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AI United Kingdom

UK Gambling Machines Loaded With AI 'Cool Off' System (bbc.com) 42

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Every gambling machine in the UK's betting shops is being updated with software designed to detect and prevent problematic behaviour in players. From a report: The system locks gamblers out of machines for 30 seconds if erratic or excessive play is detected. While the brief lockdown is in effect, warnings about safe gambling are displayed on the machines' screens. One expert said the enforced break was "probably not long enough to have a positive effect." The artificial intelligence (AI) Anonymous Player Awareness System was launched this month by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), an industry group representing 90% of the UK betting and gaming market. Among the behaviour patterns it tries to detect are chasing losses, spending too long on a single machine and playing a succession of games rapidly. "It was rolled out to all our machines in our 1,600 shops in early November," a spokesman for Betfred told the BBC. "These alerts are now operational on machines in all 3,200 Ladbrokes and Coral shops," a Ladbrokes Coral spokesman added.
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UK Gambling Machines Loaded With AI 'Cool Off' System More

UK Gambling Machines Loaded With AI 'Cool Off' System

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  • So it's OK to fleece people... but only a little bit.

    • I just need the AI with a 'Heart of Gold' [getyarn.io]so it is sympathetic enough to let me win :)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The gambling industry is trying to self regulate because it doesn't want to be regulated.

      There was talk of limiting the jackpot on these machines to £2, down from the old £100. It nearly happened and they went into panic mode.

      • What do you mean doesn't want to be regulated? The gambling industry is already heavily regulated (at least in the U.S.) and considerably more than other industries. Almost every state has a gaming commission or something similar the sets pretty strict rules that casinos or other establishments that permit gambling have to follow.

        But trying to limit gambling like that is just stupid. People won't quit, they'll just find some other form without the limits or go underground and do it with less scrupulous e
        • But trying to limit gambling like that is just stupid. People won't quit, they'll just find some other form without the limits or go underground and do it with less scrupulous establishments and individuals

          A gambling problem isn't *exactly* like a drug problem, so your conclusion doesn't fit exactly. A lot of gambling is done as a product of opportunity. Old people who are retired, pulling in a pension or two on top of their Social Security, and house long paid off are the most abundant of chronic gambler
      • The *stake* on these machines was lowered from £100 to £2 earlier this year. The maximum jackpot is £500.
  • How would this work when people can just cash out and move to another machine. As long as you can feed cash into the machines there's no way that they can really stop someone intent on wasting their money. Gambling is just a tax on people who are bad at math.
    • Cash? How long has it been since you were in a casino? The casino knows exactly who is playing the machine.

    • Most casinos give people rfid tokens/cards to make tracking them easier

      • Sure, but you're not required to use them. The cards are just there to give you "rewards points" which are mostly just a way to get you to come back to the casino (enjoy the free room and tickets to a concert) and piss away even more money. They don't care what machines you're playing since it doesn't matter. Nothing in the casino doesn't either give the house an edge or a cut and the low cost buffets and cheap shows are just a way to get people in the door.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      One gambling fallacy is that the longer you play a machine the more likely a win is due.

      • One gambling fallacy is that the longer you play a machine the more likely a win is due.

        One popular lottery here has a chance of getting all the numbers right at about 1 in 14 million.

        Chance of those exact same numbers coming up in the next draw is also 1 in 14 million, a lot of people have trouble with that idea.

      • Admittedly I don't know how these machines work, but isn't that actually true? In that they aren't perfect 1 in 1000 to win odds, the payout has to average the advertised odds over a certain period within reason otherwise they are in trouble. So if the machine hasn't been paying out for 500 games, and you can't possibly know if there is even going to BE another 500 games for the odds to resolve naturally, then the machine HAS to put its little AI fingers on the scale to tip it in your favour.

        Of course, that

        • I believe (many of) the machines in question are fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) where the outcome of every game is random. (The odds are of course weighted in the houses favour, but some of the games, e.g. video roulette, have a return to player as high as 98%). These would generally be category B and be found in betting shops and Adult Gaming Centres. It's these machines to which the article is referring. Fruit machines (usually category C or D) found in pubs and FECs (family entertainment centres)

    • don't conflate being bad at math with not caring.

      It's akin to saying people who smoke don't know the risks, or those who eat sugary shit don't realize it's bad for them.

      No, they do know these things -- for the most part, of course there's a few outliers here and there; but they don't care.

      Some people do enjoy the anticipating/thrill of gambling, to each their own.

    • payout in 20's 1 at time is slow

  • ridiculous (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So basic tracking what a player is doing, keeping a counter and math is now AI? I can do this!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      There's the ultimate irony in EU's nanny-state, heavily regulated environment for electronic stuff. "Sorry, we couldn't add the required addiction alerts... It would have meant tracking them, or storing their information!"

  • AI? (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday November 21, 2019 @06:33PM (#59440878) Homepage Journal

    So basically everything is AI now. I think we have jumped the AI shark.

  • That's not a cooling off period. That's enough time to get another drink.

    Supposedly the Millennials gamble less (they grew up with video games, so the novelty is less). I'm hoping to see the whole industry go to pot. I'm not a prude, but Casino owners tend to be some of the douchiest people alive. I'd love to see them taken down a notch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shimbo ( 100005 )

      That's not a cooling off period. That's enough time to get another drink.
       

      I agree it's likely not effective, and the FA says as much. It would be illegal for a betting shop to serve alcohol though.

  • The machines will act responsibly...

    Those machines actually destroy people. Not the smart ones, the dumb ones, some with psychological problems.

    Destroys them.

  • "The system locks gamblers out of machines for 30 seconds if erratic or excessive play is detected". Erratic and excessive play is where the casinos make their money. Cynical me says that it also will lock gamblers out if they start winning too much.

    "If you could beat the ponies, they wouldn't be running them."
    ~~Pittsburgh Phil

  • The place wherein the only innovation is how to oppress a people the most succinctly. Pro tip: everyone using those machines has a gambling problem, so if the "AI" every doesn't display a warning it's failing. All this does is take the little bit of happiness obtained by the lowest of dregs and mux it with some unpleasantness.

  • "One gambling fallacy is that the longer you play a machine the more likely a win is due."

    Funny isn't it. I love that one, heard it all the time from "big kids" when I a youngster. That idea that "your luck's got to change sometime". Each gamble or play just heightens the excitement of a possible payout but you don't realise how much you've paid in order to get that win, a win that's often less then 15% of the stake. We all fall for it at some time it's just most of us know our limits and when we should qui

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      It's quite literally called The Gambler's Fallacy.

      No, just because black has come up on the roulette table 10 times in a row does not make coming up red any more likely than it ever has been.

      Sure, eventually the "streak" of blacks will break - simple statistics tells you that. But though the odds of a long streak are significantly less than the odds of a short streak, it does NOT mean that if you're on a long streak that the next spin is any different to any of the previous ones.

      It may be unintuitive but t

  • So the Nazis did takeover the UK after all, just took a while to reveal themselves...

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