The Stinger Report

The Stinger Report

Sand Trap for Golf Tournament!
Having revealed the news that the two leading video game prize tournament services were actively fighting fraudster attack - a story which had hoped to have been spiked within the tight circle of both parties - the Stinger Report now looks at the real implications of the fraud story.

As one of the operator of an international tournament network conceded, they had been compromised, with efforts now undertaken to ensure this never happens again. The defence to the announcement that members of the tournament had been ejected and that there were possible cases of tampering was down played, but the defence rang hollow concerning some affirmations. The claim that the attempted fraud detected had been low tech and over a short duration was open to criticism when the sum of $20,000, over a period four months was rumoured as more accurate.

Over US$12 million in cash prizes has been awarded since the International Tournament System (ITS) began in 1995. This vast amount of money has proven a strong allure to the less civically minded. To understand the full ramifications, we have to look at the issues that have been pushed under the carpet regarding the implications of fraud, and the methods that are being considered to protect the integrity and public image of the tournament systems. These factors are shaping the thinking for market leader IT, and are equally cogent for their competitor GlobalVR.

It has already been stated that with a calculated 2,500 connected tournament units it will be easier for GlobalVR to change their tournament ruling, while IT carrying out a 40,000 machine site check will be more daunting - checking home owner from those with public utilisation.

To avoid being accused of assisting the fraud of tournament machines, the Stinger has been careful not to provide precise descriptions of the various cheating methods and options employed, but we have been made aware of several loopholes in the structure of the golfing tournament systems.

In addition to the manipulation of the interface, either with a 'device' or by mechanically altering the original system, there has been information circulated regarding an external means to exceed the original specifications of the technology, and so offering an advantage to certain players. A group of these devices, in particular caught the Stinger's attention, as a growing industry in itself. The appearance of 'Gloves' that allowed greater drives - leading to the MOD (Monster Over Drive) effect. Evaluating the sector, TSR found four different purveyors of such specialist items offering when worn a greater contact with the trackball, creating a playing style which is shunned by the manufacturers. Operators having been advised to dissuade this practice, though the glove manufacturers look likely to consider action if they are excluded.

Another element outside of the manufacturers' control is that of information interchange. The danger of cross communication between gamers has also been perceived as another opportunity for possible player manipulation. Traditionally the national ITS tournament course conditions (winds, green slopes, and tee and pin placements) are updated every 24 hours, ensuring that a player had to play under fresh conditions each time as a means to negate the passing on of course lie. Also, new challenges are introduced throughout the 21 day event.

The intensive use of the various web based forum sites has negated this protection as specific course condition information was shared. The ability to offer a means to protect the fairness of this feature has now been employed by the use of a variable condition changer taking place every four hours on currently configured systems linked to the national tournament. The need to police the possible loopholes offering a level playing field for players across the network and has clearly become a much more intensive activity than originally perceived by the manufacturers; TSR going as far as speculating that the financial impact of policing this area as intensively crippling as the security needed to protect a major international corporation internet service.

The premise of the fraud behind the two tournaments and league ranking systems is that the machines were physically manipulated. The concept of a player pulling a machine away from the wall in his local bar, to fiddle in the back, has been deemed unlikely so the criticism has turned to the grey area of the homeowners that support the golf game tournament rankings (estimated to represent over 400 units of the 40,000 connected Incredible Technology machine sector). To be honest the whole question of homeownership of machines by players had been an uncomfortable issue. In the late Nineties when the first tournament aspirations of the golf brand took shape, operators made it clear that they were less than happy that there was a diehard group of non facility based players also involved with the tournament, and able to benefit from prizes. As time progressed it became obvious that the manufacturer was more interested in establishing a large installed base, rather than vetting who was doing what.

Private 'Leagues' popped up, seeing work colleagues and club members buying machines for their own private use, as well as expert players wanting to hone their skills. This made private ownership a ticklish subject. On one side the players on the whole were legitimate, going far beyond public machine support, spending considerably on their machines, including personal maintenance, and buying the various software updates. In recent years, to address the imbalance, and hopefully weed out private ownership, IT levied various charges against home-based tournament entrants. Today bars pay 75cents a game, while home operators pay $2.50 a game. Even this move was still downplayed, with executives of certain manufacturers going on the record to say that they had no plans to stop homeownership. Based on this promise, some home owners recently spent over $1,000 on the latest software update of their games.

But, with the revelation to the tournament community that fraud had been perpetrated, hopes of brushing the situation under the carpet vanished, and so a media and operator charm offensive was needed with sweeping statements being made:

"It was never our intention to allow players to compete on home machines," said Scott Morrison, executive director of IT's International Tournament System (ITS). "But with the explosive growth of the ITS in the past three years, some machines have slipped into the system under our radar screen. By allowing tournament play only in public establishments, we'll increase operator revenue, level the competitive playing field, and reinforce the integrity of our tournament system."

