Triple Diamond Keno Cheat

[knagl]

From the old site, from a thread that started on November 6, 2007:

Does anyone know how to spot the Triple Diamond Keno Cheat talked about in IGT Customer Notification 3699?

Post the notification.

is CN3699 old? the current CN's are well into the 4000's

If it is old, you can be assured all the games on the casino floor have been changed

He's from Costa Rica -- it's possible they have older machines there that haven't been updated.

I found a little blurb about it in an old IGT newsletter on the web.  It's dated August of 2003, and says, "MANDATORY – Firmware replacement: Disabling Triple Diamond Keno game in Game King 4.0 firmware; Game King machine"

No idea what the cheat is, but it looks like a solution is to simply disable the game on your Game King machines -- remove it from the list of available games for your players.  Anyone know what the deal with that situation was?

The CN would probably be pretty vague... player initates certain buttons in certain order.. rare occourance.. extrodinary circumstances.. that's some of the favorite CN sayings.

Yep, you are all correct. I do still have this game on my floor - although Triple Diamond Keno is now disactivated. Here is the CN

2009 note: this author attached CN3699B.pdf which could not be obtained to add to this archived thread

Nice!

There's a veritable fountain of usable information in that document!     

After a lot of digging, I found a little more about this.  Nothing specific, but a little more.

Source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2003/sep/02/515555916.html

September 02, 2003

IGT reports glitch in keno game
LAS VEGAS SUN
International Game Technology has notified slot operators statewide that a certain keno game has a glitch that allows gamblers to play the machines for free.

IGT notified the state Gaming Control Board about the games and state regulators ordered the company to notify casinos, convenience stores and other gaming licensees that operate them.

The notification involved at least 200 slot machine-like games called Triple Diamond Keno.

Slot malfunctions don't happen often but do occur because it is nearly impossible to test every possible game outcome in the field before installing devices in casinos, IGT Vice President of Marketing Ed Rogich said.

The Control Board's chief of enforcement, Keith Copher, agreed but said the board hasn't seen any glitch of this kind "in a couple of years."

Glitches are eventually discovered fairly quickly through accounting reports casinos send to the Control Board, Rogich said.

In this case, machines that were programmed to return a certain percentage to players over time were returning more than is normal, he said.

Some operators may still be operating the machines because it's up to them to shut them down or remove them after they have been notified, Rogich said.

IGT and the Control Board confirmed that the glitch somehow returned coins to players. They declined to elaborate.

The games are older machines that accept coins and don't use paper voucher systems that have become popular in recent years.

My Game King has this "Triple Diamond Keno" game on it and I tried playing all game options and I could not duplicate the malfunction. Everything seems to be working OK. Maybe I'm missing something, who know's.

You'd probably need to know what specifically to do to activate the cheat.  It could be somethng like pressing "menu" while the game is still selecting numbers, or some specific combination of number selections and/or button presses.  "Who knows" is exactly right -- I'm sure there's a handful of people out there who might remember, but the odds of them also being on NLG is very slim.  I'd be curious if you do ever figure it out.

[knagl]

Now, the reason why I brought this thread back from the dead is because I just stumbled upon a little more information about the cheat.  Apparently it would only apply to multi-denomination machines.  Still not quite enough to run with, but some more information and some clues.  This seems to have been posted on the 'net around 2004:

Video Keno Flaw
By now, IGT has probably swapped all of the bad chips in the Keno games.  If you haven't been in the know, that you probably don't know that certain IGT Keno games had a flaw that allowed them to be cheated.  Basically (without giving it away) IGT introduced a "new" keno variation and the flaw allowed a person to put in a certain coin that didn't match the denomination that the machine was set on, and if you did certain things when the coin was dropping into the machine, it would register the coin with the higher denomination!

Imagine putting in the smallest denomination on a multi-denom machine and having the machine register it was the highest denomination on that machine!  Even if you didn't bother playing any Keno, you could make a lot of money just feeding in small coins, hitting the cash out button, and then taking the ez-pay slip to the cage.  Even better was hitting a nice jackpot at the higher denom when playing with very little money.

In a hush-hush move, IGT notified everyone to disable that particular keno variation, until they could get new chips out to people.

[Brianzz]

I'll see if I can dig up that CN when I get back to work, don't have any on this computer

[Brianzz]

Didn't have it in my files here either, got everything but..  must've gotten lost when my laptop crashed a few months ago

[StatFreak]

Didn't have it in my files here either, got everything but..  must've gotten lost when my laptop crashed a few months ago

 

No backups? 

[Brianzz]

What is a back-up?

[StatFreak]

What is a back-up?

Well, your laptop crashed, right? So you could also say that it was involved in a crash...
Well, if the crash your computer was involved in was the result of your putting the laptop on the garage floor and driving your truck forward over your computer when you really meant to leave the house and go to the store, you could say that your computer crashed because you didn't back up!!    
<ADD> 

SF 

[Brianzz]

worse than bad pot, it was bad porn I think 

[StatFreak]

worse than bad pot, it was bad porn I think 

    Say it isn't so! There's no such thing as bad porn! ..uh, or was that: "There's no such thing as good porn" ?

