On the final day of Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, my final tour of slot manufacturers' booths sent me searching for folks who know more about ships than I do. On its new Titanic slots, Bally Technologies kicks off bonus events with a U Spin turn. By now, you know how U Spin works. You touch the screen to move a wheel back and forth, and let fly to give it a spin.
On Titanic, a key U Spin is on the ship's control that's marked off into segments including slow, full half and stop, both for ahead and astern. That seemed like a lot of words, so I wanted to know what the device was called. For a quick answer, I turned to an online community, a message board consisting mainly of University of Illinois sports fans.
I got my answer within four minutes of asking. It's the engine order telegraph.
The engine order telegraph is important in Titanic, a feature-rich games filled with movie clips and iconic symbols. The celebration for big wins includes the famous moment in the movie when Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson stands on the prow and shouts for the planet to hear, "I'm king of the world!" Slot playing kings and queens also see coins flying across the screen during the classic scene.
On the Titanic game, the engine order telegraph segments are for bonus event launches and other awards. When Bally's Mike Trask showed the game features, a U Spin of the engine order telegraph took us to the segment marked Safe.
In the Safe feature, it was time to U Spin again, this time on the ship's safe's combination lock. A single spin brought a credit award, opened the door and took us into a finely appointed ship's room. There, we got to pick icons --- a vase, a table, a woman standing in the room --- to collect bonuses.
Another event plays off Dawson's sketching skills. A drawing scene plays, and three sketches are displayed. A match game follows, with players doing a little virtual scratch off until they select three copies of the same drawing. That determines bet size on free spins to come.
Slot players who loved the movie will find plenty to like, regardless of whether they've ever heard of an engine order telegraph.
Showing posts with label slot machines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slot machines. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
G2E, day 2, Aristocrat, Spielo, Konami
A few notes from Global Gaming Expo, Day 2:
**After two days of being accosted by zombies near the exhibit hall --- they growled at me, but ultimately parted enough that I could get through without turning undead --- I got my chance to see Aristocrat's The Walking Dead game through its license with AMC. It's feature rich, with Reel Growth extending reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 up an extra 1 to 3 spaces for added potential wins. In The Horde bonus, the Horde invades the screen and leaves wild symbols behind. As Aristocrat's Dallas Orchard demoed the game, a zombie took a shot in the head, splattering blood --- and wild symbols --- across the reels. When the blood starts flowing, it's good for the players.
**Spielo's Sphinx 3D is spectacular. Sphinx has been a great title for Spielo (formerly Atronic) for a long time, and in the new version, the 3-D effects are spectacular. As Mike Brennan, who was showing me the game watched, the coins from a big win seemed to jump right off the screen, and right at me. I reach out and grasped, and told him I'd like to take some of those coins right now.
Stacked wilds here are really stacked wilds. Coin-shaped discs depicting a scarab stack up on the same reel position. As the stack grows, it increases the number of times a winner is collected. At one point, I had a winner that included a stack of five scarabs. I collected the 250 credit win once, and a scarab disk was taken away. That was repeated, repeated, repeated and repeated again, until the last scarab had been used, I got the 250-coin win five times. It's a new way of stacking wilds that would work effectively only with great 3D.
**One of the pleasures of G2E is experiencing game features without investing any money. At the Konami booth, I sampled The Force of Legend, an Xtra Reward Game featuring Action Stacked Symbols The lion was a wild symbol, and each lion expanded into a stack to fill a three-symbol column. I triggered a bonus event, and had to choose credits or 45 spins under Konami's Balance of Fortune mechanic. I choose spins, and on No. 44 triggered 150 more. The total for 195 spins: $1,524.50 in imaginary money for a $4.50 imaginary bet.
**After two days of being accosted by zombies near the exhibit hall --- they growled at me, but ultimately parted enough that I could get through without turning undead --- I got my chance to see Aristocrat's The Walking Dead game through its license with AMC. It's feature rich, with Reel Growth extending reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 up an extra 1 to 3 spaces for added potential wins. In The Horde bonus, the Horde invades the screen and leaves wild symbols behind. As Aristocrat's Dallas Orchard demoed the game, a zombie took a shot in the head, splattering blood --- and wild symbols --- across the reels. When the blood starts flowing, it's good for the players.
**Spielo's Sphinx 3D is spectacular. Sphinx has been a great title for Spielo (formerly Atronic) for a long time, and in the new version, the 3-D effects are spectacular. As Mike Brennan, who was showing me the game watched, the coins from a big win seemed to jump right off the screen, and right at me. I reach out and grasped, and told him I'd like to take some of those coins right now.
Stacked wilds here are really stacked wilds. Coin-shaped discs depicting a scarab stack up on the same reel position. As the stack grows, it increases the number of times a winner is collected. At one point, I had a winner that included a stack of five scarabs. I collected the 250 credit win once, and a scarab disk was taken away. That was repeated, repeated, repeated and repeated again, until the last scarab had been used, I got the 250-coin win five times. It's a new way of stacking wilds that would work effectively only with great 3D.
**One of the pleasures of G2E is experiencing game features without investing any money. At the Konami booth, I sampled The Force of Legend, an Xtra Reward Game featuring Action Stacked Symbols The lion was a wild symbol, and each lion expanded into a stack to fill a three-symbol column. I triggered a bonus event, and had to choose credits or 45 spins under Konami's Balance of Fortune mechanic. I choose spins, and on No. 44 triggered 150 more. The total for 195 spins: $1,524.50 in imaginary money for a $4.50 imaginary bet.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Notes from G2E, Day 1
On the first day of Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, I toured the booths of Incredible Technologies, WMS Gaming and International Game Technology. I also looked in on some new table games, but that's a subject for another time.
Impressions of the beginning of the long march through the slotmakers' booths, with one game from each:
**Incredible's second King of Bling game, Bounce 2 Nite, is a blast, with a couple of new features, One is Iced Out, triggered by diamond symbols on the first two reels. The diamonds are held, and everything else goes into respin mode. The diamonds dance, bounce, sway and spin in time to the music, and the tempo picks up as the wins mount. The respins continue as long as they bring more diamonds, which lock into place. The goal is to ice out the screen, covering it in diamonds.
The Bounce 2 Nite feature involves bouncing a flashy car. Touch the front left bumper, and it raises and bounces down with a crash, revealing bonus credits. Touch other areas of the car, and they bounce too. The awards are random, not determined by where you touch the car. Focus groups just liked making it bounce.
**WMS has much, much to offer, and I can't possibly do justice by focusing on one game. There'll be more to come in magazines and in my syndicated column, but for now. I loved its new Iron Man game, with plenty of images, sounds and clips from the movie. Bonus rounds are iconic. Slot players will love seeing the Jericho missiles fired onto the screen to create winners.
The playing field has 5 reels, each 12 symbols deep. The center 5x4 section is the bonus zone. You need the bonus characters to land in the zone to launch the bonus events. When Black Widow shows up, you want her in the bonus zone.
**IGT is involved in all market segments, and I'll be writing about its Megajackpots and video poker games later. One core game I had fun testing was Centipede, with its skill-based bonus. IGT went for an old-school video game feel, and it really game through.
In the bonus event, you use a joystick to move into position, then one of four buttons to fire at the crawling centipede, elimnating some segments for bonuses and sending the remnants on their separate ways. I did destroy the first centipede to move to level 2, but alas, could not advance again. I still got a nice bonus, and a lot of fun.
Impressions of the beginning of the long march through the slotmakers' booths, with one game from each:
**Incredible's second King of Bling game, Bounce 2 Nite, is a blast, with a couple of new features, One is Iced Out, triggered by diamond symbols on the first two reels. The diamonds are held, and everything else goes into respin mode. The diamonds dance, bounce, sway and spin in time to the music, and the tempo picks up as the wins mount. The respins continue as long as they bring more diamonds, which lock into place. The goal is to ice out the screen, covering it in diamonds.
The Bounce 2 Nite feature involves bouncing a flashy car. Touch the front left bumper, and it raises and bounces down with a crash, revealing bonus credits. Touch other areas of the car, and they bounce too. The awards are random, not determined by where you touch the car. Focus groups just liked making it bounce.
**WMS has much, much to offer, and I can't possibly do justice by focusing on one game. There'll be more to come in magazines and in my syndicated column, but for now. I loved its new Iron Man game, with plenty of images, sounds and clips from the movie. Bonus rounds are iconic. Slot players will love seeing the Jericho missiles fired onto the screen to create winners.
