The Case of Ron Harris - Inside Job

This is an interesting case. A Nevada Gaming slot machine software systems auditor had been discreetly rigging some slot machines and sending them out into casinos, where his associates would collect the bounties and split the proceeds.
Simple stuff, like putting in software "trap doors" to trigger payouts and smaller jackpots via coin and key sequences ("Insert three coins; hold the Max PLAY button down while pressing the cash-out button twice; machine is now set to give a Royal four hands out..." That kind of thing). staying below the radar while carrying out this activity is a real challenge to criminals. Harris was an esteemed technician and manager with a reliable salary and respected high position with Nevada Gaming, there was no rational reason for him to turn rogue.
Ron Harris short history
LJ Review Journal
Amnerican Casino Guide
Wizard of Vegas right here thread

What stories do we know of insider cheaters who had gotten away with it or not?
How should they be handled?

Quote: Paigowdan

What stories do we know of insider cheaters who had gotten away with it or not?
How should they be handled?

Um.... If they are unknown, then they got away with it.

"Handling" is not an option.

What could possibly be done, except to try to discover this sort of thing so they are NOT unknown?

Quote: Paigowdan

What stories do we know of insider cheaters who had gotten away with it or not?
How should they be handled?

They have to be handled with care, but they need to be handled as if you pick up a double agent in the CIA. You have to remember that there is value to the information they know and you need to realize you may have to trade value to get it. Lets take Mr Harris as an example. If he got picked up all they know is that he rigged machines. They didn't (totally) know how nor what machines nor where to look nor how manhy beards he had out there. They can threaten him with prison, 20 years as roomate to "Rollo, the mad-dog rapist." But he can retort, "Fine, but I have rigged 100+ machines in Nevada. I have two dozen beards who know how to empty them. And you will take forever to find the trap door. You have to read the machine-code, line by line. You have over 1,000 machines in the MGM alone to check. Line by line. Remember, gentlemen, that you will not know what you are looking for and what you are looking for is only on 1 in 10,000 machines. Have fun looking. While you are, my boys will be cleaning them out. They don't need hand-pays. What will you do, check every last winner in every casino in the state? Oh, BTW, if you do find some you will never, ever know if you found them all. And in the event you do find them all, the flaw is still in the code! Surely some people inside prison would love to know how to do what I did! If I meet an Outfit Guy in here how long until he gets to the right people who get to any slot tech at any casino? So, do you really want to lock me up for life, or can we make a deal?"

In the 1980s this happened a lot on a small scale with kids from teen to college cracking the then-near-nonexistant security on corporate computer systems. Some just taunted the target, then got hired to fix the problem.

Quote: Paigowdan

Ron Harris short history

wow is the article at this first link badly written! What the people who are losing their jobs in journalism must go think when they see that sort of thing.

Quote: Paigowdan

there was no rational reason for him to turn rogue.

According to the television episode, something about the man who got murdered got to him. I would say the program is too sympathetic towards Harris. Also the assertion in it that Harris brilliantly developed his own program to beat AC Keno was just wrong; he had access to the algorithm used for the RNG.

This happened 16 years ago, I don't see the
relevance.

There have been many successful insider scams. The best ones are simple (Sun City, South Africa for example) but we only know about the folks who got caught. In my time in the business, it is usually simple theft by employees. It is simple to steal chips off a game and many are tempted.

Quote: scotland78

There have been many successful insider scams. The best ones are simple (Sun City, South Africa for example) but we only know about the folks who got caught. In my time in the business, it is usually simple theft by employees. It is simple to steal chips off a game and many are tempted.

Not being a programmer, it is hard for me to understand how an rng can be jacked around that simply. I don't see how pushing certain button sequences or coins could have any bearing on what the rng was doing.

In 2002, there was a software engineer at GameTech who programmed in a way that permitted him to receive more bingo cards than he paid for at LV bingo parlors. I remember reading about him getting caught one week; the next week I read about him jumping off a bridge.

When the reality of 84 months sets in, some people opt for the thrill of 84 seconds.

Happens in the drug trade often. A youthful freedom-loving outdoorsman type is lured by a DEA agent controlling an informant to make a delivery just a little bit beyond the helicopter's Point of No Return. The DEA agent gets to carve another notch in his gun handle, the informant gets some sort of "break" but a Canadian family gets to bury their son who was looking at twenty years for flying a relatively harmless recreational drug across the border.

It affects the software that processes the results of the RNG, it doesn't affect the RNG. If the computer code was written in English it would stand out as obviously a spurious subroutine but the code is in some arcane machine language and there are zillions of lines that look like reasonable sub routines.

Quote: FleaStiff

When the reality of 84 months sets in, some people opt for the thrill of 84 seconds.

Happens in the drug trade often. A youthful freedom-loving outdoorsman type is lured by a DEA agent controlling an informant to make a delivery just a little bit beyond the helicopter's Point of No Return. The DEA agent gets to carve another notch in his gun handle, the informant gets some sort of "break" but a Canadian family gets to bury their son who was looking at twenty years for flying a relatively harmless recreational drug across the border.

Sorry, gotta call B.S. on this one.

Quote: EvenBob

This happened 16 years ago, I don't see the
relevance.

No, you certainly don't.

so let's put it this way: human nature, and its strengths and foibles, are timeless.
The cat and mouse game is timeless and fascinating, from spies in the CIA to the rogues on the casino floor.
Pick a side and why...

Quote: FleaStiff

When the reality of 84 months sets in, some people opt for the thrill of 84 seconds.

This is a very good point.

For some, too many, the juice comes from not getting better at the (legit) game, but by finding a way of beating the game, taking a shot, seeing what you can get away with - especially if a wrong actions that insanely made right by simply 'getting away with it.' - that ONLY you secretly know about. Some people don't feel alive aside from the juice of risk-taking in a high-risk illegal maneuver, much in the same way some gamblers don't feel alive unlike they slide $50,000 onto RED at a roulette wheel.
There are books and documentaries about these types, from Richard Marcus on American Roulette, and "the Man with the $100,000 breasts,' etc. which really had to do with the thrill of casino cheating and prop bet managing. It's casino executives gone wild....

Quote: Paigowdan

and "the Man with the $100,000 breasts,' etc. which really had to do with the thrill of casino cheating and prop bet managing. It's casino executives gone wild....

?? Never heard f this 100,000 breasts. Richard Marcus claims to have been a vegas dealer who cheated and he now has some sort of cheating newsletter but I don't think anyone ever trusts an ex-con to ever truly stay "ex" even if just re-prints media stories about casino cheating.

Quote: FleaStiff

Happens in the drug trade often. A youthful freedom-loving outdoorsman type is lured by a DEA agent controlling an informant to make a delivery just a little bit beyond the helicopter's Point of No Return. The DEA agent gets to carve another notch in his gun handle, the informant gets some sort of "break" but a Canadian family gets to bury their son who was looking at twenty years for flying a relatively harmless recreational drug across the border.

Can call it harmless all you like, illegal is illegal. Like when you watch the dopeheads on "Locked Up Abroad" ("Banged Up Abrad" to our international readers.) They would rather do their dope than work for a living. They run out of dope and need money for more dope. So some connection tells them they will make a killing if they smuggle some dope. Common element is they never ask why if it is so easy it will pay so well?

Dopehead ends up is some crazy, amateur smuggling scam. It is so obvious they get caught right away, then spend a few months to several years in a foreign prison. Guy who led them to do it either counts it as a cost of doing business to lose a certain % of loads or/and was "in on it" with the customs agent to provide a pinch or two every now and then so the real loads get by.

It is the smuggler's blues.