another thought about random numbers

While musing over a roulette table, and noticing the preponderence of
electronic games in the various Casinos in Stateline, NV, a thought
occurred: does anyone know what sorts of random number generators those
electronic games use, and how (if at all) they are measured and regulated
by the Nevada Gaming Commission? They might have something to teach us.

Erik Fair

> 
> While musing over a roulette table, and noticing the preponderence of
> electronic games in the various Casinos in Stateline, NV, a thought
> occurred: does anyone know what sorts of random number generators those
> electronic games use, and how (if at all) they are measured and regulated
> by the Nevada Gaming Commission? They might have something to teach us.
hmmm... probably just a cheapo pseudo-rng....
With a copy of their squematics and a whole lot of analysis you could 
probably make some serious money!! :)

-- 
        */^\*  Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja  */^\* 
                    Decius@montag33.residence.gatech.edu

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fair@clock.org ("Erik E. Fair"  (Time Keeper)) writes:
>does anyone know what sorts of random number generators those
>electronic games use, and how (if at all) they are measured and regulated
>by the Nevada Gaming Commission? They might have something to teach us.

There was some conversation about this recently on rec.gambling.other-games. 
Several people who work in the industry said that electronic machines
use some sort of PRNG, but with a nice added bit of random input - the
player's timing of hitting the buttons. One poster described it as the
machine constantly generating numbers, and choosing the payoff based
on the last number generated when the user hit a button.

I think that'd work pretty well. It's nice that this is in a slot
machine: typical computers can't afford to waste lots of time
throwing away random numbers.

There was also some speculation about whether the machines were immune
to electronic tampering.