Are Slot Machines Really Tighter?
I know Nevada casinos have to post their percentage rates for slot machines on an annual basis. Does anyone have or know where to find percentages over say the last 10 to 20 years? I was curious to find out if machines have been paying out less, the same, or more.
Quote:
beginning July 1, 2010 and ending June 30, 2011:
1¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 88.40%
Downtown - 89.02%
Boulder Strip - 90.72%
N. Las Vegas - 90.73%
5¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 91.57%
Downtown - 91.19%
Boulder Strip - 95.66%
N. Las Vegas - 95.31%
25¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 91.78%
Downtown - 94.83%
Boulder Strip - 97.07%
N. Las Vegas - 96.48%
$1 Slot Machines
The Strip - 93.49%
Downtown - 95.26%
Boulder Strip - 96.37%
N. Las Vegas - 96.84%
$1 Megabucks Machines
The Strip - 88.18%
Downtown - 90.13%
Boulder Strip - 88.29%
N. Las Vegas - 86.25%
$5 Slot Machines
The Strip - 94.83%
Downtown - 94.21%
Boulder Strip - 96.38%
N. Las Vegas - 95.27%
$25 Slot Machines
The Strip - 96.66%
Downtown - 95.49%
Boulder Strip - N/A
N. Las Vegas - N/A
All Slot Machines
The Strip - 92.65%
Downtown - 93.57%
Boulder Strip - 94.76%
N. Las Vegas - 94.03%
source
I can say from personal experience that I spend a lot more money on slots these days than I did 10 years ago, but I also know that it's not because the percentages haven't changed but because the way the games themselves have changed.
Quote: JuyemuraI have a lot of friends from Hawaii who go to Vegas several times per year and it is the general consensus that the slot machines have gotten tighter over recent years. Of course this is a tiny sample size, but I wanted to find out if this is true.
I know Nevada casinos have to post their percentage rates for slot machines on an annual basis. Does anyone have or know where to find percentages over say the last 10 to 20 years? I was curious to find out if machines have been paying out less, the same, or more.
NGCB online records go back to 1990:
http://www.gaming.nv.gov/index.aspx?page=149
Quote: UCivanAren't the payouts adjustable? I think the Director of Slot's job is to modify the payout %s everyday according to the stats, performances, etc.
I guess technically they're adjustable, but you'd have to physically change out the RNG chips in most of the machines to do it. That's surely not done daily.
I would love clarification on this by anyone with the knowledge.
Quote: UCivanI recall in one of the G2E shows, I saw a vendor merely touching screen to select the payout %'s. Perhaps it was in my dream?
Things have moved on significantly from the days when you needed to turn keys in machines to set the RTP. For example, look at the latest Bally offering:
http://ballytech.com/Uploads/SideLinks/AddSideLink/PDF/Bally_Systems_Brochure.pdf
Bally, along with IGT, Aristocrat, and I think at least one other systems vendor, have server-based architectures that allow central management of whole slot floors from the back office. Newer slot machines are often intelligent generic clients that require no physical interaction for game software updates. Not unlike your web browser or smartphone. It's far more regulated than the Google Play store but the concept is similar.
Edit to add: Silicon Gaming had touch-screen game configuration back in 1996.
Sect 1.140
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2919
Section 3.07
http://www.mgc.dps.mo.gov/MICS/Chapter%20V.pdf
As for tightening...yeah they are being tightened a little bit (except for nickels, but nickel machines are going the way of the dodo bird. The win amt in '12 on nickels is about 10% of the '05 win amt.):
Las Vegas Strip
FY '05
1 cent 89.8%
5 cent 89.64%
25 cent 92.06%
1 dollar 94.38%
FY '12
1 cent 88.39%
5 cent 91.31%
25 cent 91.42%
1 dollar 93.35%
Missouri also saw a decrease in payouts. From a payout of 91.8% to 90.5% from '05 to '12. But much of this decrease is highly attributable to the increase in penny slot play (~87.5% return) at the expense of higher denominations.
Yep, I'm giving the casino all of my money at the worst pay rate. Someday I'll learn.Quote: NickyDim1¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 88.40%
Huh?Quote: tsmithMulti-line slots are deceptive, in that they are the only games where you can actually lose on a "winning" spin.