The playing field has 5 reels, each 12 symbols deep. The center 5x4 section is the bonus zone. You need the bonus characters to land in the zone to launch the bonus events. When Black Widow shows up, you want her in the bonus zone.
**IGT is involved in all market segments, and I'll be writing about its Megajackpots and video poker games later. One core game I had fun testing was Centipede, with its skill-based bonus. IGT went for an old-school video game feel, and it really game through.
In the bonus event, you use a joystick to move into position, then one of four buttons to fire at the crawling centipede, elimnating some segments for bonuses and sending the remnants on their separate ways. I did destroy the first centipede to move to level 2, but alas, could not advance again. I still got a nice bonus, and a lot of fun.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Readers ask about video keno, slot jackpots, single-deck blackjack
Question. I never see much written about video keno,
but that's just about all my husband and I play. I was wondering if you
could solve a question for us. My husband says that it doesn't matter
what numbers you pick, that when the machine's ready to pay off, it'll
pay off. You just have to be in the right place in the right time, just
like a slot machine.
Don't the numbers matter at all?
Answer. The numbers you pick do matter. Video keno machines have random number generators, just like any slot machine. But the video keno RNGs are just generating the numbers to be drawn, and if your numbers match the RNG's, you win. You can't win if you don't have the numbers that are drawn on that play.
Every number has an equal chance of being selected. In the basic game with 80 numbers, and 20 drawn per play, each number has a 1 in 4 chance of being among those 20.
The house doesn't get its edge on video keno from making sure there are more losers than winners. It gets its edge from paying less than true odds when you do win. Let's use the simplest example: A one-spot play.
Your number has a 1 in 4 chance of being drawn. If video keno were an even game, your winner would pay 3-1 odds --- in an average four plays, you'd lose three times, but get back all four wagers on the one time your number hit. But most machines that allow one-spots give back only three coins on the winner. The coin you don't get paid is the house edge.
Meanwhile, the random number generator just keeps generating numbers to be drawn. For you to win, your numbers have to match the machine's. Your selections do matter.
Question. I hit a slot jackpot for $12,500 on a dollar machine. I usually play quarters, so this is by far the largest I ever hit.
The attendant and security guard were very nice, and happy for me. We had high fives all around. They had me sign a tax form. Then the attendant turned a key in the machine before I could play again.
My question is, what does that key do? The man next to me says its resets the machine into "collect" mode, that the machine has just paid out and now it has to take money for a while.
Answer. Congratulations on your big hit. A reason for high fives all around indeed.
As for resetting to "collect" mode, well, no. There is no "collect" or "payback" mode on slot machines. Results remain as random as humans can program a computer to be. And at least until server-based games arrive, changing a payback percentage requires opening the machine and changing a computer chip, not just turning a key or punching in a code.
What the attendant is really doing is unlocking the game so you can play again. The game locks up automatically when an IRS-level jackpot of $1,200 or more is hit. The casino unlocks it once it has your ID and information. Then it has to have you sign the form before it can pay you.
Big jackpots are a normal part of play, and are included in the calculations for the game program. The machine just keeps making its random payoffs, and in time, the jackpot fades into statistical insignificance.
Question. I've studied blackjack basic strategy, so I know when to double down. But when I was playing with a friend of mine recently, he was doubling down on 8s, too. I asked him about it afterward, and he said it was because it was at a single-deck game. Is that right? Why the difference?
Answer. Single-deck blackjack does bring with it some basic strategy changes, and one of them comes when you have a two-card 8. In the single-deck game, you have an edge with an 8 when the dealer shows a 5 or 6, and you want to double down.
Why the difference? Because each card removed from a single-deck game has a greater impact on the composition of the remaining deck than it does in a multiple-deck game. In a single-deck game, taking your 5 and 3 and the dealer's 6 out of a 52-card deck means that 16 of the other 49 cards, or 32.7 percent, are 10 values, and 10-value cards are the dealer's enemy when he or she has a 6 up. In a six-deck game, removing those three cards from play would mean that 96 of the other 309 cards are 10 values, and that's just 31.1 percent.
The dealer in that situation will bust more frequently in a single-deck game than in a multiple-deck game, and that affects our strategy. In addition to the dealer being more likely to bust than in a multiple-deck game, you're more likely to draw a 10-value card on top of your 8. That 18 isn't all-powerful, but it's pretty strong against a 5 or 6.
Don't the numbers matter at all?
Answer. The numbers you pick do matter. Video keno machines have random number generators, just like any slot machine. But the video keno RNGs are just generating the numbers to be drawn, and if your numbers match the RNG's, you win. You can't win if you don't have the numbers that are drawn on that play.
Every number has an equal chance of being selected. In the basic game with 80 numbers, and 20 drawn per play, each number has a 1 in 4 chance of being among those 20.
The house doesn't get its edge on video keno from making sure there are more losers than winners. It gets its edge from paying less than true odds when you do win. Let's use the simplest example: A one-spot play.
Your number has a 1 in 4 chance of being drawn. If video keno were an even game, your winner would pay 3-1 odds --- in an average four plays, you'd lose three times, but get back all four wagers on the one time your number hit. But most machines that allow one-spots give back only three coins on the winner. The coin you don't get paid is the house edge.
Meanwhile, the random number generator just keeps generating numbers to be drawn. For you to win, your numbers have to match the machine's. Your selections do matter.
Question. I hit a slot jackpot for $12,500 on a dollar machine. I usually play quarters, so this is by far the largest I ever hit.
The attendant and security guard were very nice, and happy for me. We had high fives all around. They had me sign a tax form. Then the attendant turned a key in the machine before I could play again.
My question is, what does that key do? The man next to me says its resets the machine into "collect" mode, that the machine has just paid out and now it has to take money for a while.
Answer. Congratulations on your big hit. A reason for high fives all around indeed.
As for resetting to "collect" mode, well, no. There is no "collect" or "payback" mode on slot machines. Results remain as random as humans can program a computer to be. And at least until server-based games arrive, changing a payback percentage requires opening the machine and changing a computer chip, not just turning a key or punching in a code.
What the attendant is really doing is unlocking the game so you can play again. The game locks up automatically when an IRS-level jackpot of $1,200 or more is hit. The casino unlocks it once it has your ID and information. Then it has to have you sign the form before it can pay you.
Big jackpots are a normal part of play, and are included in the calculations for the game program. The machine just keeps making its random payoffs, and in time, the jackpot fades into statistical insignificance.
Question. I've studied blackjack basic strategy, so I know when to double down. But when I was playing with a friend of mine recently, he was doubling down on 8s, too. I asked him about it afterward, and he said it was because it was at a single-deck game. Is that right? Why the difference?
Answer. Single-deck blackjack does bring with it some basic strategy changes, and one of them comes when you have a two-card 8. In the single-deck game, you have an edge with an 8 when the dealer shows a 5 or 6, and you want to double down.
Why the difference? Because each card removed from a single-deck game has a greater impact on the composition of the remaining deck than it does in a multiple-deck game. In a single-deck game, taking your 5 and 3 and the dealer's 6 out of a 52-card deck means that 16 of the other 49 cards, or 32.7 percent, are 10 values, and 10-value cards are the dealer's enemy when he or she has a 6 up. In a six-deck game, removing those three cards from play would mean that 96 of the other 309 cards are 10 values, and that's just 31.1 percent.
The dealer in that situation will bust more frequently in a single-deck game than in a multiple-deck game, and that affects our strategy. In addition to the dealer being more likely to bust than in a multiple-deck game, you're more likely to draw a 10-value card on top of your 8. That 18 isn't all-powerful, but it's pretty strong against a 5 or 6.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Readers ask about blackjack, slots
Question. What percentage of blackjack players do
you think are counting cards? Half? I just wonder, when I see players
splitting 6s against a 10. They can't be counting cards.
Answer. I doubt that half of blackjack players in casinos have studied a basic strategy chart, let alone count cards. I'd put the number of card counters at less than 1 percent of the blackjack-playing population.
Before any player who is trying to get better worries about counting cards, he or she must master basic strategy first. An average blackjack player faces a house edge of about 2 to 2.5 percent. Learning basic strategy can cut that house edge to around a half percent or less, depending on house rules.
How can you tell if someone at your table is a basic strategy player? Here are a few common moves that separate those who know their basic from those who don't:, assuming a multiple-deck game.
