02/11/04 4:16 pm EST

Robot Gets Stiffed For Over Million Dollars in Online Casino

Christopher Costigan, www.sports911.com

An online casino refuses to pay a robot over one million dollars it won playing Caribbean 21.  While this may sound like something out of a really bad science fiction film, the story is all too real.  In fact, this very same robot is believed to have won at some ten other internet casinos, most of which use the Real Time Gaming platform.

Real Time Gaming has come under tremendous fire from online gambling enthusiasts over the past two years.  Several of their licensees have gone under without paying players.  The upside to this scenario seems to be that Real Time Gaming's games are fair, and as such dangerous to any underfunded casino operator due to the high payout potential.  Most players agree, Real Time Gaming does play fair in that regard, perhaps more fair than any other product on the market today, most of which are said to have some degree of rigging (though this is not always proven).

Ron Lewin, Casino Manager for Hampton Casino based in San Jose, Costa Rica, and another of RTG's licensees, was not about to become the bot's next victim, even though a number of outraged player's advocates claim he's already been taken for over a million dollars and needs to pay it.

"I understand there may be other online casinos that allow robots, we don't," proclaimed a very infuriated Lewin.  "This is very clear in our Terms and Condition section, which was carried over from when Hampton was on the Unified Gaming software platform.  It's a policy we've had in place since late 2000."

These robots are really automatic computer software that take on the personas of humans (in the virtual sense at least).  Without the proper defenses in place, online casino operators will not be able to tell the difference between a real player and a bot.

And why does this matter?

"We want the human element involved in the game," explained a very upfront Lewin.  "I can guarantee you, walk in any land based casino and if there is a guy drinking heavily while playing, there won't be a single person in the casino who's not splashing water in his face until he's broke.  The human element gives us an advantage."

Lewin's point is that humans make mistakes, robots don't, at least not when it comes to playing strategically.  Casinos, whether online or brick and mortar, rely on the human element of risk and emotion to turn a profit.  There is a reason why drinks are served for free at each table.  Simply put, if Hampton Casino were overrun by robots, the establishment would be out of business in no time. 

In this case, the alleged robot won more than $1.3 million beating up on Hampton's online casino. 

Robots are becoming a serious problem, not just in the online casino realm of things, but throughout the world wide web as a whole.

"You can feed a robot the perfect (casino game) strategy and scenario.  The robot can play forever and won't make any mistakes like a real player would."

They even appear in online chat rooms, spamming for porn sites, get-rich-quick schemes and - yes- internet casinos.  Just imagine the horror of chatting with someone online in hopes of forging a serious romantic relationship only to find out that special someone is actually a robot. 

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are  currently in the process of designing software that serves as an online gatekeeper of sorts.  Unless you can prove that you're human, a website might not permit your entry. 

The method involves a test used to distinguish real people from intelligent computer programs. Researchers term these tests 'captchas' — shorthand for 'completely automated public Turing tests to tell computers and humans apart.'

One test Carnegie Mellon called Gimpy selects a word from an 850-word dictionary and converts it to a mangled image of itself, warping letters and adding distracting ink spots, colors and backgrounds.

To pass the test, a user has to identify the word correctly. It's simple enough for a 5-year-old, but computer programs — even ones that can read — are stumped by the distortions and distractions.

Whether such applications will work in conjunction with the online casino environment remains to be seen.

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