Quote: DRichOne of our salespeople asked me this week if we could start including pay schedules down to 80% in our newer video slots. WOW, i thought 85% was horrible for penny slots.
That is really sick, but fortunately in some newer gaming jurisdictions, 80% payouts are illegal.
OH and PA (85% min)
KS (87% min)
Quote: 24BingoThink of it this way - if you're playing 30¢ a spin on a penny machine, and they're paying $3 a spin on a dollar machine, half the edge means they're donating five times more per spin.
Yeah, but many penny slot players are wagering $2-$3 a spin as well. And the newer the machine is...usually the higher minimum bet it has. "Grease" is a 60 cent minimum...jeez.
Quote: FleaStiffHuh?
The machine treats anything as a win. For example, the game makes noise and lights up when you earned 20 cents on one winning line but you wagered 50 lines at a penny each. Congrats, you just lost 30 cents on that spin and the machine is excited for you! :)
Quote: rdw4potusI guess technically they're adjustable, but you'd have to physically change out the RNG chips in most of the machines to do it. That's surely not done daily.
Why would you need to modify the RNG chip ? My understanding was that the RNG only provides the reel states, and for a different overall return rate one could simply modifiy the pay table.
And youre correct that simply changing the paytable would alter the return; however, most slot machines change symbol probabilities to alter the return.
Quote: FleaStiffHuh?
A lot of time, the "win" amount on a multi line game is less than a push.
I've seen some machines with all these white lines in crazy directions and can't figure out what is what... so all I look at is the space where it says "game over".
Quote: DRichOne of our salespeople asked me this week if we could start including pay schedules down to 80% in our newer video slots. WOW, i thought 85% was horrible for penny slots.
I am a nosy guy and I get very curious when slot techs open their machines. At one unnamed casino, the base payback for bank of progressive was set to 77% and the base payouts on the progressive get the game to 89%. Yikes.
In some Class III bonus slots that I sampled, the base game returns 50% while the bonus rounds get it to 90%.
Quote: DRichOne of our salespeople asked me this week if we could start including pay schedules down to 80% in our newer video slots. WOW, i thought 85% was horrible for penny slots.
You should look at State lottery tickets. I was telling a server at a diner to save her money by stop buying scratchers. I told her it was a negative EV activity and she didn't understand. So I then told her that for every $1 spent, she was expected to get back $0.50. Then I showed her where her $1 went: 5% for agent fee, 10% for admin cost, and 35% for Education and 50% for prizes.
Quote: 1arrowheaddr9/6 Jacks or Better is only a 99.54% return game. Even with perfect play, over time you will lose. Jacks or better doesn't have any opportunities for 800 or 2000 coin jackpots like Double or Double Double Bonus making it very unlikely that you will show a large win for a particular session unless a royal flush appears.
That is absolutely NOT true.
The general rule about quads are you can hit one quad in four hours or you can hit four quads in an hour. You have to remember, 9/6 JOB has much lower variance PLUS two pair is a NET winning hand versus games that use the Double Bonus structure of fatter quads for even money on two pair, respectively. You hit 4 quads or more in an hour on 9/6 JOBs, you can have a large win.
Quote: JuyemuraI have a lot of friends from Hawaii who go to Vegas several times per year and it is the general consensus that the slot machines have gotten tighter over recent years. Of course this is a tiny sample size, but I wanted to find out if this is true.
I know Nevada casinos have to post their percentage rates for slot machines on an annual basis. Does anyone have or know where to find percentages over say the last 10 to 20 years? I was curious to find out if machines have been paying out less, the same, or more.
I wouldn't be surprised if the slot manufacturers are adding multiple paybacks on the same chip.
Aruze is well-known for offer 95% payback on penny machines at MAX bet (the 95% is based on industry standard of 10,000,000 pulls) and the payback on the SAME chip drops to as low as 88% for short-coin play.
Basically, it's a penny machine but with payback as high as 95% (it was as high as 97% in Reno) if you can bet say $2.50 a spin.
Quote: FleaStiffHuh?
My advice, go play a 100-line (or 500-Play) video poker using the Moody Patent. Unless you are dealt a winning hand, you will no doubt have several winning lines and your winning credits will seem large until you compare them to your initial bet.