Card counters will sometimes make plays that run counter to basic strategy. In addition to hitting 12 against a 2 or 3, a counter will sometimes also hit 12 against 4, if the composition of the remaining cards is right. A card counter also will sometimes hit 16 against 10, but not 16 vs. 7.
Insurance is a special case. Intuition players often will insure their blackjacks by taking even money when the dealer has an Ace face up. Basic strategy players will never take insurance --- that's the right play most of the time. Card counters, on the other hand, will take insurance if the remaining deck includes a high enough percentage of high cards.
Look around next time you play. See how many players hem, haw and sometimes stand on 16 vs. 7, or fail to split 8s against a 10, or stand on Ace-7 against a 9. That'll tell you just how few basic strategy players there are --- and there are many, many few card counters.
Question. I would like to know if adding say $1,000 to a slot machine loosens that machine for a big payout.
Also, I always play the max. Does it matter what the denomination of the game is? That is, do the games loosen as the denomination rises? Does a $1 game pay more than a penny slot played at maximum?
Answer. No amount of play changes the odds of hitting a winning combination on slot machines. If the game is programmed so that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting the big jackpot, then there is a 1 in 10,000 chance on every spin. If you've just hit the jackpot, the odds are still in 1 in 10,000; if you've played 9,999 spins without hitting the big jackpot, the odds are STILL 1 in 10,000.
(The 1 in 10,000 is just an example, by the way. Some machines hit more frequently, some much less. There are machines with a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting the top jackpot, while in a big-money game like Megabucks the chances are 1 in tens of millions.)
If it's a progressive machine, adding money to the top jackpot does not change the odds of your hitting that jackpot. If the progressive meter starts at $1,000, and the jackpot meter has grown to $2,000, the chances of winning are the same as when you started. The long-term payback percentage does grow with the progressive meter, because the big hit pays more when it finally comes.
As for changing coin denomination, that DOES make a difference. Generally, penny machines pay less than nickel machines, which pay less than quarters, which pay less than dollars and so on. If you play maximum coins on a penny machine, your bet may be as large as if you're playing a three-reel dollar slot, but in most cases the dollar game will have a higher payback percentage.
Of course, there's also a difference in the play experience between a penny video slot and a dollar reel-spinner. Winning spins are more frequent on the video game, but payoffs of many times your wager are more common on the reel-spinner. The penny game will keep you in your seat longer, but the dollar game gives you a better chance of walking away with a fairly substantial win. That's the choice slot players face when deciding between low-denomination video games and higher denomination reel spinners.
Answer. I doubt that half of blackjack players in casinos have studied a basic strategy chart, let alone count cards. I'd put the number of card counters at less than 1 percent of the blackjack-playing population.
Before any player who is trying to get better worries about counting cards, he or she must master basic strategy first. An average blackjack player faces a house edge of about 2 to 2.5 percent. Learning basic strategy can cut that house edge to around a half percent or less, depending on house rules.
How can you tell if someone at your table is a basic strategy player? Here are a few common moves that separate those who know their basic from those who don't:, assuming a multiple-deck game.
- A basic strategy player hits hard 16 when the dealer shows a 7. Every time.
- A basic strategy player splits Aces, and splits 8s, even when the dealer has a 10 face up. Exception: The basic strategy player will surrender on 8-8 if the dealer hits soft 17 and surrender is offered.
- A basic strategy player never stands on soft 17. He or she hits or doubles down, depending on the dealer's face up card.
- A basic strategy player hits on 12 if the dealer shows a 2 or a 3.
- A basic strategy player hits on soft 18 if the dealer shows a 9, 10 or Ace.
Card counters will sometimes make plays that run counter to basic strategy. In addition to hitting 12 against a 2 or 3, a counter will sometimes also hit 12 against 4, if the composition of the remaining cards is right. A card counter also will sometimes hit 16 against 10, but not 16 vs. 7.
Insurance is a special case. Intuition players often will insure their blackjacks by taking even money when the dealer has an Ace face up. Basic strategy players will never take insurance --- that's the right play most of the time. Card counters, on the other hand, will take insurance if the remaining deck includes a high enough percentage of high cards.
Look around next time you play. See how many players hem, haw and sometimes stand on 16 vs. 7, or fail to split 8s against a 10, or stand on Ace-7 against a 9. That'll tell you just how few basic strategy players there are --- and there are many, many few card counters.
Question. I would like to know if adding say $1,000 to a slot machine loosens that machine for a big payout.
Also, I always play the max. Does it matter what the denomination of the game is? That is, do the games loosen as the denomination rises? Does a $1 game pay more than a penny slot played at maximum?
Answer. No amount of play changes the odds of hitting a winning combination on slot machines. If the game is programmed so that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting the big jackpot, then there is a 1 in 10,000 chance on every spin. If you've just hit the jackpot, the odds are still in 1 in 10,000; if you've played 9,999 spins without hitting the big jackpot, the odds are STILL 1 in 10,000.
(The 1 in 10,000 is just an example, by the way. Some machines hit more frequently, some much less. There are machines with a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting the top jackpot, while in a big-money game like Megabucks the chances are 1 in tens of millions.)
If it's a progressive machine, adding money to the top jackpot does not change the odds of your hitting that jackpot. If the progressive meter starts at $1,000, and the jackpot meter has grown to $2,000, the chances of winning are the same as when you started. The long-term payback percentage does grow with the progressive meter, because the big hit pays more when it finally comes.
As for changing coin denomination, that DOES make a difference. Generally, penny machines pay less than nickel machines, which pay less than quarters, which pay less than dollars and so on. If you play maximum coins on a penny machine, your bet may be as large as if you're playing a three-reel dollar slot, but in most cases the dollar game will have a higher payback percentage.
Of course, there's also a difference in the play experience between a penny video slot and a dollar reel-spinner. Winning spins are more frequent on the video game, but payoffs of many times your wager are more common on the reel-spinner. The penny game will keep you in your seat longer, but the dollar game gives you a better chance of walking away with a fairly substantial win. That's the choice slot players face when deciding between low-denomination video games and higher denomination reel spinners.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Chicago note: New high-limit slot room at Horseshoe Hammond
It’s been five years since Horseshoe Casino in Hammond,
Ind., opened its roomy, glitzy, amenity-laden new barge, the $500 million facility
that before opening was referred to internally as Project MOAB, for Mother of
All Boats.
The project didn’t stop with opening. Operating a successful
casino means constant freshening and upgrading. The latest upgrade at Horseshoe
is a new high-limit slot room, opened Aug. 8 on the casino’s fifth anniversary.
The highest-grossing casino in the Chicago area, Horseshoe has had strong play
among high-end players both on tables and slots right from the beginning. The new
high-limit room has been designed for player comfort, and has added some of the
most popular games in dollar-and-up denominations.
Among the games added:
** New $1
WMS video titles, including Colossal Reels, Zeus, Kronos and Queen of the Wild.
All have proven their popularity among high-limit players in Las
Vegas and Atlantic City.
** From IGT,
under its license with Action Gaming, comes All-Star Poker. It’s loaded with
IGT/Action’s most popular multi-hand video poker games, all for dollar-and-up
play. Touch the icons on the screen to choose among Ultimate X, Super Times
Pay, Double Super Times Pay, Spin Poker and others.
** New $1 5-reel,
9-line IGT stepper slots with classic title including Double Gold and Triple
Lucky 7’s.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Readers ask about other blackjack players, and loosening the slots
Question. What percentage of blackjack players do
you think are counting cards? Half? I just wonder, when I see players
splitting 6s against a 10. They can't be counting cards.
Answer. I doubt that half of blackjack players in casinos have studied a basic strategy chart, let alone count cards. I'd put the number of card counters at less than 1 percent of the blackjack-playing population.
Before any player who is trying to get better worries about counting cards, he or she must master basic strategy first. An average blackjack player faces a house edge of about 2 to 2.5 percent. Learning basic strategy can cut that house edge to around a half percent or less, depending on house rules.
How can you tell if someone at your table is a basic strategy player? Here are a few common moves that separate those who know their basic from those who don't:
Card counters will sometimes make plays that run counter to basic strategy. In addition to hitting 12 against a 2 or 3, a counter will sometimes also hit 12 against 4, if the composition of the remaining cards is right. A card counter also will sometimes hit 16 against 10, but not 16 vs. 7.