[neednoreason]

I know all about the triple diamond keno glitch/cheat... it was awesome back in 02'-03' 
It had nothing to do with your the denomination by the way, it was basically like betting for free. I'm almost positive there isn't any triple diamond keno machines that have the glitch left in Nevada, me and my friends went all over the state in search for them(even some native casinos in other states), if any are left it would be small convenience stores or bars... a few casinos have triple diamond keno back on their game kings, but the cheat doesn't work anymore, also these days its hard to find major casinos where the main part of the glitch would even work in anymore.

[theDotster]

Hi,

Great to hear from someone who knows how this worked.

So how does this 'glitch' get initiated and whar does it actually do??

[neednoreason]

Alright, how the triple diamond glitch works is;

first off the machine has to accept coins, if not it wont work.

place your bet, pick your numbers, and press start, the first bet or anytime you change your bet or numbers you will lose that games bet... after that first game, drop a coin(whatever denomination it takes, nickles, quarters, etc) into the coin slot at the same time you press the start button, the game will take however much you bet and the coin you drop into the machine will not show up while the keno balls are being chosen by the machine, but once the game is over it will give you back your bet, it will register the coin dropped in, and will give you whatever you won if anything during the game.

for example you have $20.00 in a machine and your playing quarters and it accepts quarters, you place a bet of 4 quarters ($1.00) and start that game, and don't win anything. you now have a $19.00 balance, but for the second game you drop a quarter in at about the same time you press start, while the balls are being picked your balance shows $18.00, and lets say don't win anything during the game, at the end of that game your balance will now be $19.25. now lets say for the third game you win 4 quarters, then your balance would be $20.50... so as long as you don't run out of quarters you can keep playing those same numbers for as long as you want, even if you never win your balance wont decrease.

there is a slight timing to the coin drop but it doesn't take any kind of skill, and a few times at first you will press the start button too early and the coin will just drop thru the machine and not be accepted, or drop it too early and it will register on your balance before the game starts.

the worst thing is triple diamond keno has terrible pay back, so sometimes you might go thru 20 or more games without winning at all, but I've hit 7 out of 7 and a few of my friends have too, also a friend hit 6 out of 6 during the bonus game for 3x times pay. so it does hit, normally i used to just pick 4 numbers because its easy to hit 2 out of 4 and at least see your money increase. best thing to do is be patient, everyone has a tendency to win a few hundred playing triple diamond keno and then play a different game and lose... also there is a lil paranoia while playing since you will always be winning from the same machines and drooping in the coins, but since the point of gambling is to put money in, bet, and press the button, i don't think there is any way they could charge you with anything if you were to get caught, other then keep what you've won on that machine(since malfunction voids all pays and plays).

also if you find a machine i would suggest not telling anyone at all, that was my biggest mistake... 

[knagl]

Very interesting.  I'll have to try it on my friends' Game King.  Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I can't imagine any of these are still on the casino floor anywhere -- in 2003 IGT sent out that memo saying that the firmware needed to be upgraded to disable the game.

[jay]

What platform was this on ?? PE+

[knagl]

Game King.

[neednoreason]

all of the last few machines i found were in small convenience stores, and they were normally smaller denominations like nickles or dimes... and its really noticeable when you completely fill up a the coin over flow with $400 in nickles in a small place like a convenience store.

there have been a lot of regular casinos that have triple diamond again, but most don't accept coins, and the ones that do the glitch doesn't work and they actually seems to have better payback compared to the glitched machines.

BTW... i also had a friend go to some Indian casinos in new mexico and said that they had triple diamond machines but they didn't work in the usual "coin drop" way, but they SUPPOSIDLY found out from someone they met there a different way of initiating the glitch, but it sounded really weird and difficult and i didn't believe him at all(i have a lot of friends that are full of BS).

[knagl]

Well, I went to my friend's shop and tried it on his Game King.... IT WORKED!  At the end of the game, it gave credit for the coin inserted, PLUS refunded the cost of the game, every time.  What a hoot.

[theDotster]

Nice work. Did you have to insert one new coin every game or just the once?

Unfortunatley I couldn't get it to work. Is there a version number or something to check your friends against mine?

[knagl]

Once each game.  It seemed to be like how on the S+ or PE+ if you sneak an extra coin in that at the end of the game it will spit a coin back out at you -- it was a similar thing, but it was adding it to the credit meter, but it was putting the number of credits back at the state they were at the start of the game and then adding the inserted coin to the meter.

I'll find out what version of chips he has soon. 

[theDotster]

Thanks.

Mine is labelled 'G0001053' and dated 1997. I'm guessing too old for this. Or is is because mine is  a multi game?

I've just tried all four different payback percentages to see if that makes a difference, but none of them work.

[knagl]

It'll be sometime next week that I can check.  His is a multi-game machine with different denominations set up (and different games on the different denoms).

[kforeman]

i'm curious if anyone ever found out the game and base program numbers for this glitch?  thanks