When N-Play came out, I was talking to Jazbo (the guy who did the initial work on N-Play) since he invited me to the "VIP" lounge to have a bite to eat. Jazbo predicted you will never "see" positive EV VPs game in N-Play format. He stated if did exist, it won't last long and smiled and wicked his eye. It was like talking about these mythical creatures. Jazbo used 500-Play to explain his reasoning (this was back when Triple play was getting started), he also warned me about the "dealt hand" phenomenon -- since the game has covariance, the variance of the game is amplied due to the number of lines AND associated covariance -- the variance of N-Play mostly comes from the dealt hands. That means the variance of the remaining game (sans dealt hands effect) is lower and you would lose more predictably on N-Play games versus the same game without the covariance, respectively. Btw, we have multi-line VP without co-variance so 500-Play in this no-covariance structure is no different that 500 times the variance of a single game.
In summary, to get the full return on a 9/6 JOBs, you need to have your fair share of flopped or dealt RF's. Suppose you play 100-play, a dealt RF is 100 RF's. A dealt RF occurs once in about 650,000 hands. You don't get a dealt RF, that 99.54% is just an illusionary expectations numbers that you will probably never attain.
I agree with tsmith's comment when applied to N-Play VP. I have a gaming license deal with IGT so I have to be careful with what I say. However, I will stated most people don't understand the damage of the dealt hand effect as you increase the lines in N-Play. Image never being dealt a RF on 100-play -- ouch, since you have 99 RF's waiting for you to claim.
Quote: onenickelmiracleAn earlier poster mentioned the 4 minute idle period to change the payback on a slot, but I wonder if they can just disable the machine whether you like it or not, wait 5 minutes and enable it again.
A casino gains nothing by cheating a slot player. Slots fundamentally have the highest profit margin in a casino. They would be risking their meat and potatoes by playing games with a customer.
You are basically killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If the player believes he can be cheated, then he stops playing the machine. Then the casino loses far more money than he could possibly hope to gain by playing games with disabling or enabling.
The new generation of penny slots are the most effective machine ever developed. Like the previous post says, the machine gets "excited" for you, and convinces you that you are somehow a winner by returning a portion of your bet.
Quote: pacomartinA casino gains nothing by cheating a slot player. Slots fundamentally have the highest profit margin in a casino. They would be risking their meat and potatoes by playing games with a customer.
You are basically killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If the player believes he can be cheated, then he stops playing the machine. Then the casino loses far more money than he could possibly hope to gain by playing games with disabling or enabling.
The new generation of penny slots are the most effective machine ever developed. Like the previous post says, the machine gets "excited" for you, and convinces you that you are somehow a winner by returning a portion of your bet.
Basically this. They should never alter a machine that is actively being played. Slots have plenty of downtime at 4am, 5am, 6am, etc. In my state, Missouri casinos must be closed at least 1 hour a week, so I would assume they would as much slot maintenance (payback changes and whatever else) as possible then.
Quote: pacomartinA casino gains nothing by cheating a slot player. Slots fundamentally have the highest profit margin in a casino. They would be risking their meat and potatoes by playing games with a customer.
You are basically killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If the player believes he can be cheated, then he stops playing the machine. Then the casino loses far more money than he could possibly hope to gain by playing games with disabling or enabling.
The new generation of penny slots are the most effective machine ever developed. Like the previous post says, the machine gets "excited" for you, and convinces you that you are somehow a winner by returning a portion of your bet.
Greed has no risk. You could argue a casino has nothing to gain, but penny slots in Reno at 93% versus 85% in PA seems to say they have about twice the incentive. Just remember why there are no longer casinos made with wood, because all which were have been burned down.
The casino and customer relationship is antagonistic, not symbiotic. The casino's motivation is more, more, more just like the gambler and the casino is in control of the situation. If they have nothing to gain, why even have SBG in the first place or list paybacks and statistics for each machine? People still go back enough even if they think it is unfair or being cheated. Regulations are only so the casino doesn't steal from the state and they care nothing about letting conditions be fair in the casino.
