Less wilds or less bonus amounts? Regarding slot payback

I don't really play much slots, and when I do it's usually a low cycle bonus or a must hit by. My question is to the slot players throughout the years. We all know that slot holds have gone up over time (based on economy and what I've been reading on other websites), is it because you tend to get less wilds, less line hits, or less wins on bonus rounds? I've not played extensively but basically come to the conclusion based on playing on the strip vs off strip, that the casinos with the likelihood of higher returns tend to line up more hits, as well as wilds appearing on reels 1 and 2 to pretty much guarantee a hit on that spin. The casinos with lower returns, or the appearance of, tend to miss more often than not or have all types of icons on the reels.

Also the bonus rounds: I feel it's pretty much the same either way. I heard the rounds are predetermined as soon as you hit the bonus games. Is the higher hold based on less bonus symbols coming up as well?

Of course I am just making an observation on what I see, and I probably don't play enough to make a determination between the different ways the slots are set up. What I'd like to know is can the frequency of bonus symbols be altered as a way of setting the hold, as well as the wild symbols and line hits? Remember the Lion's Share slot at the MGM, was it a possibility that the jackpot symbols were altered in frequency during the hype of the machine not hitting for over 20 years?

As for big progressives, can the return of the game be set so low that the progressive would make up almost the entirety of the return? Let's suppose a WoF progressive was at $5 million and it was worth 85% of the return, can the casino change the settings to allow the base game to only return 14.9%?

Quote: djatc

I don't really play much slots, and when I do it's usually a low cycle bonus or a must hit by. My question is to the slot players throughout the years. We all know that slot holds have gone up over time (based on economy and what I've been reading on other websites), is it because you tend to get less wilds, less line hits, or less wins on bonus rounds? I've not played extensively but basically come to the conclusion based on playing on the strip vs off strip, that the casinos with the likelihood of higher returns tend to line up more hits, as well as wilds appearing on reels 1 and 2 to pretty much guarantee a hit on that spin. The casinos with lower returns, or the appearance of, tend to miss more often than not or have all types of icons on the reels.

It could be any of those reasons, theoretically. It would probably depend on the specific slot machine in question. For slot machines with a high Free Games frequency, you could change the probability of Free Games by switching a Free Games symbol with something else on one (or more) of the reels, or you could simply have different Free Games reel assignments that could result in a change to the return without changing the actual probability of hitting Free Games. (i.e. more lower paying symbols)

Quote:

Of course I am just making an observation on what I see, and I probably don't play enough to make a determination between the different ways the slots are set up. What I'd like to know is can the frequency of bonus symbols be altered as a way of setting the hold, as well as the wild symbols and line hits? Remember the Lion's Share slot at the MGM, was it a possibility that the jackpot symbols were altered in frequency during the hype of the machine not hitting for over 20 years?

The Lion's Share machine could theoretically have been set to a different probability for the top Progressive. However, the frequency of Bonus and/or Progressive symbols can definitely be altered to change the hold of a game. You could simply replace one (or more) Bonus and/or Progressive symbols with a low-paying symbol.

Quote:

As for big progressives, can the return of the game be set so low that the progressive would make up almost the entirety of the return? Let's suppose a WoF progressive was at $5 million and it was worth 85% of the return, can the casino change the settings to allow the base game to only return 14.9%?

I think that they could do that theoretically, but that's certainly not the case at all, I wouldn't imagine. That'd be like playing the lottery in hyper-speed. Even though this page is a bit dated:

https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/megabucks/

Wizard did a page on MegaBucks and found:

Quote:

The portion of money returned to players in form of jackpots is thus $167,367,727/$1,644,589,056 = 10.18%. From the Nevada Gaming reports, we know a total of 88.61% is returned to players. That means that the portion returned to players in non-jackpots is 88.61% - 10.18% = 78.44% (The 0.01% apparent difference is due to rounding).

Finally, here is a link to a PDF which is the PAR Sheet for Bally's machine Blazing 7's:

http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/8200%20bally.pdf

Of particular interest to you might be the chart at the bottom of that page which contains the reel assignments. You'll see that the Jackpot pays 5,000 coins and is hit when Blazing 7's symbols appear on the first & second reels as well as a Double Jackpot symbol on the third reel. There are two Blazing 7's symbols on reels one and two out of seventy-two possible symbols (23 Blazing 7s Symbols on Reel 3!) and there is only one Double Jackpot symbol, out of seventy-two, on the third reel.

Therefore, the odds of hitting that jackpot are:

1/(2/72*2/72*1/72) = 1 in 93312

Now, the Jackpot pays 5,000 coins on a bet of three coins, thus, the return from the jackpot is:

(5000/3) * (1/93312) = 0.01786122542 which is 1.786122542%

Imagine if we made a change to this machine in which, ignoring everything else for simplicity, (because other pays would also go down) but let's just look at what it does to the top jackpot if we only put one Blazing 7's symbol on the first and second reels:

1/(1/72*1/72*1/72) = 1 in 373248

(5000/3) * (1/373248) = 0.00446530635 which is 0.446530635%

So, ignoring the fact that the probability of Three Blazing 7's Symbols is also going to drop considerably, we see that, by making this change to two symbols, we have decreased the value of the machine overall (again, only counting the top result) by roughly 1.34%.

Another thing you'll notice about this machine is that there are a ton of Blazing 7's Symbols on the third reel. Those will help the player lose in a way that at least adds to the excitement. 31.94444% of the third reel symbols are Blazing 7's symbols while that is only true for 2.77778% of the symbols on the first and second reels, however:

(2/72 * 70/72 * 23/72) + (70/72 * 2/72 * 23/72) = 0.01725394375 or 1.725394375%, roughly 1 in 58 spins, is going to be a, "Near-Miss," on the triple Blazing 7's with two Blazing 7's symbols showing. The probability of actually hitting the Blazing 7's is:

(2/72 * 2/72 * 23/72) = 0.00024648491 or 0.024648491% which is roughly 1 in 4057.

In other words, you're going to see a Blazing 7 symbol on the third reel 31.94444% of the time, but 1.725394375% of the time you're going to see a Blazing 7 symbol on the third reel AND have a, "Near-Miss." That means that about 5.4% of the time that you do have a Blazing 7 symbol on the third reel, you're also going to have one on the first two reels, even though the probability of three of them actually hitting is 1/4057. Overall, you'll have one on either of the first two reels and one on the third reel bout 1/58 times.

That doesn't include the much less likely scenario of having them on the first and second reels, but not the third. I was just trying to address your questions of how changing a symbol or two here or there can significantly alter the payout.