Insurance is a special case. Intuition players often will insure their blackjacks by taking even money when the dealer has an Ace face up. Basic strategy players will never take insurance --- that's the right play most of the time. Card counters, on the other hand, will take insurance if the remaining deck includes a high enough percentage of high cards.
Look around next time you play. See how many players hem, haw and sometimes stand on 16 vs. 7, or fail to split 8s against a 10, or stand on Ace-7 against a 9. That'll tell you just how few basic strategy players there are --- and there are many, many few card counters.
Question. I would like to know if adding say $1,000 to a slot machine loosens that machine for a big payout.
Also, I always play the max. Does it matter what the denomination of the game is? That is, do the games loosen as the denomination rises? Does a $1 game pay more than a penny slot played at maximum?
Answer. No amount of play changes the odds of hitting a winning combination on slot machines. If the game is programmed so that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting the big jackpot, then there is a 1 in 10,000 chance on every spin. If you've just hit the jackpot, the odds are still in 1 in 10,000; if you've played 9,999 spins without hitting the big jackpot, the odds are STILL 1 in 10,000.
(The 1 in 10,000 is just an example, by the way. Some machines hit more frequently, some much less. There are machines with a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting the top jackpot, while in a big-money game like Megabucks the chances are 1 in tens of millions.)
If it's a progressive machine, adding money to the top jackpot does not change the odds of your hitting that jackpot. If the progressive meter starts at $1,000, and the jackpot meter has grown to $2,000, the chances of winning are the same as when you started. The long-term payback percentage does grow with the progressive meter, because the big hit pays more when it finally comes.
As for changing coin denomination, that DOES make a difference. Generally, penny machines pay less than nickel machines, which pay less than quarters, which pay less than dollars and so on. If you play maximum coins on a penny machine, your bet may be as large as if you're playing a three-reel dollar slot, but in most cases the dollar game will have a higher payback percentage.
Of course, there's also a difference in the play experience between a penny video slot and a dollar reel-spinner. Winning spins are more frequent on the video game, but payoffs of many times your wager are more common on the reel-spinner. The penny game will keep you in your seat longer, but the dollar game gives you a better chance of walking away with a fairly substantial win. That's the choice slot players face when deciding between low-denomination video games and higher denomination reel spinners.
Answer. I doubt that half of blackjack players in casinos have studied a basic strategy chart, let alone count cards. I'd put the number of card counters at less than 1 percent of the blackjack-playing population.
Before any player who is trying to get better worries about counting cards, he or she must master basic strategy first. An average blackjack player faces a house edge of about 2 to 2.5 percent. Learning basic strategy can cut that house edge to around a half percent or less, depending on house rules.
How can you tell if someone at your table is a basic strategy player? Here are a few common moves that separate those who know their basic from those who don't:
- A basic strategy player hits hard 16 when the dealer shows a 7. Every time.
- A basic strategy player splits Aces, and splits 8s, even when the dealer has a 10 face up.
- A basic strategy player never stands on soft 17. He or she hits or doubles down, depending on the dealer's face up card.
- A basic strategy player hits on 12 if the dealer shows a 2 or a 3.
- A basic strategy player hits on soft 18 if the dealer shows a 9, 10 or Ace.
Card counters will sometimes make plays that run counter to basic strategy. In addition to hitting 12 against a 2 or 3, a counter will sometimes also hit 12 against 4, if the composition of the remaining cards is right. A card counter also will sometimes hit 16 against 10, but not 16 vs. 7.
Insurance is a special case. Intuition players often will insure their blackjacks by taking even money when the dealer has an Ace face up. Basic strategy players will never take insurance --- that's the right play most of the time. Card counters, on the other hand, will take insurance if the remaining deck includes a high enough percentage of high cards.
Look around next time you play. See how many players hem, haw and sometimes stand on 16 vs. 7, or fail to split 8s against a 10, or stand on Ace-7 against a 9. That'll tell you just how few basic strategy players there are --- and there are many, many few card counters.
Question. I would like to know if adding say $1,000 to a slot machine loosens that machine for a big payout.
Also, I always play the max. Does it matter what the denomination of the game is? That is, do the games loosen as the denomination rises? Does a $1 game pay more than a penny slot played at maximum?
Answer. No amount of play changes the odds of hitting a winning combination on slot machines. If the game is programmed so that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting the big jackpot, then there is a 1 in 10,000 chance on every spin. If you've just hit the jackpot, the odds are still in 1 in 10,000; if you've played 9,999 spins without hitting the big jackpot, the odds are STILL 1 in 10,000.
(The 1 in 10,000 is just an example, by the way. Some machines hit more frequently, some much less. There are machines with a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting the top jackpot, while in a big-money game like Megabucks the chances are 1 in tens of millions.)
If it's a progressive machine, adding money to the top jackpot does not change the odds of your hitting that jackpot. If the progressive meter starts at $1,000, and the jackpot meter has grown to $2,000, the chances of winning are the same as when you started. The long-term payback percentage does grow with the progressive meter, because the big hit pays more when it finally comes.
As for changing coin denomination, that DOES make a difference. Generally, penny machines pay less than nickel machines, which pay less than quarters, which pay less than dollars and so on. If you play maximum coins on a penny machine, your bet may be as large as if you're playing a three-reel dollar slot, but in most cases the dollar game will have a higher payback percentage.
Of course, there's also a difference in the play experience between a penny video slot and a dollar reel-spinner. Winning spins are more frequent on the video game, but payoffs of many times your wager are more common on the reel-spinner. The penny game will keep you in your seat longer, but the dollar game gives you a better chance of walking away with a fairly substantial win. That's the choice slot players face when deciding between low-denomination video games and higher denomination reel spinners.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Paradise Fishing at Four Winds Casino
I'm back at my desk after a few days away, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary with my loving wife Marcy. It was just a short getaway, overlooking the water at the Harbor Grand resort in New Buffalo, Mich.
We went for a drive, just to get an overview of New Buffalo and surrounding towns, and Marcy spotted a sign for the Four Winds casino. It was just a short detour, so we went and spent an hour scouting out penny slots. That's what we do when we play together, finding adjacent machines and stopping to watch each other's bonus events. When I'm on my own, I head for blackjack, video poker, craps ... and wager a little more than pennies.
After about a half hour, Marcy spotted a bank of Aruze Gaming's Paradise Fishing machines. She'd never seen them before, but I'd tested them at Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas and written about them in several publications. There's a community fishing contest, in which all active players at the bank of machines drop in their lines and try to hook fish as they swim by on the giant plasma screens overhead.
What's really cool about Paradise Fishing is the "Reel Feel" technology on the joystick-like game controller. It's designed to look and feel like the handle on a fishing rod, and you use it to raise and lower your animated worm on a hook. When you get a nibble, you can feel the tugs and pulls as the virtual fish tries to get away. Bigger fish bring bigger bonus credits, but they also bring more of a struggle to land the fish --- and sometimes they get away.
It's all illusion of skill stuff. You have the feel of affecting the outcome as you raise and lower your worm to try to attract the fish and then work to bring them in, but the ones you land, the ones that get away and the ones that don't even give your worm a look are determined by a random number generator.
During the community event, everyone earns bonus credits for the fish they land, and at the end of the round the top three scorers get an extra prize, topping out at 500 credits times your line bet for first prize.
About 10 minutes into our stay at Paradise, the community event launched. There was no watching each other's bonuses now. Marcy and I had to focus on our own angling. I quickly landed a moderate-sized fish for 500 credits, then short time later a little fellow for another 50. For most of the rest of the round, the fish just swam right past me. As I scanned down the row, I saw I was in first place,. with Marcy only at about 300, a woman farther to the left in second place at 450 and another at 400. All were within striking distance.
Overhead, the screen went into countdown mode .... 10 seconds left in the round ... 9 ...
And then it happened. A whopper hit my bait. I felt a nudge, a tug, a long pull. Could I reel him in before the countdown ended? Would he get away?
Just before the final tone, I made it. The whopper was in my boat. THREE THOUSAND credits were on my screen.
Marcy hadn't seen anything happening, and when she looked over, she was shocked. "How did you get up to $56?"
I explained that last fish was worth $30, I got $5.50 for the earlier two fish and $5 for my first-place bonus. That'll push the credit meter up from $16 and change to $56 and more change in a hurry.
We left shortly afterward. There were places to go, things to see, shops to sample. (I HIGHLY recommend the bacon jam from The Local in New Buffalo.) I was ahead by $40, she was down $30, and we both had fun. I'll take that deal any time.
