The slot machine reset and analysis key known in the trade as the 2341 key, which attendants use to access payback percentage data and game history, is apparently not hard to come by.
Last month, Reno’s Peppermill was fined $1 million by Nevada regulators because one of its employees, with management’s knowledge, used one of the keys to examine proprietary payback information on the slots of more than 10 of the Peppermill’s competitors. Two weeks ago, the Nevada Gaming Control Board issued instructions to licensees to tighten up access to the keys and assure that employees use them only on the licensee’s own games.
Last week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal decided to test the limits of accessibility to the keys—it purchased two of them on eBay.
While the purchase raised eyebrows, gaming officials and manufacturers told the newspaper that the keys themselves have little value to patrons of casinos. “This key cannot access the brain box of a slot machine,” Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett told the Nevada Gaming Commission on February 20, just before the Peppermill was levied its fine for engaging in corporate espionage.
In an interview with the Review-Journal, gaming board technology chief Jim Barbee noted that the key cannot be used to alter a game’s hardware, line up a winning combination or change percentages.
“That requires a whole different key that has to be signed out from security,” Barbee said. “There are various levels of security to get in there. The 2341 key cannot impact the game itself.”
An official of slot-maker International Game Technology, which issues the keys as part of a kit included with slot-machine deliveries, called the 2341 key the “Allen wrench of the gaming industry.” “It’s useful to the operator,” he told the newspaper. “But beyond that, I’m not sure what other use it could have.”
Burnett told the newspaper he will look into how 2341 keys are becoming available online—the paper found 11 last week for sale on eBay.
“We can’t police eBay, but we want to know how they got out there and who put them out there,” Burnett said. “It’s important that there be an understanding of what the keys can and can’t do.”
