Absolutely not. Nevada requires two things that are very important:
1. Anything that appears to be a representation of a physical object or device must behave exactly as the thing it represents. So, like in this case of the article if you have 4 cards, one of which has a rock behind them, each must have exactly a 1/4 chance of containing the rock. Wether this is pre-determined or after the choice is made is irrelevant if the odds are fair.
2. Any manufacturer selling games to Nevada must abide by the Nevada rules for any machine they sell anywhere in the world, so no switching a machine out for something that looks the same but operates differently.
It should also be noted that there is a seperate class of machines called "pull tabs" that are legal in some jurisdictions (often found in places like gas stations and bars) that often present as a slot machine or video poker, but actually work more like a lottery scratch off - the result is 100% pre-determined, and any agency the player appears to be given is an illusion. So, like, if you hit the jackpot on a video poker (like) machine, and get given a royal flush on the initial deal, even if you discard all 5 cards you'll get another royal flush on the draw.
Vegas really is very well regulated. There are some extremely ugly sides to gambling, but if you're going to have it, vegas is a pretty good starting point for how to try and keep things under control.
There's no casino in town that will "look the other way" for a few 20 year olds who want to gamble, because doing it once could lose that operation it's gaming license.
There's no casino that's going to on purpose risk going above the 25% max hold, because again, you could lose the ENTIRE OPERATION.
The rules are rock solid (sorta....simplifying) and heavily enforced, and while at the end of the day all the machines give worse odds than the ATM, there's caps on what you can and can't do.
Somewhat ironically, I'm not sure if it's changed, but if a slot machine shows you a "pick 1 of 3" choice, it's never a real choice. The decision was made before you picked. Every "pull" of the lever determines your payout basically instantly, ALL the shenanigans after that (including free auto play games i believe) are just placebo/different ways of doing a jackpot.
These shenanigans before displaying the final result can have quite a lot of psychologic effects.
Back when I started programming, I did simulate a jackpot machine in software (no money involved). The final probabilities were fair, but I added a twist while rolling the images: before stopping, the probability of having 2 or 3 of the same image was quite significant...
My younger brother was instantly hooked to it. The trick made him overestimate the probability of having 3 images the same, as he was seeing this pattern quite often just before stopping.
This made me realize of fucked-up casino can be, while still abiding by the rules
For the most part, it's because they were cheating the government and skimming funds for illegal businesses and laundering money and not paying taxes on it, not cheating the players (sorta kinda....again summarizing a lot.)
People don't first decide which casino to go to, they decide to first go to Vegas and then decide which casino to go to. If Vegas's reputation is ruined, overall traffic to casinos in general would decline.
If Vegas were to allow casino cheating (i.e. by refusing to regulate), if Casino A is revealed to have been cheating, then a player who plays and loses at (actually) honest casino B might have doubt (unreasonable as it may be) that their losses are legitimate. They may decide to make a fuss, complain, broadcast to their social networks that their losses were due to casino cheating. Even if casino B was actually honest, casino B now needs to constantly defends its reputation for fair play. At best, this represents an ongoing cost; at worst, casino B will lose all its traffic due to rumors that spin out of control. An honest reputation is indefensible in such an environment.
The most profitable arrangement for all casinos involved is to prioritize long-term profits and cooperate with strong policing, such that Vegas as a whole (and thereby their casino individually as well) is publically perceived as offering fair odds.
If a person was somehow collecting all that mass statistical data in advance and acting upon the mathematical expected return... they wouldn't be a gambler in any casino in the first place.
Let's say I rig the slot machines so that they can win on command, and then I hire a couple of actors to come in once every two or three days to 'win' a jackpot. The odds of anyone else actually hitting a win is actually 0 - nada, nothing, zilch. But I can't leave it at zero, if people don't think they have at least a chance, they're not going to throw money at it.
With cheating, I have all the benefits of convincing people into thinking they can win, without actually loosing any money in reality.
Probably a multitude of other sneaky things you can do with an unregulated casino if someone were to put their mind to it.