We went for a drive, just to get an overview of New Buffalo and surrounding towns, and Marcy spotted a sign for the Four Winds casino. It was just a short detour, so we went and spent an hour scouting out penny slots. That's what we do when we play together, finding adjacent machines and stopping to watch each other's bonus events. When I'm on my own, I head for blackjack, video poker, craps ... and wager a little more than pennies.
After about a half hour, Marcy spotted a bank of Aruze Gaming's Paradise Fishing machines. She'd never seen them before, but I'd tested them at Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas and written about them in several publications. There's a community fishing contest, in which all active players at the bank of machines drop in their lines and try to hook fish as they swim by on the giant plasma screens overhead.
What's really cool about Paradise Fishing is the "Reel Feel" technology on the joystick-like game controller. It's designed to look and feel like the handle on a fishing rod, and you use it to raise and lower your animated worm on a hook. When you get a nibble, you can feel the tugs and pulls as the virtual fish tries to get away. Bigger fish bring bigger bonus credits, but they also bring more of a struggle to land the fish --- and sometimes they get away.
It's all illusion of skill stuff. You have the feel of affecting the outcome as you raise and lower your worm to try to attract the fish and then work to bring them in, but the ones you land, the ones that get away and the ones that don't even give your worm a look are determined by a random number generator.
During the community event, everyone earns bonus credits for the fish they land, and at the end of the round the top three scorers get an extra prize, topping out at 500 credits times your line bet for first prize.
About 10 minutes into our stay at Paradise, the community event launched. There was no watching each other's bonuses now. Marcy and I had to focus on our own angling. I quickly landed a moderate-sized fish for 500 credits, then short time later a little fellow for another 50. For most of the rest of the round, the fish just swam right past me. As I scanned down the row, I saw I was in first place,. with Marcy only at about 300, a woman farther to the left in second place at 450 and another at 400. All were within striking distance.
Overhead, the screen went into countdown mode .... 10 seconds left in the round ... 9 ...
And then it happened. A whopper hit my bait. I felt a nudge, a tug, a long pull. Could I reel him in before the countdown ended? Would he get away?
Just before the final tone, I made it. The whopper was in my boat. THREE THOUSAND credits were on my screen.
Marcy hadn't seen anything happening, and when she looked over, she was shocked. "How did you get up to $56?"
I explained that last fish was worth $30, I got $5.50 for the earlier two fish and $5 for my first-place bonus. That'll push the credit meter up from $16 and change to $56 and more change in a hurry.
We left shortly afterward. There were places to go, things to see, shops to sample. (I HIGHLY recommend the bacon jam from The Local in New Buffalo.) I was ahead by $40, she was down $30, and we both had fun. I'll take that deal any time.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Time, money and the house edge
If you've been my casinos columns for very long, you've seen the
numbers a hundred times: The house has a 5.26 percent edge on American
double-zero roulette, a 1.41 percent edge on the pass line at craps, a 2
to 2.5 percent edge against the average blackjack player, but only a
half-percent or so edge against a basic strategy player.
Chances are you use those numbers as a rough comparison of games. Which give you the better shot to win? Which are nothing more than "house" games? And that's fine. You do have a much better shot to win if you're betting the pass line at craps than if you're playing roulette.
But those numbers are also statistical averages. They don't mean that every time you bet $100 on the pass line, you're going to lose $1.41, or even that every 100 times you bet $100 on pass, you'll lose $141.
If the losses were that regular, and that certain in the short term, no one would play. Even on the casino games with the highest house edges, results are volatile enough that players will win sometimes.
Given enough trials, though, the house edge will hold up, and the more trials there are, the closer the results will be to giving the casino its expected profit.
One of the more colorful descriptions of how this all works came from the late Peter Griffin, author of the classic The Theory of Blackjack. I'd been invited to spend a week as a student at the Harrah's Institute for Casino Entertainment in Las Vegas, a crash course in casino operations designed to give gaming basics to non-gaming employees Harrah's had marked as up-and-comers. Griffin was a guest instructor.
Imagine a situation, he told us, in which a busload of roulette players have finished for the day and are in the waiting room, waiting to board for the trip home. They decide they have time for one last spin of the wheel if each of the 100 players gives $100 to a casino manager with instructions to place the bets. (This takes place in a jurisdiction with a particularly lenient gaming board, I might add.)
The manager puts all the money --- $10,000 worth --- in a big box, and climbs a staircase to a balcony overlooking the waiting room. He then takes out $526 --- more or less --- and dumps the rest of the money back over the railing to the waiting bus group.
Players scramble for the money. Some get back their $100. Most get back less. Some get more --- a few get considerably more.
There are winners. There are losers. And the house has its 5.26 percent.
Slot machines work the same way. When we say quarter slots at a given casino return an average of 93 percent to players, that's just another way of saying the house edge on those machines is 7 percent. If you play $100 through a quarter slot at that casino, are you likely to wind up with precisely $93? No, most of the time you'll wind up with less. Much of a slot machine's long-term return is tied up in larger jackpots, so sometimes you'll win hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for that $100 in play. You may win big, or more often lose fast, but on balance over hundreds of thousands of plays, the house will get its 7 percent.
If you go to the casino and play a couple of hours on a three-reel quarter slot, you might spin the reels 1,000 times --- 500 plays per hour is a busy, but not hectic, pace. With a three-coin maximum bet, you're risking $750. If the machines in that casino return 93 percent, your expected average loss is $52.50, but you won't land precisely on that figure very often. Most of the time, you'll lose somewhat more than that. Less often, you'll get a big hit or a few medium-sized wins and walk away a winner. In one short trip to the casino, there's no telling what your results will be.
But let's take a page out of Griffin's book and say you're on a bus trip with 100 players all spending a couple of hours on those 93-percent, quarter slots, all betting 75 cents a spin for a total of 1,000 spins each. Now your group is setting the reels spinning a total of 100,000 times, and the casino can almost count on getting something close to its 7 percent take.
There almost certainly will be a winner, or several winners, in your group. There also almost certainly will be those who lose fast and wind up dropping a couple of hundred dollars. The majority will lose some of their money. All told, your group is likely to leave behind a total very close to $5,250 on its $75,000 worth of wagers.
There are winners. There are losers. And the house has its 7 percent.
That's the way it is when you look around any busy casino. A few are winning. Most are paying for their day's entertainment. It's the hope that this time we'll be one of the winners that keeps us going.
Chances are you use those numbers as a rough comparison of games. Which give you the better shot to win? Which are nothing more than "house" games? And that's fine. You do have a much better shot to win if you're betting the pass line at craps than if you're playing roulette.
But those numbers are also statistical averages. They don't mean that every time you bet $100 on the pass line, you're going to lose $1.41, or even that every 100 times you bet $100 on pass, you'll lose $141.
If the losses were that regular, and that certain in the short term, no one would play. Even on the casino games with the highest house edges, results are volatile enough that players will win sometimes.
Given enough trials, though, the house edge will hold up, and the more trials there are, the closer the results will be to giving the casino its expected profit.
One of the more colorful descriptions of how this all works came from the late Peter Griffin, author of the classic The Theory of Blackjack. I'd been invited to spend a week as a student at the Harrah's Institute for Casino Entertainment in Las Vegas, a crash course in casino operations designed to give gaming basics to non-gaming employees Harrah's had marked as up-and-comers. Griffin was a guest instructor.
Imagine a situation, he told us, in which a busload of roulette players have finished for the day and are in the waiting room, waiting to board for the trip home. They decide they have time for one last spin of the wheel if each of the 100 players gives $100 to a casino manager with instructions to place the bets. (This takes place in a jurisdiction with a particularly lenient gaming board, I might add.)
The manager puts all the money --- $10,000 worth --- in a big box, and climbs a staircase to a balcony overlooking the waiting room. He then takes out $526 --- more or less --- and dumps the rest of the money back over the railing to the waiting bus group.
Players scramble for the money. Some get back their $100. Most get back less. Some get more --- a few get considerably more.
There are winners. There are losers. And the house has its 5.26 percent.
Slot machines work the same way. When we say quarter slots at a given casino return an average of 93 percent to players, that's just another way of saying the house edge on those machines is 7 percent. If you play $100 through a quarter slot at that casino, are you likely to wind up with precisely $93? No, most of the time you'll wind up with less. Much of a slot machine's long-term return is tied up in larger jackpots, so sometimes you'll win hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for that $100 in play. You may win big, or more often lose fast, but on balance over hundreds of thousands of plays, the house will get its 7 percent.
