Game Sense -- Does it Make Sense?

Game Sense - Does it Make Sense?

The Los Angeles Times ran an article in its travel and entertainment section Sunday, March 12, that I’d like to share with you.  It was sent to me by a good friend and fellow gamer who goes by the YoutTube moniker wlwal1 .  The report concerns MGM casinos and a new program they are rolling out this year to provide on-site help for problem gamblers.  The program is called Game Sense, and MGM hopes it will make sense to game players who are unable to control their urge to gamble when it’s time to stop. The company plans to put trained advisers in its casinos to share the message that gambling can be a dangerous and costly addiction. 

They will be installing kiosks inside the Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, and other MGM properties.  Trained advisors will educate visitors about problem gambling and try to dispel some of the myths and fallacies that surround casino games and how they work.  Gamblers need to understand that there is no such thing as a hot machine, or one that is ready to hit because it hasn’t paid out recently according to Alan Feidman, executive VP of MGM resorts. Instead of merely providing gamers with a brochure with the toll-free addiction help-line number 800-522-4700, Game Sense plans to set up staffed booths at MGM casinos nationwide.  

They will also donate $1 million to to research projects at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ International Gaming Institute.  Data will be gathered at the casinos to help determine the effectiveness of the program.

 Recently, last December, the Atlantic magazine ran an eleven page article by John Rosengren titled “Losing it All”  pointing out that Americans now spend more money on casino gambling than movies, music, and sports events combined. The largest share of that money goes to slots and video poker they say. In the lengthy article, the Atlantic details true-life stories of addicted gamblers, many of whom ended up losing their jobs, their families, and even in one instance their lives. The story of Scott Stevens’ inability to overcome his addiction and resultant suicide causes the author to ask his readers to consider whether perhaps he was the victim of a system carefully calibrated to prey on his weakness … in much the same way as the tobacco industry, knowing their product was addictive, preyed on smokers’ weakness.

Less than 40 years ago casino gambling was illegal everywhere in the United States outside of Nevada and Atlantic City New Jersey,  But since Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, tribal and commercial casinos have rapidly proliferated, and today patrons bet more than 17 billion dollars annually in over 1,000 casinos in over 40 states in almost a million machines nationwide according to the Atlantic article. —  machines that are deliberately designed, some say, to lull players into the trancelike state known to manufacturers as as “continuous gaming productivity” and to writers as “the zone.”

Gambling affects some people in the same way that drugs or alcohol affects other addicts.  And like many other addicts,  users develop a tolerance. When they are unable to gamble, many show signs of withdrawal such as panic attacks, insomnia, headaches, and heart palpitations.  Some, they say,  have genetic predispositions to gamble.  And the National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that one in five gambling addicts attempts suicide.   You can read some of their stories in the Atlantic Magazine article.

According to some researchers 20% of regular gamblers are problem or pathological gamblers and studies show that 30 to 60 percent of gambling revenue comes from these problem gamblers.  Natasha Dow Schull, an NYU professor who spent over 15 years studying the addictive gambler, wrote a book in 2012 “Addiction by Design, Machine Gambling in Las Vegas”, detailing how casinos track their customer’s play and entice them to play more often and longer. We all know how this is done - we all receive their offers and free-play, and we know what draws us to these machines and what makes us stay long past the time we should have cashed out and gone home.  We know about frequent small rewards that make us feel we are winning all the time we’re losing our money.  We all experience the near-misses when 2 of 3 bonus symbols tease us into thinking a win is imminent. We eat their free buffets and stay the night in their free hotel rooms, and rationalize our losses by comparing these freebees to what we would pay to play at a similar resort.  We’re not addicted to gambling — we can quit any time we want —addiction is the other guy’s problem, not ours. Sure it is, 

Well, maybe Gaming Sense will help us make some sense out of problem gambling. I hope so.  But more likely it will be just like everything else — smoke and mirrors and the illusion of providing help to those players who deny they need any.  We’ll see.

Video Poker - Hospital Therapy Patients Enjoy

   Need an excuse to play a little video poker?  Here’s an article that was just published today about the medical benefits of the mental therapy of video poker slots for hospital patients.  I didn’t write the article.  It came to me from CDC to share with my readers.   

    “ Video poker machines are commonplace in Las Vegas and can be found in bars, supermarkets and even high-end restaurants. Now you can add hospitals to that list.

