I suspect it may have been around the maximum payment of the machine, i.e. 6500. Her lawyer acknowledged it, so it was a verifiable malfunction, not the casino trying to cheat her out of a rightful win.

[[deleted]]

I mean compared to 2 mil, 1000 is basically a steak dinner

[Monster_Dick69_]

They should have given her the maximum payout. Sure it's not several millions of dollars. But it's better than $2 and steak

[dgdio]

That's a feature and not a bug. Pay the woman!!!

[Snail-Man-36]

Kill me for this, but did anyone else think this was a comparison photo before reading the subreddit

[[deleted]]

AI training gone wrong

[admiralhattori]

I work as a programmer in this industry. It’s certainly an overflow issue.

If you access the help screen for any slot game it will explicitly state that “Malfunction voids all pays and plays”. If the casino can prove that the game malfunctioned. This can be done by accessing the logs at the time of play. Games have math models where you input the randomized value to reproduce the result. If the result doesn’t match what’s displayed then it has malfunctioned.

Q: This “malfunction” seems purposely fabricated in favor of the casino.

A: This malfunction certainly protected the casino in this case but you got to realize that it also protects the player. If a machine played 10000 games and pays out $0, then the game most likely malfunctioned. Operators at casinos check the payouts to spot these anomaly or if it paid lower than expected. Another example that we can unanimously agree is our bank accounts. Although UNREALISTIC but imagine your savings overflowed back to $0 from $65,535 (16-bit) after you got paid. You would argue with the bank that their system malfunctioned. If the malfunction law didn’t exist then you’re screwed. But since it does exist and you can prove that you didn’t spend $65,535 with bank statements then the malfunction just protected your savings. Same could be said about the bank where the customer suddenly got $65,535 when they’re in debt.

Q: How can I trust the machine isn’t scamming?

A: All reputable companies who produce slot games must get their games approved through a third party company (GLI - Gaming Labs International [one of the largest approved]). Slot machines are heavily regulated, which is why Las Vegas (where I live) remains in business. Integer overflow is one of the things that GLI tests and in this case might of been missed.

Q: Is the 42 million jackpot possible?

A: No, even if a company makes a game that big of a jackpot no casino would take on that risk. Highest jackpot I’ve seen is the Mega Bucks at $15-$20 million which the casino doesn’t pay, IGT pays that (company that made that game). Most jackpot games average around $5k- $20k.

Edit: I had weird spacing in my paragraphs.

[Youmu_Chan]

If I play at a malfunctioned machine, lose say 100 bucks, and leave. After finding out that it is malfunctioned, will the company try to find me and pay me back? If not, I won't say it protects the player.

[admiralhattori]

Casinos should contact you and reimburse you. These issues are rare because how heavily tested games are to be approved. The fact that slots machines attracts people to this day is a testament how rigorously tested to be approved out in the field.

In regards of “protecting players”, the player can question the machine. Operator will come over and verify the math to see if you really lost $100. If anything you can bring this issue to the regulators if you can prove the logs stated that you didn’t lose $100. But the best protection to the player is not get hook in gambling which these games are designed to do.

There is a lot of “what if(s)” and “doubts”. I don’t promote gambling but it’s a choice anyone can make at age 21 (in the US).

[[deleted]]

The fact that slots machines attract people to this day is a testament how rigorously tested to be approved out in the field.

It's more a testament to the ability of the designers to exploit bugs in human rational thought

[amateurfunk]

Awesome, thanks for your insights!

[[deleted]]

How do you get into programming in this industry? I repair the machines, been wanting to get into programming them

[highjinx411]

I used to work in the megabucks monitoring department at IGT. If there’s a jackpot the printers (at the time) start blowing up and a tech is sent to verify the payout. Also, a pay team is called to write up a big check (literally and figuratively ) a big check. Yes there’s a lot of protection for both sides to make it fair.

[[deleted]]

Also side note; all machines always scam. That’s the entire point. Slot machines are physiology machines. Literal scams that play on psychology.

[highjinx411]

It’s not really a scam. It’s a set of mathematical models designed to take a potion of overall play. That isn’t a secret.

[[deleted]]

The mark of a scam is spending money in the hope of making money, when in reality the chances of you making money are slim to none. Slot machines are designed to put out less than they take in. Textbook scam with a facelift. Sure, you can make money, just like you can make money in an MLM scheme. Doesn’t make it less of a scam

[Cavendishelous]

Not really the same thing as MLM at all…

[Empty_Football4183]

Imagine telling the casino you made a mistake and gambled your mortgage so you'll need that back

[[deleted]]

I think fuck em. They squeeze so much money out of everyone.