If you go to the casino and play a couple of hours on a three-reel quarter slot, you might spin the reels 1,000 times --- 500 plays per hour is a busy, but not hectic, pace. With a three-coin maximum bet, you're risking $750. If the machines in that casino return 93 percent, your expected average loss is $52.50, but you won't land precisely on that figure very often. Most of the time, you'll lose somewhat more than that. Less often, you'll get a big hit or a few medium-sized wins and walk away a winner. In one short trip to the casino, there's no telling what your results will be.
But let's take a page out of Griffin's book and say you're on a bus trip with 100 players all spending a couple of hours on those 93-percent, quarter slots, all betting 75 cents a spin for a total of 1,000 spins each. Now your group is setting the reels spinning a total of 100,000 times, and the casino can almost count on getting something close to its 7 percent take.
There almost certainly will be a winner, or several winners, in your group. There also almost certainly will be those who lose fast and wind up dropping a couple of hundred dollars. The majority will lose some of their money. All told, your group is likely to leave behind a total very close to $5,250 on its $75,000 worth of wagers.
There are winners. There are losers. And the house has its 7 percent.
That's the way it is when you look around any busy casino. A few are winning. Most are paying for their day's entertainment. It's the hope that this time we'll be one of the winners that keeps us going.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sheep bones, gum logos and other gambling trivia
In the race to see which is more cluttered, my home office or the
corner of my mind that collects little pieces of gambling history,
well, I guess my home office wins hands down. Nonetheless, bits of
trivia are trying to escape, so let's empty a little of the clutter:
**The slang expression rolling the bones has an origin that is quite literal. Dice were carved from bones for thousands of years. It was not at all unusual in Roman times for dice to be fashioned from sheep's knuckles.
Dice have been made from wood, clay, stone, peach pits, animal horns, teeth, ivory, bronze, porcelain, even jewels. The oldest known dice with regular sides were found in northern Iraq. They're made of baked clay and date to about 3,000 B.C.
**Coin-operated gaming devices in the late 1800s included games with large revolving wheels divided into color segments. Players wagered on which color the wheel would stop. They're considered the forerunners of modern slot machines, even though they didn't have reels. The first recognizably modern three-reel slot was the Liberty Bell, invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1899. The machine was so popular that for many years all slot machines were referred to as bell machines.
The bar symbol used on modern slot machines is derived from a Bell Fruit Gum logo. The gum was dispensed in slots designed by Herbert Mills in Chicago in 1910, and other fruit symbols on slots were derived from the gum flavors.
Among the most popular early slots were poker games, although the machines did not usually pay out coins. Payoffs had to come from the operator. After the introduction of the Liberty Bell, poker-based slots waned in popularity, until the invention of video poker in the 1970s.
**The game of 21 got its common nickname, blackjack, from a practice in illegal casinos in the early 1900s. Some casinos paid a bonus if a two-card 21 was made up of an ace and jack of spades. Others paid bonuses if an ace of spades was accompanied by a jack of either clubs or spades. The black jack was the key to the bonus, and became the name of the game.
Less commonly used nicknames for the game of 21 include Pontoon and Van John. Both arose in the South, probably around illegal casinos in New Orleans. Both nicknames probably are corruptions of the pronunciation of the French game vingt-un, which means "21" and is believed by some to be a blackjack forerunner.
**Horizontal gaming wheels, such as those used in roulette, were invented in England in 1720 for a game called roly-poly. Roly-poly was similar to roulette, except there were no numbers on the wheel. There were alternating white spaces and black spaces, along with a "bar black" space and a "bar white" space. The "bar" spaces were the equivalents of zero and double-zero -- if the ball landed in either space, bets on black or white lost.
Roly-poly was banned in England in 1745, but the horizontal wheel traveled well. By 1796, modern roulette was being played in France.
**The kings in decks of playing cards represent real leaders and conquerors from history, although not all had the title of king. The deck we use today is based on cards designed in 15th-century France. The king of spades represents the Biblical King David, the king of clubs represents Alexander the Great, the king of hearts represents Charlemagne and the king of diamonds represents Julius Caesar.
The four suits represent civilizations that have influenced our culture. Spades represent the Middle East of Biblical times, clubs represent Greece, diamonds represent the Roman Empire, and hearts represent the Holy Roman Empire.
Perfect for Caesars Palace, don't you think?
**The slang expression rolling the bones has an origin that is quite literal. Dice were carved from bones for thousands of years. It was not at all unusual in Roman times for dice to be fashioned from sheep's knuckles.
Dice have been made from wood, clay, stone, peach pits, animal horns, teeth, ivory, bronze, porcelain, even jewels. The oldest known dice with regular sides were found in northern Iraq. They're made of baked clay and date to about 3,000 B.C.
**Coin-operated gaming devices in the late 1800s included games with large revolving wheels divided into color segments. Players wagered on which color the wheel would stop. They're considered the forerunners of modern slot machines, even though they didn't have reels. The first recognizably modern three-reel slot was the Liberty Bell, invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1899. The machine was so popular that for many years all slot machines were referred to as bell machines.
The bar symbol used on modern slot machines is derived from a Bell Fruit Gum logo. The gum was dispensed in slots designed by Herbert Mills in Chicago in 1910, and other fruit symbols on slots were derived from the gum flavors.
Among the most popular early slots were poker games, although the machines did not usually pay out coins. Payoffs had to come from the operator. After the introduction of the Liberty Bell, poker-based slots waned in popularity, until the invention of video poker in the 1970s.
**The game of 21 got its common nickname, blackjack, from a practice in illegal casinos in the early 1900s. Some casinos paid a bonus if a two-card 21 was made up of an ace and jack of spades. Others paid bonuses if an ace of spades was accompanied by a jack of either clubs or spades. The black jack was the key to the bonus, and became the name of the game.
Less commonly used nicknames for the game of 21 include Pontoon and Van John. Both arose in the South, probably around illegal casinos in New Orleans. Both nicknames probably are corruptions of the pronunciation of the French game vingt-un, which means "21" and is believed by some to be a blackjack forerunner.
**Horizontal gaming wheels, such as those used in roulette, were invented in England in 1720 for a game called roly-poly. Roly-poly was similar to roulette, except there were no numbers on the wheel. There were alternating white spaces and black spaces, along with a "bar black" space and a "bar white" space. The "bar" spaces were the equivalents of zero and double-zero -- if the ball landed in either space, bets on black or white lost.
Roly-poly was banned in England in 1745, but the horizontal wheel traveled well. By 1796, modern roulette was being played in France.
**The kings in decks of playing cards represent real leaders and conquerors from history, although not all had the title of king. The deck we use today is based on cards designed in 15th-century France. The king of spades represents the Biblical King David, the king of clubs represents Alexander the Great, the king of hearts represents Charlemagne and the king of diamonds represents Julius Caesar.
The four suits represent civilizations that have influenced our culture. Spades represent the Middle East of Biblical times, clubs represent Greece, diamonds represent the Roman Empire, and hearts represent the Holy Roman Empire.
Perfect for Caesars Palace, don't you think?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Separate gambling fact from fiction
Casino lore is full of myths, legends and superstitions.
That's natural enough. Few players understand the math, the odds and percentages that explain what's really going on in the casino. It's easier to blame that losing streak on someone else's poor play, and more fun to claim our own smart play led to a big win, than to make sense of the eternal tide of random results.
I try to bust casino myths from time to time, but they're persistent. Rarely does a week go by in which I don't hear from a reader about one long-held misconception or another. Let's take a look at some of the most common casino myths:
MYTH: Other players hurt you at the blackjack table.
FACT: Other players sometimes hurt you, but help you just as often. Their play has no effect on your long-term results.
No one knows what cards are coming next, nor do we know what card the dealer has face down. The player you think is taking the dealer's bust card may actually be taking a card that would have given the dealer a pat hand.
Let's say the player at third base - the last player to make a hit/stand decision - has a hard 16, and the dealer has a 6 face up. If the player follows basic strategy, he'll stand and the dealer will get the next card. If he makes a bad play and hits instead, the dealer gets the second card down.
Which would you rather the dealer have, the next card or the second one? Answer: It makes no difference. You don't know what the cards are, and either is just as likely to be the one that busts the dealer - or makes his hand.
