Aussie gambling addict suing both Aristrocat/Melbourne Crown casino.

[ladyhawke]

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When you read the article, you will see that her case is based around the following points regarding the design of the game Dolphin Treasure, and other similarly configured games:

1: 'Firstly, what you see is not what you get when you play a poker machine. You see five reels spinning, you think that they are all the same size, but in fact the fifth reel is much larger than the first four. This dramatically decreases your chances of winning.'

2: 'Secondly, it appears that the symbols are evenly distributed on the reels as they spin. In fact, those symbols are not evenly distributed.'

Both of these points have been discussed ad-nauseam here in the CM forums, so undoubtedly we are perhaps more informed than other people, but ....is this information freely available to people who only play at bricks and mortar casinos, and have never played online in their lives?

It is easy to write her off as delusional, but is she?

 

[snotter999]

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here's the story on news.com.au

Wow. I didn't realise 10% of the worlds pokie machines are in the state of New South Wales!
No wonder the government doesn't want us playing online cos of the massive amount of tax they collect!

 

[Harry_BKK]

From what i remember from my visits to the Crown in Melbourne and other establishment in Australia, it states clearly on all machines what the chance is to hit the top pay on a slot, e.g. 1:10Mio or something like that.

Plus the machines are plastered with warnings, can't remember them all as the last visit to Melbourne was in May 2013.

However, that kind of arguing leans into the American way of litigating such cases. A company has to put warnings for everything on their products even if it's plain obvious like: "Caution! Contents Hot!" on a coffee cup. I mean any normal person knows it's hot or have you ever seen a cold coffee coming from a steaming coffee machine? Only those trying to make money will pursue such cases.

EDIT: Of course modern slots are more psychology than anything else, I said it many times. Near misses, grand fanfare for small wins etc, all is contributing to a player wanting to have more of it.

 

[slotter999]

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When you read the article, you will see that her case is based around the following points regarding the design of the game Dolphin Treasure, and other similarly configured games:

1: 'Firstly, what you see is not what you get when you play a poker machine. You see five reels spinning, you think that they are all the same size, but in fact the fifth reel is much larger than the first four. This dramatically decreases your chances of winning.'

2: 'Secondly, it appears that the symbols are evenly distributed on the reels as they spin. In fact, those symbols are not evenly distributed.'

Both of these points have been discussed ad-nauseam here in the CM forums, so undoubtedly we are perhaps more informed than other people, but ....is this information freely available to people who only play at bricks and mortar casinos, and have never played online in their lives?

It is easy to write her off as delusional, but is she?

It's stated as fact that the fifth reel is larger than the rest. I've no doubt this is true (asymmetric reels are practically a given) but I wonder how they know this for certain or is this something which is likely to have come up during 'discovery'? I'm curious because it suggests that legally it might be possible to obtain the reel bands. It might also be the case that perhaps a certified individual can say it's so and that is sufficient i.e. a testing house.

I don't know enough about the Australian legal system but my understanding is this case would have no merit in the UK as both points are currently legal.

 

[ladyhawke]

It's stated as fact that the fifth reel is larger than the rest. I've no doubt this is true (asymmetric reels are practically a given) but I wonder how they know this for certain or is this something which is likely to have come up during 'discovery'? I'm curious because it suggests that legally it might be possible to obtain the reel bands. It might also be the case that perhaps a certified individual can say it's so and that is sufficient i.e. a testing house.

I don't know enough about the Australian legal system but my understanding is this case would have no merit in the UK as both points are currently legal.

Somewhere on this forum, there is a thread - or threads - that deconstructs the reels of many popular games. I think KasinoKing and Simmo might be able to give a heads-up on this. So yes, it is possible to obtain the reel bands.

As to how they knew the 5th reel is larger, I have no idea. Perhaps they hired a specialist to do the deconstruct, otherwise would their case not be on very shaky grounds?

 

[snotter999]

Ok they just had a story about this on the CH9 News and stated that they bought a machine and dismantled and studied it and this is how they found out about the larger 5th reel.

 

[Dinahnana]

Color me cynical but I think that this lawsuit is more political than personal for the lady in question because it's backed by the main anti-gambling crusader in Aussieland. At any rate it will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Personally I think they should have banned the land based pokies there and licensed online casinos as those have much better odds. The whole gambling debate in each respective country is less about the plight of the punter and more about money and politics. But in this day and age I wouldn't expect less.

 

[slotter999]

Ok they just had a story about this on the CH9 News and stated that they bought a machine and dismantled and studied it and this is how they found out about the larger 5th reel.

Ah that would explain it. It's pretty poor on the part of the provider that their IP can be deconstructed by simply buying a machine but I'm guessing this perhaps an old slot machine? That might explain why this particular slot does not use modern techniques for preventing this type of reverse engineering.