Look up the history of legalized gambling. It has always come and gone away. Remember before gambling was legalized in Nevada it was illegal throughout the entire country. If casinos cared about the long term like you assume, they would never disappear in the future. The day will come some day when they either are outlawed or get so greedy, they fail and self-outlaw by going out of business. It's just going to be history repeating itself again.
Quote: tringlomaneNevada and Missouri both require at least a four minute idle period before changing a slot machine's configuration.
Sect 1.140
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2919
Section 3.07
http://www.mgc.dps.mo.gov/MICS/Chapter%20V.pdf
As for tightening...yeah they are being tightened a little bit (except for nickels, but nickel machines are going the way of the dodo bird. The win amt in '12 on nickels is about 10% of the '05 win amt.):
Las Vegas Strip
FY '05
1 cent 89.8%
5 cent 89.64%
25 cent 92.06%
1 dollar 94.38%
FY '12
1 cent 88.39%
5 cent 91.31%
25 cent 91.42%
1 dollar 93.35%
Missouri also saw a decrease in payouts. From a payout of 91.8% to 90.5% from '05 to '12. But much of this decrease is highly attributable to the increase in penny slot play (~87.5% return) at the expense of higher denominations.
Have to add, newer slots are normally much tighter than those which have been around. People have no experience with them, so cannot be so sure they are different.
Quote: Ardent1My advice, go play a 100-line (or 500-Play) video poker using the Moody Patent. Unless you are dealt a winning hand, you will no doubt have several winning lines and your winning credits will seem large until you compare them to your initial bet.
When N-Play came out, I was talking to Jazbo (the guy who did the initial work on N-Play) since he invited me to the "VIP" lounge to have a bite to eat. Jazbo predicted you will never "see" positive EV VPs game in N-Play format. He stated if did exist, it won't last long and smiled and wicked his eye. It was like talking about these mythical creatures. Jazbo used 500-Play to explain his reasoning (this was back when Triple play was getting started), he also warned me about the "dealt hand" phenomenon -- since the game has covariance, the variance of the game is amplied due to the number of lines AND associated covariance -- the variance of N-Play mostly comes from the dealt hands. That means the variance of the remaining game (sans dealt hands effect) is lower and you would lose more predictably on N-Play games versus the same game without the covariance, respectively. Btw, we have multi-line VP without co-variance so 500-Play in this no-covariance structure is no different that 500 times the variance of a single game.
In summary, to get the full return on a 9/6 JOBs, you need to have your fair share of flopped or dealt RF's. Suppose you play 100-play, a dealt RF is 100 RF's. A dealt RF occurs once in about 650,000 hands. You don't get a dealt RF, that 99.54% is just an illusionary expectations numbers that you will probably never attain.
I agree with tsmith's comment when applied to N-Play VP. I have a gaming license deal with IGT so I have to be careful with what I say. However, I will stated most people don't understand the damage of the dealt hand effect as you increase the lines in N-Play. Image never being dealt a RF on 100-play -- ouch, since you have 99 RF's waiting for you to claim.
This is what I've been saying for years about slots, but nobody believes me. All I hear is payback, payback, payback.
Quote: pacomartinA casino gains nothing by cheating a slot player. Slots fundamentally have the highest profit margin in a casino. They would be risking their meat and potatoes by playing games with a customer.
You are basically killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If the player believes he can be cheated, then he stops playing the machine. Then the casino loses far more money than he could possibly hope to gain by playing games with disabling or enabling.
The new generation of penny slots are the most effective machine ever developed. Like the previous post says, the machine gets "excited" for you, and convinces you that you are somehow a winner by returning a portion of your bet.
I quoted this before, but slot players are different from table players in this way, and have a different take. A slot player the worse you treat them and the worse he does on the slot floor, he tends to bet more and bet higher eventually, never actively thinking about the true reasons for his lack of success. A table player has more confidence, has interactions where he can complain to people on the floor about the game, and will leave if the HE(the rules) is being messed with or rules are being interpreted against his favor for an apparently arbitrary manner.
Disabling the machine, I think the player would accept because all he would get from an attendant is an "I don't know. It might come back on soon." They'll go somewhere else and never see the notice given. I believe there is a general disrespect for the slot player, or else they would not call it a stupid tax, etc.