MYTH: Hot craps tables are likely to stay hot; cold craps tables are likely to stay cold.
FACT: Unless you've found a rare player who can control the dice, every roll is an independent trial. Past outcomes have no affect on future results.
Several years ago, I tried an experiment in which I waited for two consecutive passes, then tracked the next decision. Of the next 1,000 sequences, 489 were passes - almost dead on the 494 average expected by random chance. No evidence there of hot streaks continuing. At the same time, I charted 1,000 sequences starting with two don't passes. The result: 470 wins for don't bettors, 493 losses and 37 pushes on 12. No evidence for cold tables, either.
Do hot and cold streaks occur at the craps table? Sure, just as they do in any game of chance. That's a natural outgrowth of probability. Can we predict when the streaks are coming? No. All a hot streak means is that the table has been hot in the past. That streak has no value in predicting future results. If it did, we could all stand and watch, waiting for a hot roll, then jump on and get rich.
MYTH: If the same roulette number comes up three or four times in a row, it's time to jump off that number - it's not "due" again for hours.
FACT: Numbers are never "due" or "not due." On an American wheel with both a 0 and a 00, the odds against any given number turning up on the next spin are 37-1. That's true whether the number just hit on the last spin, the last four spins, or if it hasn't hit at all in a couple of hours. Just as at the craps table, each trial is independent, and past outcomes have no effect on future results.
Rarely, a wheel may be biased, with some numbers turning up more often than expected by random chance. The wheel may be off balance, there may be a warp or a loose fret. In such cases, a number that has been showing up frequently may continue to hit more than once per 38 spins. Finding a wheel bias is painstaking work that most of us won't do. Still, the long shot that a wheel is biased gives us more reason to stay with a repeating number than to jump off.
MYTH: The casino can reward slot players by pushing a button to let them win a jackpot.
FACT: There is no jackpot button in the casino front office, the surveillance room or anywhere else. The casino has no control over when jackpots hit.
The closest the casino has to control is in programming it orders from the slot machine manufacturer. The manufacturer offers chips that will make a game pay out at different levels - the casino might order an 89 percent chip, or a 92 percent chip on the same penny game. Some games might pay the top jackpot an average of once per 10,000 pulls; on others the jackpot might hit only once per 20,000, 100,000, even 1 million or more pulls.
All those are long-term averages. Given millions of pulls, those averages will hold up. But there's no way to predict, or change, what will happen on any specific spin of the reels. Each spin is as random as humans can program a computer to be. A casino can't make a jackpot appear on the next spin. There will be winners and losers. The casino can't determine who will be which. It just knows the losers will more than balance out the winners.
That's natural enough. Few players understand the math, the odds and percentages that explain what's really going on in the casino. It's easier to blame that losing streak on someone else's poor play, and more fun to claim our own smart play led to a big win, than to make sense of the eternal tide of random results.
I try to bust casino myths from time to time, but they're persistent. Rarely does a week go by in which I don't hear from a reader about one long-held misconception or another. Let's take a look at some of the most common casino myths:
MYTH: Other players hurt you at the blackjack table.
FACT: Other players sometimes hurt you, but help you just as often. Their play has no effect on your long-term results.
No one knows what cards are coming next, nor do we know what card the dealer has face down. The player you think is taking the dealer's bust card may actually be taking a card that would have given the dealer a pat hand.
Let's say the player at third base - the last player to make a hit/stand decision - has a hard 16, and the dealer has a 6 face up. If the player follows basic strategy, he'll stand and the dealer will get the next card. If he makes a bad play and hits instead, the dealer gets the second card down.
Which would you rather the dealer have, the next card or the second one? Answer: It makes no difference. You don't know what the cards are, and either is just as likely to be the one that busts the dealer - or makes his hand.
MYTH: Hot craps tables are likely to stay hot; cold craps tables are likely to stay cold.
FACT: Unless you've found a rare player who can control the dice, every roll is an independent trial. Past outcomes have no affect on future results.
Several years ago, I tried an experiment in which I waited for two consecutive passes, then tracked the next decision. Of the next 1,000 sequences, 489 were passes - almost dead on the 494 average expected by random chance. No evidence there of hot streaks continuing. At the same time, I charted 1,000 sequences starting with two don't passes. The result: 470 wins for don't bettors, 493 losses and 37 pushes on 12. No evidence for cold tables, either.
Do hot and cold streaks occur at the craps table? Sure, just as they do in any game of chance. That's a natural outgrowth of probability. Can we predict when the streaks are coming? No. All a hot streak means is that the table has been hot in the past. That streak has no value in predicting future results. If it did, we could all stand and watch, waiting for a hot roll, then jump on and get rich.
MYTH: If the same roulette number comes up three or four times in a row, it's time to jump off that number - it's not "due" again for hours.
FACT: Numbers are never "due" or "not due." On an American wheel with both a 0 and a 00, the odds against any given number turning up on the next spin are 37-1. That's true whether the number just hit on the last spin, the last four spins, or if it hasn't hit at all in a couple of hours. Just as at the craps table, each trial is independent, and past outcomes have no effect on future results.
Rarely, a wheel may be biased, with some numbers turning up more often than expected by random chance. The wheel may be off balance, there may be a warp or a loose fret. In such cases, a number that has been showing up frequently may continue to hit more than once per 38 spins. Finding a wheel bias is painstaking work that most of us won't do. Still, the long shot that a wheel is biased gives us more reason to stay with a repeating number than to jump off.
MYTH: The casino can reward slot players by pushing a button to let them win a jackpot.
FACT: There is no jackpot button in the casino front office, the surveillance room or anywhere else. The casino has no control over when jackpots hit.
The closest the casino has to control is in programming it orders from the slot machine manufacturer. The manufacturer offers chips that will make a game pay out at different levels - the casino might order an 89 percent chip, or a 92 percent chip on the same penny game. Some games might pay the top jackpot an average of once per 10,000 pulls; on others the jackpot might hit only once per 20,000, 100,000, even 1 million or more pulls.
All those are long-term averages. Given millions of pulls, those averages will hold up. But there's no way to predict, or change, what will happen on any specific spin of the reels. Each spin is as random as humans can program a computer to be. A casino can't make a jackpot appear on the next spin. There will be winners and losers. The casino can't determine who will be which. It just knows the losers will more than balance out the winners.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Slots never due, so don't chase losses
Those who have read me for very long know that one of my running themes is that a slot machine is
never "due." to hit. From time to time, I send out a warning to slot players
that they shouldn't expect a slot that has been cold for hours to
suddenly start paying out the big bucks.
Some things apparently can't be repeated often enough.
I once received a phone call from a woman who'd had a bad day at the reel-spinning slots. Actually, "bad" doesn't begin to describe it. Awful, horrendous, disastrous is more like it.
Normally a table games player - she likes roulette - she recently decided to play a $5 three-reel slot machine. The machine took two coins at a time, so she was betting $10 on each pull.
And cold? Better she'd just given her money to the cashier and left the casino. Because after she lost what she had brought with her, she started drawing money against her credit cards. That's expensive money, with a hefty charge off the top being added to any credit card interest.
Before it was over, she'd lost . . . well, her initial message said $4,000, but when I spoke with her
later, the amount had grown to about $7,000.
"This machine was paying out nothing," she said. "I kept playing because I figured it was due. It had to give me something back. I played that machine for hours," she said, "and it didn't pay out anything like 95 percent."
And when it didn't give her anything back, she thought something was wrong with the machine. She complained to the casino, and she complained to the gaming board . When both told her there was nothing wrong with the machine, that it's normal for a machine to stay cold for long stretches, she complained to me.
Then it was my turn to tell her there probably was nothing wrong with the machine, and that it's normal for a slot machine to stay cold for long stretches, especially on three-reel games with low hit frequencies. Those frequent payoffs for less than our bets do tend to stretch out play, and bonuses on video games help soften the losing streaks.
Our player, unfortunately, was operating under a couple of misconceptions that, coupled with some poor money management, made for a day of casino hell. Here's where she went wrong:
**Cold machines can stay cold: In today's microprocessor, random number generator-controlled slots, your last pull, or your last 10, or last 100, have no effect on your next pull. If the top jackpot is programmed to come up an average of once per 10,000 pulls, then the odds of hitting it on the next pull are 1 in 10,000. That's true even if you've been playing all day and have counted 10,000 pulls without a jackpot, and it's still true if you've hit the jackpot on the last pull. The odds of hitting any particular combination are the same on any given pull, regardless of whether that combination was last hit one pull ago or 100,000 pulls ago.