     The HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Henderson treats people who are recovering from a number of issues, including traumatic injuries, strokes, amputations, spinal cord issues and neurological disorders.

Against one wall of the facility’s busy 7,400-square foot gym, alongside the weights and exercise machines typically found in physical therapy rooms, sit two video poker machines, one with a chair you’d find in casino and one without.

     Because playing video poker is a sedentary activity, video poker machines in a rehab hospital may seem counterintuitive. But therapists at HealthSouth say the games help patients in a number of ways.

Sarah Tempest, a speech-language therapist at HealthSouth, said the video games help patients, many of whom require help with both mental and physical acuity, improve their cognitive abilities.

     “One of the areas (of the brain) we know is stimulated by gambling is the prefrontal cortex,” Tempest said. “The frontal lobes of the brain can be damaged by traumatic injuries; they can be damaged by substance abuse; they can be damaged by strokes.”

     If the brain can be considered an orchestra, Tempest explained, then the frontal lobes act like the conductor. When her patients play the video poker machines, they are retraining that conductor.

“What we’re really looking to improve with the games are executive-functioning skills,” she said. “The things we are really addressing with that are attention, mental flexibility, self-regulation and working memory.”

     Because the patients are playing video poker, she explained, they have to be able to retain information and then manipulate it in ways that can help them win. They also have to make different decisions based on the information, and they also get to relearn impulse control.

“They get to think about if it’s worth placing another bet,” Tempest said. “Should they see if they can get a full house or is it better to stay with a pair of kings?”

     And while video poker is certainly not the most physically demanding activity, it can also help patients with significant mobility issues.

“Sometimes we’ll have patients stand and play the video poker machines to work on standing tolerance,” said Sandy McGinnis, one of the hospital’s occupational therapists. “We can also have them put wrist weights on, and they’re playing for a whole 15 minutes (a session). It can get you tired after doing it for 15 minutes.”

     A bonus? The patients are working on their physical and mental skills while doing something they enjoy, McGinnis said. Tempest said 10-12 patients use the slot machines, which HealthSouth CEO Sam Billig purchased for $1 each in November. The patients don’t need money to use them, and they can’t win money either. The games are set to run 15 minutes at a time, regardless if the “credits” accumulate or dwindle.

     “Sometimes, it helps the patients come down to their sessions,” McGinnis said. “They could be in pain or having a bad day and you can tell them, “‘Hey, you know what? We can play video poker as part of your therapy.’ And they are more likely to engage in it instead of refusing because of medical issues that are going on.”

     HealthSouth is a 90-bed hospital that, according to its website, “provides care for people who are ready to be discharged from a hospital but not ready to return home.”

It’s why the gym includes a full-size supermarket checkout counter, a machine built to resemble the interior of a car and a replica of a cafe. It’s also why the gym has skee ball, an air hockey table and other activities patients can enjoy while developing cognitive and physical skills.

     Angela Ingerson, a special-needs teacher in the hospital who is dealing with several health issues, said the video poker and other activities motivate her to participate in her therapy.

“The things they are doing here, especially with the new games, give me an opportunity for me to do things I enjoy,” she said. “For example, they want me to sit up more. But if all I’m doing sitting in a hospital bed, what’s motivating me to sit up more?”

Scientific Games to showcase slots featuring James Bond

By DAVE MCNARY
REUTERS

LOS ANGELES — The owners of the James Bond franchise have struck a multi-year licensing deal with gambling products specialist Scientific Games Corp., which will lead to the super-spy’s image being used on casino slot machines.

The exclusive agreement was announced Wednesday between Las Vegas-based Scientific Games with Eon Productions Limited, Danjaq LLC and MGM Interactive, a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The deal gives Scientific Games the rights to leverage all past and future James Bond films, as well as the film’s talent portraying James Bond.

Scientific Games said it expects to showcase the first James Bond-themed slot games at the Global Gaming Expo on Oct. 3-5 in Las Vegas. That means the first machines could begin appearing in casinos next year.

Created in 1953 by novelist Ian Fleming, Bond was a frequent patron of high-end casinos in the books and two dozen films that followed — including two versions of “Casino Royale.”

Seven actors have played Bond, starting with Sean Connery in 1962’s “Doctor No,” followed by David Niven in 1967’s “Casino Royale,” George Lazenby in 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. It’s unclear whether Craig will sign on for another Bond film after starring in the last four.