A "casino" doesn't have a reason, in fact it has no reason at all. The people running it do, and someone with enough power could rig the games and steal from both the customers and the casino, hurting both.
Vegas is well-regulated, but when you move outside that realm, things get a bit more loosely-defined.
I spent a couple of years in the mid-2000s working in the edges here, so I have a bit of knowledge. Note: I've been out of this industry for at least 15 years, so some of my knowledge might have aged, but I'm fairly certain that it's still true in the general sense.
First, under federal regulations, there are three classes of gambling. First, class I, which is basically, "I make a wager with you over the outcome of a sporting event". So if I'm playing golf with you and I bet you $10 a hole on outcome, that's class I. It's not regulated at federal level, and not generally regulated at state level.
The next class is Class II. This covers things like raffles, and mid-week church bingo. There are some limits, but it's not regulated by the states generally, and not by the feds at all.
Class III is what we think of as traditional gambling. Table games, traditional slot machines, etc. This is absolutely regulated by the states, and only allowed if the states allow it. This is what your Vegas and Atlantic City casinos operate under.
But there are Indian casinos outside of this in these markets operating. How do they operate, you ask? The simple answer is, if the games are operating as Class I or (more likely) class II games, the states have no say in them. And it's very easy to make a lotto drawing, or a bingo card, appear as a slot machine play. All random wins are basically equivalent to each other. If you go to an Indian casino, and you want to play a slot machine, but it's requiring you to wait on another player, you're dealing with a class II machine.
What about class III? Well, states are allowed to negotiate compacts with the various Native American tribes where they allow them to conduct class III games. A number of states have done this. This allows them to run, say, blackjack and poker, as well as slot machines that don't fall under class II. Interestingly, in a lot of jurisdictions, you're still basically following the ideas of class II, but just not requiring competition. So if you go to a casino in Oklahoma, you'll see that you are (most often) playing a game of instant bingo on each spin, or possibly a game of instant lotto on each spin. Because that's what the compact between the state of Oklahoma and the tribes there allows.
But there are still loopholes that allow you, in some jurisdictions, to run slot machines outside of these provisions. Let's say, you're allowed to run raffles that allow up to a $1000 prize on a $1 entry. These are just numbers to use to illustrate the concept, and they vary state to state. So I set up a slot machine that you pay $1 a spin, which is an entry in a lotto that pays maximum $1000, and after the total number of tickets allocated is depleted, will pay the house 10%. Perfectly legal, though local law enforcement in the bible belt in the south may disagree. I've coded a number of systems that implemented exactly this.
Other jurisdictions may allow you to have prizes up to, say, 25x the entry on machines, to allow the legality of the claw machines. This can also be (ab)used to make slot machines.
> If you go to an Indian casino, and you want to play a slot machine, but it's requiring you to wait on another player, you're dealing with a class II machine.
This is all really interesting, but I don't think I follow on this point (and I'd like to understand!)—are you saying that two players are playing on different machines, but the second machine can't operate until the first is done? Are they relying on each other's outcomes to calculate odds or something like that?
Exactly. There is a server which is drawing bingo balls, against a card. Someone is going to eventually win. So if there is only one player, you will eventually win.
You can actually set up a situation where one player is guaranteed a win, which is why the systems will require at least two players.
1. Anything that appears to be a representation of a physical object or device must behave exactly as the thing it represents. So, like in this case of the article if you have 4 cards, one of which has a rock behind them, each must have exactly a 1/4 chance of containing the rock. Wether this is pre-determined or after the choice is made is irrelevant if the odds are fair.
2. Any manufacturer selling games to Nevada must abide by the Nevada rules for any machine they sell anywhere in the world, so no switching a machine out for something that looks the same but operates differently.
It should also be noted that there is a seperate class of machines called "pull tabs" that are legal in some jurisdictions (often found in places like gas stations and bars) that often present as a slot machine or video poker, but actually work more like a lottery scratch off - the result is 100% pre-determined, and any agency the player appears to be given is an illusion. So, like, if you hit the jackpot on a video poker (like) machine, and get given a royal flush on the initial deal, even if you discard all 5 cards you'll get another royal flush on the draw.