This statement vied against a December '03 forum interview from IT that confirmed that the company had no intention to remove homeownership. The 2003 document clearly belied any claim just three months later that IT management were unaware of the practice. Operators clearly approve the end of home-based golf game ownership, and they look forward to competition becoming exclusively available only in bars. Player resentment regarding changes made to the tournament prize structure also grows from the belief that the tournament operators favor the lower ranks (more frequent shorter games), rather than the top players. The loss of the home players removes for many Silver and Gold ranked players, their chance for continued placement, while for the operators and manufacturers this ‘whittling' will bring new players to the fore.

The problem is that announcing to the industry that you're going to root out the privately operated machines in the market, is one matter. The actual reality of finding these machines amongst an over 40,000 installed base, is another kettle of fish.

The situation is not as clearcut as if a machine were sold either as a privately owned machine, or a publicly operated machine. We have a complicated situation with the ability for constant software upgrades and reconfigured refurnished systems. The establishment of a down time tournament connection also muddies the water, as removing a machine from the network only to pop up again a few hours later with new data to impart into the tournament server is commonplace.

The ability to distinguish a 'home account' from a 'public account' is now an uphill struggle. The problem is complex, and also turns the spotlight on the thin divide between a residential home player, a salvaged public use machine, and a machine operated by a venue but used for private application on down time (free plays). We also have to assume that of the 40,000 plus machines live to the tournament a number of these will be second or even third hand ownerships, which though having been regularly updated on software revisions as an arcade system, what they are doing in reality are two different things.

The whole question of possible operator duplicity in the manipulation of their machines is a major factor in the uncomfortable grey area of the fraud issue. The long period between the notification concerning the validity of a number of scores noted on the international tournament system, not detected by management, but revealed to the manufacturer by repeated player email, speaks volumes. For many the home users are being unfairly targeted, while a larger hole regarding operation integrity is being papered over.

The question regarding the placement of the hardware is a factor in current thinking behind the durability of any of the prize oriented tournament systems, especially considering the liability of fraud across state lines, as covered in the 1998 Federal Wire Act. The ability for the hardware to be manipulated was supposed to be addressed by the encryption of all internal (hard disk) data. But the ability for the interface to be manipulated has shown an area of concern in the policing of machine operation.

As covered in this report, the use of a 'mechanism' to exceed the operational characteristics of the interface has proven innovative, if not difficult to police. However the removal of home systems makes the policing environment slightly less crowded, while the problems concerning how to actually 'tag', (date stamp and credit validate) each league or tournament play is another issue. A laborious process remains that will see each tournament machine's ID (registered details) checked against the phone number it uses to call in, with investigation of any discrepancies, though obviously susceptible to 'Call Forwarding' manipulation - just underlining the multitude of areas that need to be addressed when considering the security implications of tournament management.

An interesting aside saw certain operators being approached by home owners proposing leasing deals, that would see their home systems being installed in local bars, so making them legitimate systems in the eyes of the rules (public place, credit operation), but with the owner retaining his bragging rights and exclusive play options - this need to check not only the location but operation of a machine adding to the policing difficulties. One of the arguments behind the majority of comments on why players acquired home systems was the lack of serviceable systems in their area, the number of outdated software revisions, and faulty trackballs a core issue that the manufacturers will have to address to recoup lost home ownership revenue.

One well placed source stated that there had actually been a plan to discard the home owners with the late 2004 release of the next version of the golf game series. This would represent a major progression of the tournament and hardware operation (constantly connected) and would have negated the need for home players and fixate on the establishment of increased public facility utilization. The unwanted revelations of tournament fraud forced the manufacturer's hand, and though promised to be untouched, home game ownership was dropped, and the bleak realization of the difficulty of policing this older hardware made itself plain.

The need to actually validate the player rather than the machine seems an easier method to police. We now see the rules of the tournament altered to leave the manufacturers the ability to interrogate the player on demand – which avoids having to elevate each golf tournament machine to a standard of security of an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). The consideration of actually turning a tournament golf machine into a hybrid-ATM is not such a stupid idea, as with a broadband constant connection, photo capture of players, swipe card operation, and perhaps even with instant cash payout! The system would be a very attractive proposition - though falling dangerously into the creation of a North American equivalent to a VSWP - whether the imminent 'Golden Tee Next' will embrace what level of security is unknown.

What is being proposed is an increase use of VIP membership cards in logging on to tournament play. All the systems currently in operation - both touchscreen and conventional video prize systems - utilise a membership card facility, though at present none have required that a prize game need a mandatory card entry, the players ID information being sufficient at the moment to active the opportunity to enter the ranking.

Recent new tournament rules have made it possible to excommunicate, from the tournament ranking, any individual with links to the tournament operators, machine manufacturers, or those involved in the operation, sale and distribution of video tournament machines. The manufacturers who have instigated this ruling have said that they will however be considerate in this rules its use.