Scientific Games Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sheehan said, “The Bond franchise is clearly a long sought-after and incredibly exciting brand for our industry. James Bond is synonymous with action, excitement, and next-generation technology. We look forward to harnessing the power of the Bond brand to drive innovation across the company in the years ahead.”

Ronald Perelman, chairman of Scientific Games, said, “We have been excited about this license opportunity for a very long time and are thrilled that Kevin Sheehan and his team at Scientific Games were able to secure the exclusive licensing rights.”

Variety reported in 2015 that another studio could supplant Sony as MGM’s distribution partner for the franchise. Sony’s has handled distribution on “Casino Royale,” “Quantum of Solace,” “Skyfall” and “Spectre.” “Skyfall” was the highest-grossing 007 film in franchise history.

Danjaq LLC is the holding company responsible for the copyright and trademarks to the characters, elements, and other material related to James Bond on screen. It’s currently owned and managed by the family of Albert R. Broccoli. Eon Productions is a sister company of Danjaq and the production company responsible for producing the James Bond films.

Tribal Gaming Legalized 30 Years Ago This Month

30 Years of Tribal Gaming

March 2, 2017 at 3:52 pm

By David G. Schwartz, Green Felt Journal, Vegas Seven

February 25, 1987, was a milestone date for gambling in America. On that day, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, a verdict that paved the way for the rapid expansion of casino gambling on tribal lands in the decades to follow. Thirty years on, the Court’s decision still reverberates throughout the casino industry and Las Vegas.

First, an important note: Neither the Cabazon decision nor the following year’s Indian Gaming Regulatory Act created or legalized tribal gaming. On the contrary, tribes had been offering various kinds of gambling for years, which is how the Cabazon Band ended up in court in the first place. A small tribe of Cahuilla Indians located between Indio and Palm Springs in Riverside County, California, the Cabazon offered bingo games to the general public, as did the nearby Morongo Band; the Cabazon also opened a card room.

The state of California and Riverside County sued to shut down these gambling operations, arguing that the tribes’ bingo games flouted state bingo betting limits. After a lengthy legal battle, the Supreme Court found that, although the state had legitimate concerns about possible organized crime infiltration of high-stakes bingo, any state regulation would “impermissibly infringe” on tribal government.

The decision affirmed a ruling previously enunciated by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Butterworth: If a state permitted gambling, tribes were allowed to offer that type of gambling without state regulation or interference. Unless a state made gambling illegal, it could do nothing to prevent tribal gaming operations.

It is worth saying that government figured deeply into California v. Cabazon. In his majority decision, Justice Byron White specifically noted that California, far from barring gambling, operated a lottery and “daily encourage[d] its citizens to participate in this state-run gambling.” The state, far from exercising police powers to restrict undesirable behaviors by its citizens, was in the gambling business. Since the state was a promoter of gambling, the Court held that it regulated rather than prohibited gambling, with a few enumerated exceptions.

It is also worth pointing out that this decision did not come from an envelope-pushing activist court. As White noted in his decision, President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Statement on Indian Policy had endorsed bingo as a method of reducing tribal dependence on federal funds, and that the Department of the Interior had promoted tribal bingo. Public-interest gambling had been expanding in the United States since 1925, when Florida legalized racetrack pari-mutuel wagering, and successive waves of racing, bingo and lottery legalization have made gambling an essential contributor to many state budgets.

California v. Cabazon’s impact was immediate. The following year, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act provided a framework for tribal gambling operations and for the compacts (treaties) between tribes and states necessary for Class III gambling, which included Las Vegas–style casinos. These compacts allowed for revenue sharing between tribes and states, which greatly incentivized states to broker deals with tribes. By 1996, tribal casinos nationwide were earning more than Atlantic City or the Las Vegas Strip, and tribal casinos have grown even as commercial casinos have multiplied. Today, Indian casinos make about $30 billion annually in revenue, about three-quarters the total of their commercial rivals.

Tribal gaming has had a twofold impact on Nevada casinos. Its spread in California, the Pacific Northwest and Arizona has slowed revenue growth from Lake Tahoe to Laughlin, although Las Vegas has proven more resilient. With California’s total revenues estimated near $7 billion, it’s easy to see Indian casinos as the winner of a zero-sum game: Every dollar wagered in the Golden State is a dollar not bet in Nevada.

