Only being out to Las Vegas once in the last 40 years, I was shocked how big "video poker" had become in this town. According to this episode, it began in the mid 1980s and by the end of the decade, it was really big, raking in millions per year. In fact it was stated that "the machines" - slots and video poker - accounted for half of LV's annual seven-million-dollar gambling profits!
So, I guess it was no surprise that someone - some company - would "gaff" or rig their machines to get a higher profit. In this case, it meant fewer jackpot (a royal flush) payoffs on the poker machines. The public isn't that dumb, though. It didn't take long for people to complain. "Hey, these machines aren't paying off as much," it was reported on this program.
Sure enough, after a Nevada Gaming Board investigation, it was shown that American Coin Enterprises was guilty. The real crime case on this episode isn't just that, it's the fact that the programmer who tampered with the machine "chip" got a guilty conscience, confessed what his bosses ordered him to do, and soon was shot to death before he could testify in court! In the end, nobody went to jail for anything! The only lesson learned was, "don't rat on anyone or you'll pay for it." So much for cleaning up Las Vegas. (Of course, this happened almost 20 years ago and no such gambling scandal has been revealed since, so, hopefully things are on the up-and-up.)
Anyway, it's no consolation to Ron Volk and his family because he's dead, but the crooked slot machine company was put out of the business, and its two owners left the state. In 1997, the man who shot Volk became Born Again and confessed he, indeed, killed Mr. Volk, but it was too late to re-try him. As mentioned, everyone knows what happened, who the guilty parties - which include several bigwigs of American Coin, but nothing was done and nobody seems to care. That's Vegas.
Also in the show are interviewed with longtime residents, ordinary people like "cook e. jarr." One of the people claimed the town was better when the gangsters ran it prior to 1970. You know, he may be right: at least people dressed up and it was a classy place, unlike today.
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