A Glimpse Inside a Vegas Casino Data Center

Do the data centers operated by Las Vegas casinos look like the high-tech facilities from the "Ocean's 11" films? Not exactly. But even without the Hollywood gloss, there's plenty of interesting work going inside the data centers operated by the Las Vegas Sands Corp. Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau provides a look inside the data center at The Sands. Steve Vollmer, chief technology officer and vice president of IT for the Sands, says the casinos' armada of slot machines are all tied together by an IP network. An excerpt:

Every action on a slot machine is recorded, producing a small amount of data that is sent to the server. "We know exactly what's in that slot machine right now," Vollmer said.The gambling outcomes are determined by algorithms that generate millions of random combinations and those algorithms remain on the slot machine. The algorithms, which determine whether you win or lose and feel either lucky or stupid, can generate millions of random numeric combinations and are on the slot machine. The gambling decisions are made by the slot machine, not the server, said Vollmer.

For more, read "The surprising secret of a Las Vegas data center" at ComputerWorld.