But there’s another dimension to that growth. Tribal casinos offer career opportunities at every level, increasing the value of job skills specific to the gaming industry. It used to be that casino employees and managers would face a substantial career readjustment if they wanted to move outside of Nevada or Atlantic City. Now, leaving Las Vegas doesn’t necessarily mean exiting the casino business, as tribes from California to Connecticut have hired line employees and managers with Las Vegas pedigrees.

In the early years of tribal gaming, it didn’t seem that way—industry attitudes were more likely to be hostile or dismissive—but time has proven that a mature tribal gaming industry and Las Vegas can not only coexist, but can bolster each other. Back in 1987, few Strip pit bosses could have imagined that a Supreme Court decision about tribal bingo might create an alternate career path for them, but today it’s taken for granted. Thirty years after California v. Cabazon, there might be fewer people coming to Nevada to gamble, but there’s a little bit of Las Vegas planted in the most unlikely soil.

Russian Slot Machine Cheats: Casinos Have No Fix

I did not write this article.  It was sent to my site today by cdc gaming reports.  I found it interesting and think you may too.  The original story was written by Brendan Koerner. It may explain why some casinos do not allow filming for youtube -- see what missouri authorities found a 37 year old russian national named murat blieve was doing with his cell phone while purportedly playing pelican Pete!

IN EARLY JUNE 2014, accountants at the Lumiere Place Casino in St. Louis noticed that several of their slot machines had—just for a couple of days—gone haywire. The government-approved software that powers such machines gives the house a fixed mathematical edge, so that casinos can be certain of how much they’ll earn over the long haul—say, 7.129 cents for every dollar played. But on June 2 and 3, a number of Lumiere’s machines had spit out far more money than they’d consumed, despite not awarding any major jackpots, an aberration known in industry parlance as a negative hold. Since code isn’t prone to sudden fits of madness, the only plausible explanation was that someone was cheating.

Casino security pulled up the surveillance tapes and eventually spotted the culprit, a black-haired man in his thirties who wore a Polo zip-up and carried a square brown purse. Unlike most slots cheats, he didn’t appear to tinker with any of the machines he targeted, all of which were older models manufactured by Aristocrat Leisure of Australia. Instead he’d simply play, pushing the buttons on a game like Star Drifter or Pelican Pete while furtively holding his iPhone close to the screen. 

He’d walk away after a few minutes, then return a bit later to give the game a second chance. That’s when he’d get lucky. The man would parlay a $20 to $60 investment into as much as $1,300 before cashing out and moving on to another machine, where he’d start the cycle anew. Over the course of two days, his winnings tallied just over $21,000. The only odd thing about his behavior during his streaks was the way he’d hover his finger above the Spin button for long stretches before finally jabbing it in haste; typical slots players don’t pause between spins like that.

On June 9, Lumiere Place shared its findings with the Missouri Gaming Commission, which in turn issued a statewide alert. Several casinos soon discovered that they had been cheated the same way, though often by different men than the one who’d bilked Lumiere Place. In each instance, the perpetrator held a cell phone close to an Aristocrat Mark VI model slot machine shortly before a run of good fortune.

By examining rental-car records, Missouri authorities identified the Lumiere Place scammer as Murat Bliev, a 37-year-old Russian national. Bliev had flown back to Moscow on June 6, but the St. Petersburg–based organization he worked for, which employs dozens of operatives to manipulate slot machines around the world, quickly sent him back to the United States to join another cheating crew. The decision to redeploy Bliev to the US would prove to be a rare misstep for a venture that’s quietly making millions by cracking some of the gaming industry’s most treasured algorithms.

From Russia With Cheats

Russia has been a hotbed of slots-related malfeasance since 2009, when the country outlawed virtually all gambling. (Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, reportedly believed the move would reduce the power of Georgian organized crime.) The ban forced thousands of casinos to sell their slot machines at steep discounts to whatever customers they could find. Some of those cut-rate slots wound up in the hands of counterfeiters eager to learn how to load new games onto old circuit boards. Others apparently went to Murat Bliev’s bosses in St. Petersburg, who were keen to probe the machines’ source code for vulnerabilities.

