Game king progressive slot oddities

Noticed at one casino, they have Super 8 race in denominations from a quarter to dollars. This game way back used to be attractive to me at other casinos. Casinos must not have liked them because they have been set as non-progressives everywhere almost. Pots used to get huge at places that didn't cap them, but that's besides the point.

So this casino has been open almost two years and the pots on these games are still zero with a few being at most 200 credits. These machines are set to move one credit for every 36 coins played compared to the old standard of one for nine credits bet. There is still no way these machines have not gotten any play in so long and no way they've kept hitting. They have no printed rule about them being awarded automatically without the all fruit coming.

I just accounted for this discrepancy as either corruption, incompetence, negligence, etc. I asked about it once and was told maybe they've just all been hitting, and obviously, they know nothing of the game odds, so assumed incompetence. I don't know, maybe the techs reset these and nobody cares, because, no way in hell a minimum bet of 8 isn't having son failure along the way.

Every once in a while I'll check Ring em ups at another casino and noticed the same thing. Most machines tend to be at the reset, highest being 200 some coins. No mention of a pity award, without the all fruit coming, so what gives. These should be spread out with various ranges of values. They require 8 lines to be played as well to qualify for the jackpot. The numbers don't seem right even if people rarely play these games.

All Super 8 Races are definitely not created equal. Apparently there are many settings. Many! But adding 1 to the fruit bonus per 36 bet is standard, or 2.77%. Also, their hit frequency can and does differ. There are 64 "stops" on each reel. Changing the number of fruits from 23 to 22 makes a big difference.

Here's an interesting difference. I play on some machines that will NOT award the fruit bonus if there are nine fruits during the turbo race. Other machines will. I remember the disappointment when I first hit nine fruits that didn't pay me squat. Well, it did pay like 320 or something, but did not crack the bank.

I love Super 8 Race. I've never seen anyone but me playing it, so it must take approximately forever to hit a jackpot.

When I first starting to the casino, around 2004, all the Super 8 races at Mountaineer and Turning Stone were not 36 coins, but 9. If you were playing 8 lines, they would move almost every spin obviously. 36 coins was a new thing of the post great recession reality I think.

Hard to hit, almost impossible it would seem sometimes. At Mountaineer, the jackpots would keep incrementing until 9600, then freeze there without any rule allowing it. If I ever won one maxed, I would contest, but that never happened. I know people would play them at the maxed jackpot, lose $5000 betting the max coin of 8, then walk away empty handed. Whoever hit them finally would win $2400 for the progressive, and $100 for the fruit scatter.

Turning Stone had them as stand alones with 40 coin max in quarters and dollars and the pots got huge. Quarters I saw $12,000 jackpots and dollars, $40,000. Yes these games were fun and you could count on 100x+ a bonus. Get a few quickly and you were almost ahead $500 playing quarters. Never hit a pot here unfortunately. I would go there visiting family a few times a year, so had some opportunity.

Just happened to be sitting there when the casino had a tour with an expert talking I assumed was from IGT. Could have just been a saleswoman. Well she was basically complaining about the machines saying people would only play the bigger progressives leaving the others alone and play until they hit or had nice bonuses. Basically implying the money won was not kept within the casino often never lost back.

I thought to myself, she wants money played eternally with money shot wins impossible and that's what happened. These machines people played hundreds through were replaced with penny machines. I can't remember, probably 30 cent minimums.

Similar Ring 'em Ups to the second point, depending on the machine(thing cross shaped bells bonus) would get up to $100, often $50. At the second casino mentioned above, I never see them much over $10, and usually $5 at the reset. Can we really assume these machines are literally never played at all for these games? I find it hard to believe. Maybe I'll have to test them to see if one coin is paying them out even though the rules say you must play 8 lines. I've hit another game maker's ring 'em up this way, but their rules don't state you must bet 8. It's totally stupid winning $15, but it's a low cost time killer.

