And that’s the thing. One person may claim a machine is “hot” so will keep on playing it. Another will look for a machine that hasn’t paid out in awhile because he figures it’s “due.” Who’s right?
And the minimum and average payout rates are, at least in many states, published and available to the public. Usually, the more expensive the slots, the better the payout rates. In Illinois, the average payout rate is 93-95%.
Also, there was (is?) a software engineer on this board that works/worked with a slot machine manufacturer. This thread may be of interest.
I’m actually referring to the law of large numbers; I couldnt’ remember the term before. Here’s a link. And it actually does mean that over time the deviation from “neutral” will increase, in absolute terms, though the percentage will trend ever closer to 50%.
The relevant quote:
"However, it is important that while the average will move closer to the underlying probability, in absolute terms deviation from the expected value will increase. For example, after 1000 coin flips, we might see 520 heads. After 10,000 flips, we might then see 5096 heads. The average has now moved closer to the underlying .5, from .52 to .5096. However, the absolute deviation from the expected number of heads has gone up from 20 to 96. "
Therefore, the loser who expects that if he just plays long enough he can get closer to breaking even is fooling himself. It is more likely that the number of coin flips (or pulls of a slot machine lever) needed to do so will only increase, and keep increasing.
This is a misleading stat also that a lot of people believe. A 96% payout makes people assume that if they toss $100 in a slot and play it all night they should expect on average to walk away with $96. It doesn’t work that way.
It’s an average of a 96% return “per spin”. Average that out with any starting amount and you’ll be down to $0 long before you reach a million spins.
It’s like taking compound interest in reverse.
96% of $100 = $96, 96% of $96 = $92.16, 96% of $92.16 = $88.47, etc. etc.
Keep in mind that the modern penny slot is a bit of a misnomer. While it may technically be possible to play for just a penny, they have multiple betting lines with multiple credits possible per line and often the biggest jackpots are available only at the maximum bet or on the last available betting line. So something may be in the penny section but you’ll probably be playing at least a 20 cents a spin (one unit each line, with 20 being a pretty common minimum number of lines) up to $4 or $5 a spin if you max out.
The visceral advantage of all these lines is that they have you “winning” more often, in that there are fewer spins where you get absolutely nothing back but most of those “wins” are for less than your bet.
One other reason I am drawn to some of the newest machines is that they really have some remarkable display technology involved mixing screens, transparent projection, and physical elements in interesting ways.
My last day trip to Reno I spent a fair amount of time on the new Ghostbusters machine just because it was interesting to watch it all work.
For one thing, one person can’t do anything in one night “on average”.
But I think it’s accurate to say that if 2 people each put $100 in a machine, and one leaves with $192 and one leaves with $0, that machine has an average payout rate of 96%.
That is true in the general case, but in this specific case (and I do this trick also) you are putting a cap on losses but not on winnings.
Say you have decided you can afford to lose $20 on slots. You play for a while and get lucky, and win $30, and now have $50. Most people put that $30 in a different bucket than the $20, and while they would never start saying they are willing to lose $50, at this point they are willing to keep playing until they go bust, which actually means they have lost $50, since they could walk away with that amount. While BoBettie puts the money in different pockets, what she is actually doing is sticking with her initial goal of limiting losses to $20. So, if after hitting $50 she loses every time thereafter, she’d quit after losing $20 from the amount she had at the high water mark. Sure he winds up with a profit of $30, but that is measured from the beginning of the session. Measured from when she had $50, she still lost $20.
Of course she might lose $20 right from the get-go, but in her method her losses - real losses - are limited to $20 a session, while playing the normal way your losses are nearly unlimited, and can be much greater than $20 a session.
If you consider it as a random walk, which it is, you are basically setting an out of bound zone $20 from the origin, and then resetting the origin as you move into positive territory.
The downside is that you play less and have to walk away.
That’s awesome. Was it the group of ~4 machines in El Dorado across from the crappy, crappy Brew Brothers bar? I should say what I mentioned above happened at that spot and she’s done it multiple times, although I only witnessed one time.
I know the slots odds and I know probabilty, I also know that when I use slots maybe 3-4 times a year I win. Someone has to why not me? Just let someone else lose a shit load before I play, I take advantage of Their bad luck.
I didn’t know anything about these fun “Bonuses” that some of you mentioned. Do these reveal themselves only after you’ve played the same machine for a certain length of time?
No they’re completely random. Sometimes you can play your $20, be down to $0 and never hit a bonus screen. Other times you’ll hit several bonus screens for your $20.
They never seem to be HUGE amounts but when you’re playing 50 cents a spin (50 credits on a penny machine) and you hit a bonus screen a get !700 credits! ($7) it feels like a big deal.
The “theme” ones, like “The Price is Right”, can be fun if you’re familiar with the show.
In any case, the answer is simple; don’t play “all” of the lines. If a line is so convoluted that you won’t notice if you would have won the jackpot had the symbols landed on it, then don’t worry about it.
Note that you are describing penny and nickel slots. “Traditional” slot machines, with three reels (although the handles now all seem to be gone - probably so they can fit the machines closer together - so they’re not “one-armed bandits” any more), exist, but these tend to take quarters and up (and, in most cases, you need to play at least three of whatever the machine’s denomination is in order to have a chance to win the jackpot).
Some California Tribal casinos have these as well. When you play, you’re playing against other people playing the same machine at the same time. It is, in effect, a game of Bingo; the person who gets the Bingo will be the one that hits the jackpot.
They can be completely random and simply get triggered by having spun. Most are triggered by specific outcomes on the reels. There are some bonus games where if any one player in the bank of machines trigger it then everybody in that bank of machines gets to play (if they were actively playing, it isn’t like someone can see this happen and the hop on an empty machine). Sometimes it is just free spins, sometimes it is little mini games, sometimes it is something complex and slow.
The key is, that even in this bonus games everything is still just random chance (though many will have an element of self determination in that you can choose to stop the mini-game and collect what you have so farl; for example the Deal or No Deal machine where the bonus game was essentially getting to play a faster version of the TV show; it was up to you how far you wanted to push things; but still ultimately random). Maybe you’re picking hats and collecting the value under it until you pick the one with a COLLECT BONUS under it.
Some games have just one bonus game that can be triggered, others have many little side paths you can go down. But as with all things gambling, the house evens things out. So if there is a lot of money in the bonuses you’ll tend to see smaller individual payouts on the actual spins.
The aforementioned Lord of the Rings™ slots have 12 bonuses, unlocked by ongoing play. Each involves some aspect of the movies: Gandalf’s Fireworks, Garden Grab, Uruk-Hai Battle, Galadriel’s Staircase, Isildur’s Sword, etc. Each is accompanied by video clips, music, vibrating chair (which really rocks with Arwen’s Rescue) and the like. The bonuses are completely random and trigger no matter what level you are playing at. I played for several hours on $20 a couple of weekends ago. Sucked down a bunch of Steve Wynn’s Macallan in the process as well.
Also something to note (somebody correct me if I’m wrong):
The slot machines you see surrounding those new Camaros, Mustangs, etc. require you play the max lines and max credits in order to have a chance at winning the car. 10 lines * 10 credits per line is $5 a spin on a nickel machine.