By early 2011, casinos throughout central and eastern Europe were logging incidents in which slots made by the Austrian company Novomatic paid out improbably large sums. Novomatic’s engineers could find no evidence that the machines in question had been tampered with, leading them to theorize that the cheaters had figured out how to predict the slots’ behavior. “Through targeted and prolonged observation of the individual game sequences as well as possibly recording individual games, it might be possible to allegedly identify a kind of ‘pattern’ in the game results,” the company admitted in a February 2011 notice to its customers.

Recognizing those patterns would require remarkable effort. Slot machine outcomes are controlled by programs called pseudorandom number generators that produce baffling results by design. Government regulators, such as the Missouri Gaming Commission, vet the integrity of each algorithm before casinos can deploy it. 

But as the “pseudo” in the name suggests, the numbers aren’t truly random. Because human beings create them using coded instructions, PRNGs can’t help but be a bit deterministic. (A true random number generator must be rooted in a phenomenon that is not manmade, such as radioactive decay.) PRNGs take an initial number, known as a seed, and then mash it together with various hidden and shifting inputs—the time from a machine’s internal clock, for example—in order to produce a result that appears impossible to forecast. But if hackers can identify the various ingredients in that mathematical stew, they can potentially predict a PRNG’s output. That process of reverse engineering becomes much easier, of course, when a hacker has physical access to a slot machine’s innards.

Knowing the secret arithmetic that a slot machine uses to create pseudorandom results isn’t enough to help hackers, though. That’s because the inputs for a PRNG vary depending on the temporal state of each machine. The seeds are different at different times, for example, as is the data culled from the internal clocks. So even if they understand how a machine’s PRNG functions, hackers would also have to analyze the machine’s gameplay to discern its pattern. That requires both time and substantial computing power, and pounding away on one’s laptop in front of a Pelican Pete is a good way to attract the attention of casino security.

The Lumiere Place scam showed how Murat Bliev and his cohorts got around that challenge. After hearing what had happened in Missouri, a casino security expert named Darrin Hoke, who was then director of surveillance at L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana, took it upon himself to investigate the scope of the hacking operation. By interviewing colleagues who had reported suspicious slot machine activity and by examining their surveillance photos, he was able to identify 25 alleged operatives who’d worked in casinos from California to Romania to Macau. Hoke also used hotel registration records to discover that two of Bliev’s accomplices from St. Louis had remained in the US and traveled west to the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California. On July 14, 2014, agents from the California Department of Justice detained one of those operatives at Pechanga and confiscated four of his cell phones, as well as $6,000. (The man, a Russian national, was not indicted; his current whereabouts are unknown.)

The cell phones from Pechanga, combined with intelligence from investigations in Missouri and Europe, revealed key details. According to Willy Allison, a Las Vegas–based casino security consultant who has been tracking the Russian scam for years, the operatives use their phones to record about two dozen spins on a game they aim to cheat. They upload that footage to a technical staff in St. Petersburg, who analyze the video and calculate the machine’s pattern based on what they know about the model’s pseudorandom number generator. Finally, the St. Petersburg team transmits a list of timing markers to a custom app on the operative’s phone; those markers cause the handset to vibrate roughly 0.25 seconds before the operative should press the spin button.

“The normal reaction time for a human is about a quarter of a second, which is why they do that,” says Allison, who is also the founder of the annual World Game Protection Conference. The timed spins are not always successful, but they result in far more payouts than a machine normally awards: Individual scammers typically win more than $10,000 per day. (Allison notes that those operatives try to keep their winnings on each machine to less than $1,000, to avoid arousing suspicion.) A four-person team working multiple casinos can earn upwards of $250,000 in a single week.

Repeat Business

Since there are no slot machines to swindle in his native country, Murat Bliev didn’t linger long in Russia after his return from St. Louis. He made two more trips to the US in 2014, the second of which began on December 3. He went straight from Chicago O’Hare Airport to St. Charles, Missouri, where he met up with three other men who’d been trained to scam Aristocrat’s Mark VI model slot machines: Ivan Gudalov, Igor Larenov, and Yevgeniy Nazarov. The quartet planned to spend the next several days hitting various casinos in Missouri and western Illinois.

Bliev should never have come back. On December 10, not long after security personnel spotted Bliev inside the Hollywood Casino in St. Louis, the four scammers were arrested. Because Bliev and his cohorts had pulled their scam across state lines, federal authorities charged them with conspiracy to commit fraud. The indictments represented the first significant setbacks for the St. Petersburg organization; never before had any of its operatives faced prosecution.

