Lawsuit assails basic modern slot machine design
Arguments began last week in Australia’s Federal Court in a lawsuit that attacks the basic design of modern slot machines.
An Australian player who claims to be a former gambling addict is suing James Packer’s Crown Resorts and slot manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure Limited, claiming the Aristocrat game Dolphin Treasure violates Australia’s consumer laws in that it is “misleading and deceptive,” and employs deception in a program designed to “feed addiction.” The plaintiff, Shonica Guy, enlisted the prominent law firm Maurice Blackburn, which is representing her pro bono.
The plaintiff claims the design of the machine is deceptive because the first four reels have 30 symbols and the last reel has 44 symbols, making it harder to win on the final reel and resulting in “near misses” that feed gambling addiction. It also cites the fact that symbols are not evenly distributed, so do not show up with the same frequency on each reel.
The lawsuit also assails the generally accepted concept of publicly reported return-to-player percentages. The plaintiff’s attorney claims that the reported theoretical RTP, or payback percentage, of 87.5 percent on Dolphin’s Treasure misleads players into thinking they will win 87.5 percent of the time.
“Australia has strong consumer protection laws,” said Tim Costello, of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, supporting the lawsuit, in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. “So putting dangerously addictive pokies on trial for misleading and deceptive conduct has given hope to everyone campaigning to wind back Australia’s tragic record of being the biggest gamblers in the world.”
The player is seeking no damages in the lawsuit, but observers say it challenges the basic design employed by all modern digital slot machines—and could result in a court order to remove machines or change the design.
The plaintiff’s complaints reveal a basic misunderstanding of that design, in that the number of symbols on each visible reel of either a mechanical or video slot machine do not actually indicate anything with respect to the odds of any particular symbol landing in a combination. The symbols are there to display the result of the slot machine’s computer, which uses a random number generator program to cycle through all possible results.
While the player may count 30 symbols on each of four reels and 44 on the fifth reel, the slot program could have hundreds of symbols, with the lower-paying ones repeated in the program. The display shows the symbols represented by the numbers corresponding to each symbol. This allows the programmer to calculate the theoretical RTP.
As for RTP, it is well-established that the number relates to all plays over the life of a machine—87.5 percent of the money wagered on a slot machine theoretically is paid out by the machine over its lifetime, while any one player’s experience can be positive or negative. The plaintiff’s claim of expecting to win on 87.5 percent of her own spins is likely to be assailed by the defendants’ attorneys as unrealistic, since no slot machine would be able to earn money for Crown or any other casino if that was the case.
Aristocrat and Crown are supported by the Gaming Technologies Association, a group representing manufacturers of slot machines, called poker machines or “pokies” in Australia. In a statement published in the Morning Herald, Ross Ferrar, chief executive of the group, defended the integrity of manufacturers’ products, “which are heavily regulated and comply with strict standards.
“These standards include requirements that gaming machines not give a player a false expectation of odds, they must accurately display the result of a game outcome and not be misleading, illusory or deceptive,” Ferrar said. “Every aspect of poker machines’ operation is governed by stringent legislation, regulations and standards to ensure integrity and fairness, and that strict oversight is maintained through the life of the machine.”
