Is there anything special about Aristocrat slots programming?

I know this is going to sound like the usual gambler's superstition, but when I'm playing Aristocrat penny slot machines like 50 Lions or Pompeii, if I play 50 cents/spin I very rarely see bonus rounds and get lots of low-paying combinations, whereas if I bump up my wager to $1.25 or max coin, the bonuses and high-paying combinations come more frequently and I get more wild cards during the bonus rounds.

I also notice this same thing happening when I watch other players, that the min-coin players will hardly ever see a bonus and the max-coin players will get bonus after bonus and more frequent high-paying combinations.

I've been playing these machines for several years, so I'm not making this judgement based on a single casino visit or just a couple of hours of playing time.

Since these machines are not manufactured in the United States I was wondering if they have some kind of extra programming concerning coin-in.

At the risk of stating the incredibly obvious, read the rules.

It's got nothing to do with where the machine is manufactured.

Sometimes you DO have to bet more than the minimum to be eligible for bonus rounds, but it will ALWAYS be mentioned in the rules.

O.K.... I may be in fine print, but it's there.

A long time ago slot machines used to simply double the payouts for multiple coins and give a little bonus for the most unlikely outcome as a reward for playing more coins. The increase in excitement level was not much, so people were not as driven to play more coins.
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It is much more common now for the original bet to be divided over the more frequent low payouts. The additional coins are solely devoted to high payouts. Many machines work like this (blazing 7's are one machine). The player who never plays the maximum coin feels left out of the excitement. In some cases the winning combination shows up, but you get no money because you didn't pay the maximum coin. This makes the player feel really bad when he realizes an additional small investment would have entitled him to receive the jackpot. In the business it is referred to as a multi-tiered pay table scheme.
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Consider this extremely simple slot machine. You put a dollar in and 45 times out of 50 it returns your dollar. If you put $2 in you have a choice of two options
(1) A total of 46 out of 50 times you get $2 back (better odds as an inducement)
(2) You get $1 back 45 out of 50 times but once in 50 times you get $47 back.
Most new slot machines work like #2, but with a full payout schedule.
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I am not familiar with that slot machine, but more than likely it is programmed that way. Like I said it is fairly common technique. To know how a machine is programmed you need to see the "PARS" stands for Paytable And Reel Strips. The PARS sheet explains which symbols are on the virtual reels, what the odds of hitting each symbol is, and what the total payout on the machine is. PARS are very closely guarded secrets and are considered corporate proprietary. Sometimes one get out on the internet, but it is almost always an old machine.

These are not the old-style 3-reelers where there is a single payline and I'm not talking about missing a jackpot that is only paid on max coin-in; I know how to "read the rules".

Aristocrat machines are multi-line video slots, usually in penny denominations. Bonus rounds are free spins triggered by getting 3 special symbols and have nothing to do with jackpots. Bonuses can occur at any coin-in and when playing less than the max lines.

What I was saying is that I notice them occurring more often when playing higher coin-in.

No disrespect intended.

I'm not talking about the very obvious max play required for that max jackpot.


I HAVE seen it in the rules on some machines that bonus rounds require a certain minimum which is higher than the typical minimum, but quite loser than the max.

FYI: The rules I'm talking about are NOT the stuff that printed on the machine or back lit displays. I mean the stuff that appears on the screen when you hit the 'help' button. And then you have to go thru many pages to get where the bonus minimum bet is listed.

Well I defer to the Wizard whose comment follows. I know how some quarter machines work (like blazing 7's) and I incorrectly extended that thinking to penny machines.

I think this is just selective memory. Like the commonly held (incorrect) belief that a bad player at third base in blackjack causes everyone to lose. Video slots generally have the same reel strips, regardless of how many lines to play or coins per line. The bonus feature probability may either be proportional to the number of lines bet, or constant, depending on the game. I've never seen a game where it goes down as the bet goes up. This comes from looking dozens of industry PARS sheets. Most are designed in much the same way as my Atkins' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>https://wizardofodds.com/play/slot-atkins/]Atkins Diet slot machine.

Okay, thanks Wizard.

I thought perhaps Australian machine manufacturers might not have the same specs as American companies like Bally or IGT or WMS when it comes to programming their machines and that they could build in special checks for coin-in.

Slot players are superstitious, as I mentioned in my original post, and I guess this is just one of those circumstances.