Bliev, Gudalov, and Larenov, all of whom are Russian citizens, eventually accepted plea bargains and were each sentenced to two years in federal prison, to be followed by deportation. Nazarov, a Kazakh who was granted religious asylum in the US in 2013 and is a Florida resident, still awaits sentencing, which indicates that he is cooperating with the authorities: In a statement to WIRED, Aristocrat representatives noted that one of the four defendants has yet to be sentenced because he “continues to assist the FBI with their investigations.”

Whatever information Nazarov provides may be too outdated to be of much value. In the two years since the Missouri arrests, the St. Petersburg organization’s field operatives have become much cagier. Some of their new tricks were revealed last year, when Singaporean authorities caught and prosecuted a crew: One member, a Czech named Radoslav Skubnik, spilled details about the organization’s financial structure (90 percent of all revenue goes back to St. Petersburg) as well as operational tactics. “What they’ll do now is they’ll put the cell phone in their shirt’s chest pocket, behind a little piece of mesh,” says Allison. “So they don’t have to hold it in their hand while they record.” And Darrin Hoke, the security expert, says he has received reports that scammers may be streaming video back to Russia via Skype, so they no longer need to step away from a slot machine to upload their footage.

The Missouri and Singapore cases appear to be the only instances in which scammers have been prosecuted, though a few have also been caught and banned by individual casinos. At the same time, the St. Petersburg organization has sent its operatives farther and farther afield. In recent months, for example, at least three casinos in Peru have reported being cheated by Russian gamblers who played aging Novomatic Coolfire slot machines.

The economic realities of the gaming industry seem to guarantee that the St. Petersburg organization will continue to flourish. The machines have no easy technical fix. As Hoke notes, Aristocrat, Novomatic, and any other manufacturers whose PRNGs have been cracked “would have to pull all the machines out of service and put something else in, and they’re not going to do that.” (In Aristocrat’s statement to WIRED, the company stressed that it has been unable “to identify defects in the targeted games” and that its machines “are built to and approved against rigid regulatory technical standards.”) At the same time, most casinos can’t afford to invest in the newest slot machines, whose PRNGs use encryption to protect mathematical secrets; as long as older, compromised machines are still popular with customers, the smart financial move for casinos is to keep using them and accept the occasional loss to scammers.

So the onus will be on casino security personnel to keep an eye peeled for the scam’s small tells. A finger that lingers too long above a spin button may be a guard’s only clue that hackers in St. Petersburg are about to make another score.


UPDATE: If you want to know more,  here's the latest update sent to my gmail today.          http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2017/02/13/how-st-louis-casinos-busted-a-russian-crime-ring-targeting-slot-machines#

Cosmo's Chatty Chatbot

My son has a smart phone with a virtual assistant Siri who helps him with various tasks - looking up info on the internet, setting an alarm to remind him of a coming task, doubling as a GPS device to get him where he needs to go.  Now the Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas has a new "employee" named Rose to guide you though it's halls and amenities. Rose is very outgoing, to the point of being down-right flirtatious.

"From the start she's ready to help.  What would you like to check out first," she asks. If you ask about pools, she'll give you the lowdown on the Cosmo's Marquee which she describes as a poolside lounge by day and a dance club by night.  Then like a 20-something looking for a good time, she tells you to look for her there on the east side of Level 2 where she'll party with you from sunlight to moonlight.

An image of a babe in a bikini flashes through your mind till you remember that she (it?) is really just a chatbot - artificial intelligence able to correspond with you via text message.

The Cosmopolitan launched Rose this week with a soft rollout to select guests. Eventually Rose will be made available to all guests with the black and gray business card with her number.  "Know my secrets. Text me," the business reads.  Wynn will soon follow suit, introducing Echo in all its rooms before the summer.

Like many chatbots, Rose is able to arrange for delivery of towel, suggest restaurants and bars and a drink list. She can give you a tour of the hotel's extensive art collection.  But what sets her apart from other chatbots is her sassy attitude. She is playful, fun, and witty and is designed to get personal with guests. Her image fits right in with the Cosmo's image of being sexy.

After letting Rose inform about food, beverage and swimming options at the hotel, a reporter tested her ability to give a guided tour of The Cosmopolitan’s avant-garde art collection.