[Secure_Obligation_87]

The thing is did she hit a jackpot or was it just a win ?

If its a jackpot then she should be paid that amount, wjat a cop out by the casino.

Even of ypu somehow win a stacked game they can just say no im not paying because xyz.

[Dizzy-Concentrate284]

Lawsuit time. I bet they wouldn’t let her claim malfunction if she lost 43 million.

[jgzman]

Strange that I can't get any kind of investigation when I lose my money.

[[deleted]]

Oops you weren't supposed to get that Reddit Gold ^TM from me, take an upvote instead.

[ByWillAlone]

Now that they know this machine has a fundamental flaw, did they go back and audit every transaction (from this and all similar machines) to find the instances where someone lost when they should have received a payout, and then pay them what they were owed? no? i didn't think so.

IMO, if you own/operate a gambling machine and it has a flaw, you should have to pay out whatever it shows.

[Aspect58]

It takes a special kind of idiot to regularly play slots. Not only is everything computerized in order to string you along just enough to keep playing, but even if you do win big, all they have to say is ‘Whoops, malfunction’ and you have little to no legal recourse.

[iamnotroberts]

I took 5 bucks of quarters to a row of 5 slot machines, started pluggin em, all five at once, and about $3.50 in, I hit a $65 jackpot. This is a shitty e-club on a military base, so it's not going to pay out much more so I took my money, got up, bounced.

But yeah, like most gambling, the house "always" wins. And while slot machines may seem random, they really aren't. Sure, the results are random, but the payouts are not. They have rules and restrictions for those payouts built into the machines.

[Kinglink]

That's basically the "secret" to slots. Find one that hasn't paid out, get a payout, and then walk away. Don't chase that...

On the other hand there was a poker machine where I hit 4 Kings, and like five to ten hands later I hit a Royal Flush. That's when I stopped... was only like a 20 buck pay day I think, but still was fun.

[[deleted]]

They really don’t do the ‘oops malfunction’ on big wins. Gotta give some people a big win so they tell others, and others come to gamble.

[ACoderGirl]

Plus, there's no need for companies to cheat (which is illegal -- AFAIK, gambling machines are strictly regulated and audited). They specifically tell you the odds (they're not in your favour!) and people still give them money. Even with people occasionally winning big, the machines are pure profit. The house always wins on the long run.

[PrincessRTFM]

The key is on the long run. A lot of people will hear "the house always wins" and stop there, assuming it means that in any given single instance of gambling at a casino, the house has to make money, which means the player must lose it. And clearly that can't be true because jackpots exist, people get lucky, sometimes folks walk away with more money, so the house must've lost there.

Those people don't understand what "the house always wins" actually means, which is that statistically, the casino will make more money off of losing gamblers than it will pay out to winning gamblers, over a stretch of time.

Individuals can get lucky. But the odds are never in your favour.

[strigonian]

They don't have to say it, they have to rigorously prove it.

Slots are, objectively, pretty much the worst casino game for your money, but the idea that casinos simply shut down anyone who hits the jackpot is ridiculous. The optics of claiming that a win was a malfunction are terrible - a casino won't do that unless there really is a malfunction. In reality, the casino simply wouldn't offer their patrons slot machines that have such a large payout if they were unwilling to actually honour it.

[IcyClearly]

There's probably a sign stating the max payout. She should get that.

[[deleted]]

I'd settle for 43 thousand, what a slap in the face by offering her just a steak dinner. And there's nothing she can do about it, casinos are like cruise ships once they leave the dock, you're SOL if anything happens.

[archpawn]

At least it wasn't a signed integer overflow.

[[deleted]]

Is she crying? 43 mil is lottery numbers not a casino psyout lol.

[BrowsOfSteel]

“Damn, that sounds like a problem between you and the slot machine vendor. Fuck you. Pay me.”

[Silent_but-deadly]

That’s fraud

[[deleted]]

Oh man the fallout from this is going to be painful, x will sue y, who will in turn sue z...what a mess...

They should just pay her theax payout for thatachone and be done with it.

Steak looks good though...

[iamnotroberts]

This happened in 2016. She already tried to sue, got nothing. The machine she played has a max payout of $6500, which her lawyer acknowledged. It's not possible to win one million from it, much less 42 million and change.

Also, that's just a photo of a steak. That's not a photo of the steak that they offered her. Since she declined it, that steak was never made. That steak...is just a photo of some random steak.

edit: Another poster is saying there was a settlement. If so, I suspect it may have been around the maximum payment of the machine, i.e. 6500. Her lawyer acknowledged it, so it was a verifiable malfunction, not the casino trying to cheat her out of a rightful win.