The current exercising of this initiative has been already demonstrated by the ejecting of a number of individuals from the tournament membership (days after the original eight fraudsters), regarding another problem with the current structure of the employed tournament system. The ability exists for players to actually have other players play their games if they have divulged the details of their membership to them. Without an actual 'tag' of the player then this danger exists, and the tournament operators have found that they have had to greatly increase their policing activities to a point that they will be physically interrogating players and machine operators in spot visits in order to deter fraud.

An example of the need to monitor the members that are registered to the various tournaments is obvious when Stinger sources were informed that a backlash against restrictive tournament rules has seen a number of highly ranked players' re-reregistering using a multitude of profane names as their ID. The rebellion by players that have supported the various tournaments for a maximum of three years is not to be taken lightly. For IT, the danger now is that draconian tournament policing could act against competitive systems.

The usual number of complaints have appeared on the golf internet forum sites with the backlash against tournament rules to the fraud allegations, comments have ranged from the boycotting of the game machines, and to the sale of their expensive hardware. Player anger is high that the manufacturers waited until just after they had all updated their machines with the latest software download as the time to reneg on their gentlemen's agreement to continue permitting home game ownership. The backlash is brewing, especially as the reasons for playing (the prize money) is affected by delays as the scrutiny on player credentials increases.

The manufacturers are however aware of the dangers of alienating such a vigorous and vocal percentage of their player base, especially in the middle of a drive to enlarge the number of installed systems. In an attempt to placate the players that owned their own machines and were considering action (regarding manufacturer encouragement to acquire the latest software download only to have home ownership that uses this tournament software made illegal), the manufacturer has proposed a refund, if the owners write in (accommodatingly supplying their details) about the software purchase, while avoiding any culpability for the whole home ownership position.

In a recent communication with a home game owner an IT executive stated "...it will affect our revenue negatively [homeowner banning]. But it's the right thing to do. It makes it more difficult for cheaters; levels the competitive playing field, and brings the game back to the bars where it was designed to be played." This obviously did not negate the anger of the high ranking player, who had purchased a home machine to ensure his high score and prominent league placement. It was made clear in later messages at a particular forum that the feeling was that the majority of leading Silver and Gold Ranking players were also home owners!

The death of the home owned machines will mean a flood of two and three year old tournament connected machines appearing on the market. This is incredibly galling for some home players as they had already coughed up the price to acquire the Golden Tee 2005 upgrade. And it remains galling, even with the refund possibility. The phrase used by one distributor informed of the new IT ruling was "...it's going to start raining IT Dead Wood!" - when further pressed it was revealed that there was a finite market in second hand IT cabinetry, especially that which has been used by home players (many of whom will have performed domestic operation conversions), and revealed serious concern on this glut's affect on the price of IT hardware. Some operators were extremely unhappy about the possibility of not making a good return on Golden Tee systems as second hand offers in a market that is awash with ex-domestic systems.

The distributor approached by TSR made one parting comment - regarding the possibility that the home owners would not all be rushing to their local distributor to place their now useless machine on their books, but being more technically savvy would more likely be selling them on eBay - the Internet auction site. With this observation, the Stinger visited eBay to see if this was the case. Just a few days after IT and GVR had posted their announcements outlawing tournament home ownership, there were 37 Golden Tee machines and JAMMA kits available for sale on eBay. The majority of these machines had appeared from the 17th of February, and the number was increasing. By the following week the number of machines on eBay had doubled, while a number of web based distributor and amusement sale services were also benefiting from the windfall of those home players, who were beginning to clear their game rooms and dens of an estimated 400 Golden Tee machines.

Another hidden issue regarding the deadwood selling spree is that amongst these machines could well be at least eight of the systems which have been ITS restricted, cited as systems involved in the originally revealed February 4th fraud. The manufacturer has a method to identify which machine has been discounted, but will not share this information. This means that an operator could be scammed into buying them and unable to update or use them on the ITS. A respected and registered means to sell the avalanche of ex-home machines is needed to ensure that a large supply of golf machines does not cripple the whole infrastructure of golf machine sales for others.

Away from the issues covered above, the one hurdle that needs to be surmounted by those running North American prize payout tournaments is achieving a better line of communication with the industry and players. Those manufacturers involved in policing the current issues surrounding their tournament security are obviously reticent to discuss their various defenses against fraud. But there is the issue that it was not their security measures at the time that alerted them to the breach, but repeated efforts of two forums and three tournament ranked members to bring to the company's attention the fraud.

The Stinger has been able to communicate with those involved in this revelation (during the 4th of February 2004), and have learned that this was not the first time that a question regarding a possible loophole in the security was raised. TSR is now investigating how many occasions tournament fraud was reported. It was the Stinger's initial feature that stung one manufacturer into action as our reciprocal relationship with the two leading print media saw them running the original report, and demanded an announcement.

The Stinger Report is provided to Highwaygames by Kevin Williams, the publisher of "The Stinger Report" and is not to be represented by any other media. To read the full articles and information, please visit www.thestingerreport.com.