The tour started with “Eduardo in Blue Dice” by Carl Myers hanging in the Condesa Commons on the second floor. Myers’ work consists of a few hundred blue dice arranged on a large, white canvas to create the resemblance of a young man looking into the distance.

“He takes photographs of people and digitally manipulates them to create pixilated images, which is then reconstructed in a variety of mediums like coins, dice and beads,’’ Rose texts the reporter who is inspecting the work. “I think this is quite fitting for Vegas, don’t you agree?”

She then instructs the reporter to go to other rooms and down a corridor to find other artworks on display — but the reporter is not quickly able to find the artwork.

And here is where Rose trails her human colleagues. She is unable to help, so the reporter turns to Marcos Pacheco, a career hospitality employee now working at The Cosmopolitan.  No less friendly than Rose, Marcos strikes up a conversation as he helps the reporter find the artwork.  Marcos shares with the reporter how he has seen Las Vegas change over the years and then segues to his passion, food. He suggests where the reporter can find good Mexican food and craft beer in Las Vegas.

As the reporter finishes the art tour and heads home, he further tests Rose. Asking about paying with American Express, Rose says it is accepted at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. But when the reporter replies that he would like to buy flowers, Rose is unable to help and tells the reporter to call the concierge. When asked a question in Russian, Rose remains silent.

By the end of the evening, Rose’s witty language made learning about The Cosmopolitan fun for the reporter.  However, the new friendship he made that night was not with Rose, but rather with Marcos, who offered to show the reporter at a later date the city’s gastronomic delights.

Contact Todd Prince at tprince@reviewjournal.com. Follow @toddprincetv on Twitter.

Slots for Tots -- the inner child in all of us

 Extracted from an article by Dan Michalski

Gov. Brian Sandoval was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission in January 2000 when the panel enacted a ban on slot machines with cartoon themes deemed appealing to minors.  Regulation 14.025 (dubbed “Slots for Tots”).

Controversy over a slot machine built on the TV-MA-rated cartoon “South Park” had sparked then-presidential contender Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to call on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether casino marketing practices were picking up where cigarette mascot Joe Camel left off, luring minors into a potentially addictive abyss.

But stroll through just about any Strip property today and you might hear Fred Flintstone bellowing “Yabba-dabba-doo!” Homer Simpson yelping “Do’h!” or Stewie Griffin declaring “Victory is mine!”

Slot machines based on popular cartoons, sitcoms, reality shows and other Hollywood creations are increasingly common on casino floors. Games include “The Big Bang Theory,” “Game of Thrones,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Ellen,” “Judge Judy,” “Pawn Stars,” “American Idol,” “The Voice,” “Titanic,” “Wacky Racers,” “Gremlins” and myriad other titles, old and new, from just about all genres.

“You try to make games to appeal to the widest audience,” said Phil Gelber, senior vice president of product development for Scientific Games. “A good game is a good game, but people walk in with different expectations  so you have to design for all of them.”

Branded games have changed the look of casino floors. And in doing so, they’ve grown a model of third-party partnerships, with slots now considered an acceptable added revenue stream in the entertainment ecosystem, similar to toys, videos, books and other product spin-offs of licensable brands.  Branded games represent 10-15 percent of Scientific Games’ slot portfolio. Overall, just less than 25 percent of all slot themes are based on licensed or branded content and are occupying an increasing amount of casino floor space in the past five years.

“Most slot players look for what’s new on the casino floor.”  “Players are curious. If they like a certain show, they want to see how it’s adapted to slot play. A familiar face makes the games more approachable and more likely to be given a try.”

An LA resident and his wife were at Planet Hollywood on a recent Tuesday night playing “Game of Thrones,” a penny slot with wagers between $1.50 and $4.50 on each spin. “We’re huge fans. It’s our favorite show,” said the couple. They came to Planet Hollywood specifically to play this machine, they said, after noticing the game while walking through the Miracle Mile Shops the night before.  “We’ve played it every day,” the wife said. “And we’ll play it tomorrow.We’re sticking to this one.”

The size of branded game cabinets is often part of their appeal. With curved screens rising toward ceilings, surround-sound audio environments, and some with cushy vibrating chairs, these games attract the attention of players, and potential players standing nearby.  These are risky investments. Putting the brand on a game lowers the barrier of entry. We know when a brand is already popular, more people will try the game.”