There is nothing in the programming that would tell a machine to suddenly start hitting if it's been cold for hours. If a machine has paid out little all day, the most you can say about it is that it's been paying out little all day. There is no way to tell if it's going to stay cold or turn hot over the next few hours.
**Payouts vary wildly in the short term: In a period as short as the 10 or 12 hours this woman said she gambled, a machine can pay out 50 percent or less. That would lead to big, fast losses for a day, but the machine still could easily pay out 95 percent for the month, which is about normal for a $5 three-reel game. A machine that pays out 50 percent for 10,000 pulls would have to pay out only 96.55 percent for the next 290,000 pulls to average 95 percent for 300,000 trials.
Our gambler, if she played 10 hours, was losing about $700 an hour. It's pretty easy to play 500 pulls an hour - really dedicated slot fanatics play faster. So let's say at two coins at a time for 500 pulls, she was risking $5,000 an hour. Her $700 hourly loss represents 14 percent of her wagers.
Far from having to sink as low as 50 percent, a machine could gobble up the funds that fast while paying 86 percent.
**Money goes faster on slots than on tables: Borrowing money to gamble is a bad idea no matter what your game. And slot players must remember that their game is the fastest in the casino, far faster than even craps.
With $1,000 in your pocket, it might be tempting to try the $5 machines. But if the losses mount early, it's far better to switch to $1 slots or even quarters than to dig for more money.
If she were playing roulette, her favorite table game, at 45 or 50 spins an hour, our player would have had to bet $100 per spin to risk as much per hour as she risked on the $5 slots. A $5 slot player is every bit as much a high-roller as a $100 blackjack player; in fact, the $5 slot player's expected average losses are higher.
Early in the day, our player was offered a complimentary dinner in the casino's high-end restaurant. It's the least they could do.
Some things apparently can't be repeated often enough.
I once received a phone call from a woman who'd had a bad day at the reel-spinning slots. Actually, "bad" doesn't begin to describe it. Awful, horrendous, disastrous is more like it.
Normally a table games player - she likes roulette - she recently decided to play a $5 three-reel slot machine. The machine took two coins at a time, so she was betting $10 on each pull.
And cold? Better she'd just given her money to the cashier and left the casino. Because after she lost what she had brought with her, she started drawing money against her credit cards. That's expensive money, with a hefty charge off the top being added to any credit card interest.
Before it was over, she'd lost . . . well, her initial message said $4,000, but when I spoke with her
later, the amount had grown to about $7,000.
"This machine was paying out nothing," she said. "I kept playing because I figured it was due. It had to give me something back. I played that machine for hours," she said, "and it didn't pay out anything like 95 percent."
And when it didn't give her anything back, she thought something was wrong with the machine. She complained to the casino, and she complained to the gaming board . When both told her there was nothing wrong with the machine, that it's normal for a machine to stay cold for long stretches, she complained to me.
Then it was my turn to tell her there probably was nothing wrong with the machine, and that it's normal for a slot machine to stay cold for long stretches, especially on three-reel games with low hit frequencies. Those frequent payoffs for less than our bets do tend to stretch out play, and bonuses on video games help soften the losing streaks.
Our player, unfortunately, was operating under a couple of misconceptions that, coupled with some poor money management, made for a day of casino hell. Here's where she went wrong:
**Cold machines can stay cold: In today's microprocessor, random number generator-controlled slots, your last pull, or your last 10, or last 100, have no effect on your next pull. If the top jackpot is programmed to come up an average of once per 10,000 pulls, then the odds of hitting it on the next pull are 1 in 10,000. That's true even if you've been playing all day and have counted 10,000 pulls without a jackpot, and it's still true if you've hit the jackpot on the last pull. The odds of hitting any particular combination are the same on any given pull, regardless of whether that combination was last hit one pull ago or 100,000 pulls ago.
There is nothing in the programming that would tell a machine to suddenly start hitting if it's been cold for hours. If a machine has paid out little all day, the most you can say about it is that it's been paying out little all day. There is no way to tell if it's going to stay cold or turn hot over the next few hours.
**Payouts vary wildly in the short term: In a period as short as the 10 or 12 hours this woman said she gambled, a machine can pay out 50 percent or less. That would lead to big, fast losses for a day, but the machine still could easily pay out 95 percent for the month, which is about normal for a $5 three-reel game. A machine that pays out 50 percent for 10,000 pulls would have to pay out only 96.55 percent for the next 290,000 pulls to average 95 percent for 300,000 trials.
Our gambler, if she played 10 hours, was losing about $700 an hour. It's pretty easy to play 500 pulls an hour - really dedicated slot fanatics play faster. So let's say at two coins at a time for 500 pulls, she was risking $5,000 an hour. Her $700 hourly loss represents 14 percent of her wagers.
Far from having to sink as low as 50 percent, a machine could gobble up the funds that fast while paying 86 percent.
**Money goes faster on slots than on tables: Borrowing money to gamble is a bad idea no matter what your game. And slot players must remember that their game is the fastest in the casino, far faster than even craps.
With $1,000 in your pocket, it might be tempting to try the $5 machines. But if the losses mount early, it's far better to switch to $1 slots or even quarters than to dig for more money.
If she were playing roulette, her favorite table game, at 45 or 50 spins an hour, our player would have had to bet $100 per spin to risk as much per hour as she risked on the $5 slots. A $5 slot player is every bit as much a high-roller as a $100 blackjack player; in fact, the $5 slot player's expected average losses are higher.
Early in the day, our player was offered a complimentary dinner in the casino's high-end restaurant. It's the least they could do.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Bally goes for "Grease"
At the 2011 Global Gaming Expo, the casino industry’s annual Las Vegas showcase, the sounds of “You’re the One that I Want” rang through Bally’s booth with the introduction of the new "Grease video slots."
“We were really looking to increase our brand portfolio,” said Jean Venneman, Bally’s vice president of product marketing and licensing. “It’s not an area we had really been in in the past. We wanted to make sure we picked a couple of strategic brands that really hit the [slot-playing] demographic and we could create a lot of interesting games out of. We felt that Grease hit the mark on that.”
Grease, based on the hit movie musical, is a wide-area progressive, meaning that in states where it is legal, machines in different casinos can be linked to the same jackpot. There are two playing fields on the screen --- two sets of five reels --- in a penny game with a 60-cent minimum wager. Reel symbols are chock full of movie imagery, and there’s music and video featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
There are an number of bonuses, but the event everyone wanted to see was the “You’re the One that I Want” free games. The stars wooed each other in the “Grease” showpiece video in the top box, a scaled down video played atop the spinning reels on the main screen, and speakers in the back of the game’s special chair contributed to a surround-sound effect.
“This one has been fun to watch people play,” Venneman said. “They seem to be more focused on the video than on the actual game. And everybody has fond memories of the first time they saw the movie, or that they thought that Olivia Newton John was amazing, or John Travolta.”Monday, October 31, 2011
Penny ante? Not these slots
A New Jersey reader emailed to ask about penny slots.
"There are a bunch of new machines that have 50 lines and you must play all of them," he wrote. "To me, these are 50-cent machines and no longer 1-cent because the minimum you can play is 50 cents. I assume that the payback percentages on these new machines are like other 1-cent machines, IOW, pretty low, under 90%."
"There are a bunch of new machines that have 50 lines and you must play all of them," he wrote. "To me, these are 50-cent machines and no longer 1-cent because the minimum you can play is 50 cents. I assume that the payback percentages on these new machines are like other 1-cent machines, IOW, pretty low, under 90%."
I told him I'd noticed a similar thing at two Midwestern casinos, except with 2-cent games instead of pennies. The minimum bet was 50 credits, making these dollar-minimum games. And yes, these do have the low, 87-to-90 percent paybacks we see on other penny and 2-cent games.
There is a mitigating factor: The bonus rounds on video slots give us playing time without additional wagers, so we make fewer bets per hour on a video game than on a traditional three-reel slot. Still, average losses per hour will be higher when you bet a buck a spin on a 2-cent slot than a single dollar on a $1 three-reel game.
Does the entertainment value of video bonus slots make it worth your while to make the larger minimum bets that some machines now require? That's between you and your bankroll.
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