Have no reservations about that Indian machine
Indian casinos are becoming more and more wide-spread so it’s worth a word about their poker machines. In the Indian Gaming Act of 1988, the Federal Government classified three types of game:
- social gambling that’s not for profit;
- games that don’t rely on a House bank such as bingo and lotto;
- the traditional casino style of gambling games including slots and video poker machines.
The headlines say that these machines don’t have a fixed hold percentage. All the machines are linked to a central piece of software that plays bingo games among all you players. Whether you win or lose is decided by the virtual ball the software “picks”. Each game ends when a “winning” pattern in the game is achieved. It’s all very ingenious and, using this technology, the manufacturers of the games claim that the payouts are identical to the third class of game. Just one ending thought: if the class two and three games are identical in the way they play, how come this is not illegal?
To run the third class, the tribe has to negotiate a compact with the local State Government and, to be fair, many have done this. But some decided that regulation was not for them. To get around the legislation, they devised electronic bingo games that look and feel like slots and video poker machines. If nobody told you, you wouldn’t know you were not playing a Vegas style of machine. Except that, once you lift the lid, the insides are very different.