Oct 11, 2006 By Alison Hawkes For The 5 min read

HARRISBURG – On the 10th floor above a downtown Harrisburg shopping center is a half-empty office space with peeling carpet and two spectacles: a fantastic view of the Capitol and two rows of flashy slot machines. The space is the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s new testing lab for slots, where employees are fool-proofing the glitzy machines by “exercising” the games with $20 bills or vouchers to force certain outcomes.

The games must not only spit out a jackpot when players, say, hit three pineapples and two bananas. They also must give customers a minimum of 85 percent winnings over a period of time, statistically speaking.

And the machines must report the winnings and losses electronically, in real time, to the board’s central system where tax revenue will be computed daily and retrieved from the gambling operators by wire transfers within a matter of hours.

“Pennsylvania is the first of the large-scale jurisdictions to have a central system,” said Maureen Williamson, deputy chief counsel of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. “Pennsylvania will be arguably the most auditable.”

As the state’s gambling regulators gear up for the launch of the first slots parlors at racetracks starting next month at Pocono Downs outside of Wilkes-Barre, they are seeking to show just how secure and reliable the new industry will be. Both in the way customers will play fair games and the way the state will collect its fair share of gambling revenues to further property tax relief.

Williamson and her husband Richard Williamson, who is director of the gaming laboratory, are the gaming board’s most prized duo with a combined 50 years of experience in gambling regulation, mostly in New Jersey.

They are helping to launch slot parlors in Pennsylvania that will be among the most fully computerized and automated in the country. They will be all cash and vouchers, with no avalanche of coins (although some of the machines will still make that sound). Many represent the latest technology has to offer, with high resolution screens that look like video games that can be changed to new themes with a simple download from a distant computer.

As a point of comparison, Richard Williamson said they would be scrutinized and tested in a manner far more rigorous than electronic voting machines. Williamson sat for a year on a New Jersey board reviewing voting machines and said he “was not comfortable with the process.”

For example, slot machines will have advanced encryption technologies to ensure no unexpected changes in software as well as requirements and that they retain a play if the power goes out.

“Slot machines are very robust devises because those companies want a competitive edge,” Williamson said. “The last thing they want is people to feel the machine took advantage of them … There’s no (such) money involved in voting machines.”

There are essentially four systems made by gambling machine manufacturers in Pennsylvania: the Aristocrat, IGT, and two from Bally. But each has thousands of different themes and plays that achieve different winning percentages.

The laboratory eventually will be examining the underlying math to all the different games and then testing them to see that they achieve the proscribed results, according to Richard Williamson.

All individual play amounts are allowed under the law, from 5-cents to $1,000.

“I end up being a consumer advocate,” said Williamson, who said he is not a gambler.

On the other side of the launching process, Maureen Williamson is working with operators to set up floor plans that are both safe for emergency evacuations and allow under-aged people to use the facility without traversing the gaming floor.

She’s also checking to make sure the operators’ plans meet state regulations on everything from the placement of security cameras to accounting controls over the logging of customer wire transfers.

For example, if a player wins more than $1,200 at any one time, the game is supposed to lock out and attendants come requiring a tax report to the Internal Revenue Service.

All this is happening even before final the gaming board makes its decisions on which 14 of the 22 applicants will be issued licenses.

“The gaming companies are used to assuming the risk,” said Maureen Williamson. “If we’re moving forward with the floor plans, that doesn’t impact at all the suitability decisions.”

After the licenses are issued, the next step is the test day, in which the gambling facilities will open to a closed crowd for a test run to make sure all systems are a go. That test day could turn into multiple days; an assigned board member gives the final signature needed to open to the public.

All the regulations have their purpose. And the Williamsons have seen it all, such as a customer who taped down the switch in a machine so it continued to pay out a jackpot, or customers who tilted the reels to fake a win and then complained the machines malfunctioned or a manufacturer who created machines that only displayed near jackpot misses to stoke customers into continued playing.

The Borgata in Atlantic City, N.J., was the first casino to go all-voucher in July 2003, a change that Richard Williamson said goes a long way to eliminating the scams. But there will probably be more.

“I’m not overly confident,” said a skeptical Williamson. “I’m confident all systems are going to work.”

Up in the gaming laboratory is an alluring video poker game with a changing screen of gorgeous virtual male and female dealers. Richard Williamson said he’s asked the manufacturer to disconnect the player spots from on another, so each player only plays the machine and not each other.

Setting aside that change, Pennsylvania gamblers will be able to play virtual table games and maybe even roulette (although not the real thing). That is, as long as the games pay out 85 percent in winnings.

Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com.