How Casinos Test Their Games
Many people don’t realize that before a game can join the casino floor, it must be rigorously tested. Not just to ensure fairness, but so that companies can ensure there are no bugs that could result in an individual winning more than intended. But how do casinos test their games?
Brick-and-mortar casinos utilize a combination of employees, dedicated testers, and college students to test their games. Online casinos often allow customers to test their games for free. Read on to learn more.
1. Dedicated Game Testers
This is the most common way casinos have their games tested. Whether you realize it or not, there are several companies dedicated to game design, the most famous of which is Scientific Gaming, and these companies employ testers to test all games.
For example, Scientific Games designs many table-top gaming suites—those ones you find at the bar. They make them in their factory before traveling to install them at a bar that has purchased the machines. Once the games are installed, a dedicated employee from Scientific Games will play several rounds to ensure they are configured correctly.
Many times, these employees have specific computer algorithms they can run, using a device they plug in, allowing them to play several games in rapid succession to ensure the full range of the game suite is up to par.
2. Employees
After dedicated testers from the company that designed the games, the next most common way brick-and-mortar casinos test their games is via dedicated employees. Many casinos have testers on staff who will check out new games. These same testers often train and test human dealers—ensuring that the dealer won’t break the rules or make frequent mistakes.
Online casinos occasionally have employees that fit this capacity as well, though it is only typical of the larger gambling websites, as smaller ones don’t typically have the funds to hire a dedicated employee.
Occasionally, online casinos will hire an agency to audit their website, and often these agencies provide a temporary dedicated tester who will perform several tests over multiple days before making their final decision on whether the site needs more development or not.
3. College Students
Yes, college students, specifically those who are studying the gaming business and game management, are often used to test new games and techniques for casinos. While this is a much more rare case than those listed above, it does happen in cities with a large amount of gaming establishments, namely Las Vegas.
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas is one of the few places in the world where you can get degrees in gaming. The most famous are Master of Hospitality Administration (with a focus on gaming), Gaming Management, and Gaming Law. All of these tracks of study require courses in gaming, and many require internships at casinos. While the exact duties of the internship will vary, many include the students following pit bosses and game floor managers, and helping them test games, track chips, and more.
4. Customers
In general, only online casinos use customers to test their games—often offering a small amount of free play, or play money for customers to familiarize themselves with the game before putting their money on the line.
The reality is, online casinos often have small start-up budgets, so they can’t utilize employees like brick-and-mortar casinos can. But although they rely on customers to test, they know it’s a big job and that dangerous bugs are out there. As such, most online casinos have a bug bounty program—meaning if you are able to find a bug and report it instead of exploiting it, they will pay you for doing so. Many of the ones we’ve seen start at $8,000 or $10,000 USD, meaning you could make a decent freelance career out of finding bugs on gaming websites.
Not only that, but if you’re really good, Google also has a reputable bug reporting program, offering those who find bugs in their algorithm $50,000 USD per bug.
5. AI
Of course, with the rise of AI, many casinos have turned toward using AI to test their games. It’s important to remember that this is not the same as the algorithms used by official testers early in the list. Rather, when AI tests games, it takes the place of the tester, running the algorithms without any input from a human.
As you can imagine, this is much cheaper for companies, however it is not safer. Unfortunately, the rate of error is still quite high with AI alone. As such, most big casinos still use a human tester, even if they allow their tester to use AI tools to test. In our opinion, while AI is developing more and more every day, it isn’t safe enough to use without human intervention yet.
6. Research Groups
Now, if there is a completely new game being added to the floor (such as when they made War a casino-friendly table game), the casinos will often look toward focus groups to test their games.
This is not because research groups are able to find bugs, but because a casino needs to know how popular a game will be before they divert funds to train employees to run those games.
Therefore, as you can imagine, this testing is quite different than those mentioned above. This isn’t so much testing for accuracy as marketability. You might be surprised to learn there are many casino games that have been invented that aren’t offered at casinos—mostly because during testing, the casinos found they weren’t popular enough to warrant adding to their floors.
Don’t get too excited, though, thinking that you can sign up to gamble for research. This testing is much different than those mentioned above. Oftentimes, it is merely a survey, or a document the tester reads through, marking which games they would play when presented with options, and what signs/colors are more attractive to them.
Overall, casinos use lots of tools to test their games. If you have a passion for gaming and want to test games, your best bet is to attend university for a gaming degree or head to an online casino to use their free play!
