Just How Programmable Are Slot Machines?

Nope - intentional “near-miss” skewing is generally frowned upon. It’s possible, however, that symbols on physical reels or secondary game spinners (coughwheel of fortunecough) are weighted somewhat so that the highest value symbol on a (for example) 25-position reel might only come up once in a hundred spins. In such a case, symbols on either side of the high value symbol will be weighted differently and could come up 3-7 times as often as their adjacent high-value symbol. No game I’ve ever made (one) which had weighting like this worked this way; if either symbol next to the “super 7” came up on the payline it was because that symbol had the same weighting as the “super 7” and it wasn’t the other instances of those symbols on the reel which have weightings six times as large.

There’s a lot of scrutiny on this kind of thing by the authorities, because people do have the perception that the machines are programmed to tease.