Does denomination matter as much as before?
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From 2012 gaming control board(Vegas):
Nickel - 94.4%
Quarter - 94.48%
Dollar - 94.42%
As expected, pennies were much worse at 89.33%.
Can anyone confirm this? I would prefer the lower denomination if the odds are near the same.
Any additional info is appreciated.
Thanks,
Jason.
The data is here and updated each month. Each month's data includes one-month, three-month, and 12-month totals.
For the 12 months ending 3/31/2015, nickel slots (and VP) at Strip casinos paid back 92.1%, compared to 91.35% for quarters and 93.74% for non-Megabucks dollars. On the other hand, at downtown casinos, while nickels paid back 92.04%, quarters paid 94.73% and dollars 95.35%. (Again, how much of that can be attributed to better VP pay tables downtown is hard to say.)
It could just be that quarter slots are set tighter on the Strip.
Quote: jlseslerInteresting. Thanks for the link. Do you know if the numbers are broken down by casino somewhere?
Well, the Gaming Control Board obviously has them, but I have been searching for breakdowns by casino for years and have yet to find them. I think some other states do make casino-by-casino breakdowns public.
387 penny machines
18 nickel machines (in fact, seven if the 39 casinos don't have any)
72 quarter machines
90 non-Megabucks dollar machines
5 Megabucks machines
17 $5 machines
5 $25/$100 machines
498 "multi-denomination" machines (I am assuming most of these are VP)
Note that NGCB's definition of the Strip may include outliers like Palms, Palace Station, Silver Sevens, and Hard Rock.
As for blackjack, you are reading that right, and the combination of bad strategy and a lot of people playing 6-5 probably accounts for it. I have a feeling a lot of people think, "Who cares what a blackjack pays? I'll make my money with my card counting system!" What surprises me is, roulette is an 18% win percentage game; how is that possible given that there aren't any bets where the house edge is more than 7.9%? Do that many players push their losses?
Quote: IbeatyouracesThe hold is not the same as house edge.
I understand that, but should the percentage difference be that much?
The "Win Percent" for games provides a ratio which has been adjusted for effects of credit play. The "Win Percent" for slot devices provides a ratio which represents the reported win amount divided by the total dollar amount played by patrons.
What does it mean by "credit play"?
Quote: ThatDonGuyI understand that, but should the percentage difference be that much?
For table games, yes. Hold is 1 - chips out/chips in. So casino hold varies based on time played on one's buyin.
Hold on slots/VP is much closer to house edge as long as there is a big sample. Pennies are consistently between 12 and 13% hold on the strip for example.
Quote: jlseslerI found this in the document:
The "Win Percent" for games provides a ratio which has been adjusted for effects of credit play. The "Win Percent" for slot devices provides a ratio which represents the reported win amount divided by the total dollar amount played by patrons.
What does it mean by "credit play"?
I assume it means "free play" chips.
$3 a spin - yeah let's call it a penny machine...
Quote: BTLWIWhat the hell does penny slot even mean anymore? You certainly can't bet $.01 on very many of them. Heck, most of the new ones don't even let you select a number of lines to bet, just the number of credits - $.60, $1.20, $1.80, $2.40, $3.00.
$3 a spin - yeah let's call it a penny machine...
Exactly!! I was going to start a thread on this. When the minimum bet is 30¢ on a "penny machine", it's no longer a penny machine. It's a "quarter + nickel" machine.
Quote: IbeatyouracesExactly!! I was going to start a thread on this. When the minimum bet is 30¢ on a "penny machine", it's no longer a penny machine. It's a "quarter + nickel" machine.
I would like to know this too. Is the hold on max bet pennies higher than a max lines min bet on nickels of the same game?
Quote: IbeatyouracesExactly!! I was going to start a thread on this. When the minimum bet is 30¢ on a "penny machine", it's no longer a penny machine. It's a "quarter + nickel" machine.
Despite the fact that Buffalo machines let you bet up to $4/spin, they're still penny machines because the wager is denominated in pennies. That's how gaming keeps track. A red chip table is still a red chip table even though you can bet black, etc.
A large plurality of spinning reel slots in Nevada casinos these days is penny multi-line games. Those show up in the top row of the gaming revenue report and have the highest win %. The other largest group is multi-denomination, which includes multi-games like VP/keno where you can switch denom from, say, 5c/10c/25c/50c or 1c/2c/5c for something like 100-play or cheap keno. It also includes the rarer, high-denom multi-denom like $1/2/5 mechanicals. The win% on those is lower due to the effects of VP. Here's the latest GRR:
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=9878
Quote: MathExtremistDespite the fact that Buffalo machines let you bet up to $4/spin, they're still penny machines because the wager is denominated in pennies. That's how gaming keeps track. A red chip table is still a red chip table even though you can bet black, etc.