While the brand may be the initial draw, from there he said the game itself has to be good to keep players playing.  “Slots stay on floors because they perform. The game’s got to be good to keep them there.“Players vote with their wallets very easily in this day and age if the game doesn’t meet their expectations.”

Nostalgia drew a player from Carolina Beach, N.C., to a bank of “Wonder Woman” machines at the Cosmopolitan recently. “I love ‘Wonder Woman.  I’m a child of the ’70s, so I had to play it,” she said just before hitting a bonus and joining the machine in song. “Wonder Woman,” she sang, hands in the air, as her credits tallied up.

“I’m not a huge gambler by any means. We’re here on vacation, just having a good time. It’s fun when you win because you get to hear it go ‘Wonder Woman.’ ” She said the game had kept her attention for nearly three hours of button pressing. “I’m in for $90 after, and right now am at $95. So that’s pretty good, I am up five bucks,” a financial assessment she punctuated with yet another rendition of the namesake theme song.

The idea of combining popular entertainment with slots began 20 years ago with “Wheel of Fortune.” The game-show-cum-slot-machine continues to rank, in terms of revenue generation, as the most successful slot machine of all time.  “Wheel of Fortune” proved the power of a good slot game paired with a known entity that appeals primarily to adults.

But it’s the appeal of nostalgia that allows a slot based on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” on casino floors. The initial Slots for Tots rule instituted in 2000, the Nevada Gaming Commission banned themes “based on a product that is currently and primarily intended or marketed for use by persons under 21,” but made clear exceptions for cases where “the theme is attractive to adults because of its nostalgic appeal.”  Over the years, manufacturers learned what regulators had issues with, and the regulators did their job to make sure they could compete with other entertainment offerings. If  games are nostalgic, there is more leeway than 10 years ago. There have been almost no problems in the last four or five years.

In September 2015, the Gaming Control Board revised, and the Nevada Gaming Commission approved, a slimmed-down version of Regulation 14.025 as part of a broader regulatory overhaul in an attempt to streamline the process of getting games approved,” said A.G. Burnett, chairman of the Gaming Control Board. “We eliminated procedural hoops for addressing concerns while making it easier for equipment manufacturers to solve disagreements and address appeals. But the same core principles apply: targeting youth of pre-gambling age would be off-limits.

“We’ve never had a machine on the floor that we’ve had to pull because it was attracting kids,” Burnett said. “It just isn’t happening.”  Underage gambling as a result of youth-friendly themes simply is not a problem, he said. If it were, the board has mechanisms in place to shut it down immediately.

Initial concerns over cartoonified slot play may have been overblown.

“Kids will be attracted to gambling no matter what.  So the themes don’t really make a difference.” However, there is  concern about “simulated” casino-gambling efforts that “push” youth-friendly content to mobile phones with no regulatory oversight and little regard for implications for problem gamblers.

The Wizard of Oz, for example, is offered by Scientific Games for real-money play but is similarly offered by Zynga for play-money. These two different engagements of one popular brand illustrate potential pitfalls.

“Wizard of Oz” slots on Zynga is the free-play gaming company’s most successful slot game and the 31st biggest moneymaker of all games. It generates about $50,000 a day, according to mobile-gaming industry monitor ThinkGaming.  Players can’t win money, but they can earn credits for additional playing time or features. Because such play is technically not gambling, “Wizard of Oz” can be marketed to players as young as 13 while operating outside the purview of regulators.

In the absence of regulation, companies can do whatever they want, There are ads from companies outside the casino-gaming industry that celebrate addiction, encourage irresponsible play, and provide game experiences that can be harmful for players who transition to real-money gambling without understanding they are not the same.

“When free-play games depict or closely resemble actual gambling games, they can act as advertising for a gambling.  Gambling research has shown that many social-casino games, or simulated gambling, are fueling the same physiological reactions as real gambling does, and thus create environments where young people are particularly vulnerable to the dangers of gambling.

The belief and misconception is that if there’s no money exchanged, it’s not gambling.  Research found that while branded slot games may not be able to reach kids and pull them into casinos, they are planting seeds that can blossom into future problem gambling.

Those who opposed online gambling in its early days said they feared putting a casino in every living room. Now it seems the reality created by branded characters on slot machines is a living room in every casino.

For slot machines that use these common and familiar characters, it’s not about marketing to children but more about making adults feel like kids again.