Meet Alex, a Russian mathemetician who built a multimillion-dollar business on reverse engineering the algorithms that govern how slot machine games behave. His minions roam casinos from Poland to Macau to Peru to record vulnerable slots in action, then transmit the footage to his office in St. Petersburg. There, the video is analyzed to determine when the games' odds will briefly tilt against the house. And when that happens: bingo.
From Wired:
Alex, who insists that his hacking doesn't violate Russian law, fancies himself a bit of a Robin Hood—a champion for the common man against an avaricious casino industry. “Gaming manufacturers claim they provide ‘entertainment,' but we all know the nature of this ‘entertainment' a little too well,” he says by email. “All they and I are really doing is moving money. Their job is to help casinos take money from the people; my job is to help myself and the people take money from the casinos. Just a little counterweight to the global gambling system, where the house always wins.” Yet he also knows that his self-described “milking system” is considered criminal in several countries, including the United States: In 2014, four of his agents were indicted on federal fraud charges after sweeping through casinos in Missouri, Illinois, and California.
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