A large plurality of spinning reel slots in Nevada casinos these days is penny multi-line games. Those show up in the top row of the gaming revenue report and have the highest win %. The other largest group is multi-denomination, which includes multi-games like VP/keno where you can switch denom from, say, 5c/10c/25c/50c or 1c/2c/5c for something like 100-play or cheap keno. It also includes the rarer, high-denom multi-denom like $1/2/5 mechanicals. The win% on those is lower due to the effects of VP. Here's the latest GRR:
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=9878
The problem is if I'm forced to bet in 30¢ increments on a penny machine and nothing less, its not a penny machine in my book. You don't see a $25 bj table forcing players to bet a minimum of $200 do you?
Quote: ThatDonGuyWell, the Gaming Control Board obviously has them, but I have been searching for breakdowns by casino for years and have yet to find them. I think some other states do make casino-by-casino breakdowns public.
No that's not made public unfortunately. If you're really interested in high returns go to the El Cortez, Boulder Strip or the 97.4% dollar slots at Circus Circus.
Quote: IbeatyouracesThe problem is if I'm forced to bet in 30¢ increments on a penny machine and nothing less, its not a penny machine in my book. You don't see a $25 bj table forcing players to bet a minimum of $200 do you?
No, but you do see $1-chip roulette tables forcing players to bet $10 minimum. And no disrespect intended, but the book that matters is the one written by the regulators - they call it a penny game, so that's why the operators and the vendors do. The last thing a slot floor analyst wants to do is game accounting by minimum bet. Way, way too much paperwork.
On a related note, did anyone ever venture into the "Copper Mine" in the old Gold Spike downtown? That was the only place I ever saw/played actual penny "coin-dropper" slot machines. This was in June 2005. The next time I went in Jan. 2007, the machines were still there, but had been converted to bill-in/attendant pay and no longer accepted nor disbursed pennies.
Quote: yy888888Don't these machines also have a ONE LINE option where you can actually spin on 1 credit (1 penny)? Nobody is forcing you to bet in 30c increments. You do have the option to choose one line right?
The newest ones (probably since 2012) come with 5 bet buttons (no line buttons) that are fixed amounts such as $.30, $.60, $1.50, $2.40, $3.00.
And there are two big reasons for this. One is that a 1c wager simply doesn't make enough money for the machine to stay on the floor. If you spun as fast as possible with 1c wagers, maybe the machine would make $20/day. Maybe. But games need to make 5-8x that in order to stay on the floor in Vegas.Quote: BTLWIThe newest ones (probably since 2012) come with 5 bet buttons (no line buttons) that are fixed amounts such as $.30, $.60, $1.50, $2.40, $3.00.
The other reason is that playing a single payline has a very different outcome distribution than the all-lines play does, and the games are typically designed to hit certain characteristics with all lines played. The vendors don't want you to play just one line because then you might not like the way the game plays -- so they don't let you.
Quote: onenickelmiracleI wondered it myself and can only guess no, or not as much as it used to. Casinos charge whatever they charge and people probably would play either way. Does it really make a difference to the casino placing a nine line quarter machine or a penny machine with a $2 max? I think the same people would play both.
Yes, but someone who wants to bet 40c/pull won't be able to play the former. Buffalo is still one of the most popular games around and it's usually configured at 1-5 or 1-10 credits. That's 40c to $2 or 40c to $4. Someone who wants to play $2/pull might be open to both kinds of games but a 40c player can only play the penny Buffalo. All things equal, that's why you see so many penny-denom games. They satisfy more players' bet levels and that means you need fewer physical machines to serve the same number of players.
Don't forget, slot machines cost about $15,000 each not counting ongoing maintenance. You don't want to spend that on a game that won't be played much.
Quote: onenickelmiracleDoes it really make a difference to the casino placing a nine line quarter machine or a penny machine with a $2 max? I think the same people would play both.
I'm thinking that there's some psychology at work here. I bet there are people who play the penny slots because they can rationalize "it's just pennies," but would never play a quarter machine because "that's too much." Even though the bet per spin might be the same.
It's actually kind of a pet peeve of mine when casinos call it a "penny slot," but the min bet is something like 30c. I can't remember where it was, but within the last year, I did play a machine where I could, and did, play 1c per spin. But on most I have seen lately, you cannot do this.
Quote: Joeman
It's actually kind of a pet peeve of mine when casinos call it a "penny slot," but the min bet is something like 30c. I can't remember where it was, but within the last year, I did play a machine where I could, and did, play 1c per spin. But on most I have seen lately, you cannot do this.
In a manner of speaking, I would tend to contest that such machines could still rightfully be called, "Penny Slots," and my reasoning is that these thirty or forty cent bets are usually structured such that a player is also playing thirty or forty lines. Because this is the case, each line might technically constitute an individual bet...on the results of that line...even though the player is required to make one overall bet covering all lines.
I also echo the statements of those who are not surprised that most newer machines, if not almost all of them, will not allow a player to simply play one-line at one penny per line. The machine isn't going to make anything that way.
