And my belief is, the reason why they did that is because they could legally 'RAM-clear' the machine. 'Sometimes machines were … the game was changed, or the moving of that machine was changed. If a machine's Random Access Memory (RAM) was cleared, its lifespan would begin again. The former workers said that poker machine wins were theoretically supposed to be random, but in reality they operated on an algorithm which was often designed to give out less money at the start of the machine's programmed lifespan - which could be decades. And it was just told to me that this was a directive, and that it needed to be complied to Machines had their play history cleared to reduce mandatory payouts 'I do remember having a conversation with telling him this is just not right. The pick was too wide to do that, so what they asked us to do was to get the cap of the button and to start shaving it down. 'The gap between the housing of the buttons and the gap wasn't wide enough to be able to put that pick into. When a new version of machine came out, the plastic pieces no longer fit in place, so workers were allegedly told to tamper with the buttons.

This allowed continuous play on pokies - a practice banned in Victoria. Patrons were given plastic picks to jam buttons down for continuous spinsĪccording to the whistleblowers' interview, Crown gave out blue pieces of plastic, similar to guitar picks, that patrons used to jam buttons in place.

Can poker machines be rigged