is gambling legal in the 2060's? any area restrictions? thanks

Err... where ? Each country, state, district can have his own distinct law. Gambling is legal in Las Vegas, Ute. In Washington DC, the only casino have been able to open only because it was tucked in a extraterritorial building. In Seattle there are three authorized casino (the Seward Club downtown, The Gates In Bellevue and a third unammed one AFAIK).

FYI - Gambling will feature in this year's Culture Shock section of SOTA64 (about half way down the page).

How do they prevent magical cheating? Or technological for that matter.

Ways to cheat on the casino floor that are not available today.

Black jack. High int, cerebral booster, math SPU, headwear memory (to record used cards). Perhaps even some softer in the head to help you and counting 5 decks becomes trivial, 15 would be achievable. More with the software (and its not big software).

An assistant with telescopic vision and an encrypted headwear cell phone can look over an opponents shoulder in a game of poker from a long way away and call you with there cards (provided they don’t hold there cards to close to the chest).

A mage with a force 1 clairvoyance spell can look at his opponents cards even more easily.

Rulet can be manipulated with a magic fingers spell (not with the upmost precision but enough to shift the balance well in your favour).

If the mage has masking only an initiate can detect it and from what I have read initiates are quite rare and most don’t work in security.

Edward

Magic probably is easy to stop, have company mages monitor for any use or someone going astral to assess opponents.

And remember that the largest part of a casino is slot machines (not nesesarily where the most mony comes in, but still the most popular). I don't think cyber or magic is going to have much of an influence on them, especialy the digital ones.

Table games are a bit easier to mess with. The spells and tricks could work, but are not tolerated. One of the Native American Nations books talked about Vegas and gambling, and most won't even let mages in the door. I suspect descrete cyberware scanners would be at the entrances as well, to stop those with radios and math things, or at least mark them to be watched closely.

If they do let you in with them, use them at your own risk.

I've been thinking about this a bit. I would imagine no one awakened is allowed in, and blackjack and poker aren't run by the house anymore (too easy to cheat with cyberware). But slot machines, roulette, etc are all perfectly doable as long as you keep the mages out. Probably watcher spirits in the astral with commands to report if they see anyone trying to astrally project or cast spells or something.

JaronK

It's stupid easy to catch people counting cards at blackjack, my dad used to do it for a living. There's specific betting patterns the people have to follow to make money counting cards, and any dealer on a competent table with high bets allowed is counting the cards himself. If he spots a person betting more when the count is high then he just waits till the person makes a big money bet then immediately shuffles the cards before the deal. The player turns white and most of the time loses his money.

Happens in the real world all the time, particularly at big cash tables.

Most likely, if the counter is spotted, he will be told to leave and escorted out.

I could see scams involving cards that differences on the back only visible on thermal scanners, plus the ability to record where cards are going on the shuffle with advanced cameras and headware computers. Also, the same technology that stops you from twitching around while jacked in could keep your face from showing tells.

JaronK

Keeping track of a shuffle is basically impossible, as even casinos now days pretty much all use automated shufflers and you can't physically see the cards during a shuffle. Incidentally, these shufflers were not really introduced because of cheating, but because of repetative stress syndrome on the part of the dealers. Shuffling repeatedly contributed to carpal tunnel.

Just assessing your opponent would give you a big advantage in a poker game. As would knowing your opponent was doing so when you have masking.


Edward