Otherwise, these progressives disappearing are a scandal if they're not being won and I doubt they are either casino. I have been told if the machines have any problems, they reset them and the progressive pots go to zero. Heard many stories of Mountaineer doing this, more specifically, the "state". You have to wonder if these casinos intentionally without problems keeping the returns down.

Quote: bobbartop

All Super 8 Races are definitely not created equal. Apparently there are many settings. Many! But adding 1 to the fruit bonus per 36 bet is standard, or 2.77%. Also, their hit frequency can and does differ. There are 64 "stops" on each reel. Changing the number of fruits from 23 to 22 makes a big difference.

Here's an interesting difference. I play on some machines that will NOT award the fruit bonus if there are nine fruits during the turbo race. Other machines will. I remember the disappointment when I first hit nine fruits that didn't pay me squat. Well, it did pay like 320 or something, but did not crack the bank.

Nice win. At Turning Stone, had all but the last car and within that same bonus, had all but the last 7. Pretty sure either would have paid $2,000 or $2,500. Would have been nice for a $2 bet. Too bad Mickey is not here or I'm sure he would have something to say about these. I had heard stories of these in Vegas and ethnic gangs stalking them expecting planes must be taken soon. Was told they would say, "you plane leave, you go home, I take machine". As they left they would probably say da plane, da plane.

Like I mentioned, there's dozens of changes that can be made in settings, several versions. What you have described to me sounds like a mess, especially disappearing jackpots. I believe there is an optimal way to set these up, and I know places that are like that and get plenty of action. I won't elaborate, I'll just use my knowledge if I ever get a my own bar in Vegas. It's going to be Bob Bartop's Bar O' Bartops.

Just remember, you can have the same probability of hitting nine fruit at two different casinos while at the same time there are more plums on one's reels and less Triple Bars on the other, affecting the base return. I have not seen or tested one that did not have 15 cars per reel, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Which would make the turbo race something like 1/330.

Ring'em Up, I won't play it unless it's at least 1000 coin bonus. I do find these rarely.

If you want to play the game with an edge, you really need to spend some time back-constructing the setup. Or get the par sheet for that particular version so you know what you're looking at.

By the way, if I crack nine fruits, I never leave it on the screen. I believe that thwarts people playing. I'll always spend a little bit to "prime" it for others.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Too bad Mickey is not here or I'm sure he would have something to say about these.

I'm sure he would too, I know he is very familiar with them. He's the most interesting person I think I've read on different boards. Very intelligent, very colorful.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

At Turning Stone, had all but the last car and within that same bonus, had all but the last 7.

The cars are a breeze, maybe only 1/500000. But depending on the version nine 7s is probably over 1 in 40 million. There's usually more plums than 7s.

Knew they were all super rare just because never met anyone claiming to have all of anything more than once ever.

Super 8 race...SUCKS
I once saw a guy hit the all fruit 3x on the same machine. ;-)

I've come to a temporary conclusion the ring 'em ups are just relatively easy to win and otherwise not played much.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

I've come to a temporary conclusion the ring 'em ups are just relatively easy to win and otherwise not played much.

Ring'em Up is much easier to crack. I put it at either 1/1241 or 1/1702. Unfortunately, I rarely find one that is positive, imo. It's too bad they don't progress at a higher rate. Where I play I do see them played frequently but it is almost impossible to walk away with a win. If you get nine of anything it's going to be a big pay, but the odds are essentially astronomical. I've had eight Bells once, and it was in Turbo Mode. I will play it with a fruit bonus of about a 1000 but figure I'm close to just playing even for my bounce back.

Of course, the bank does not build as Super8 does, not on a fixed percentage of coin-in, but rather the appearance of two Triple Bars. I estimate approximately 1-1/2%, just on past experience.

One good thing about the game is you can be sure that you can crack it, so you could lower your play number as you're going to hit it. The most stubborn machine I've ever played took me 7500 hands to crack. Almost three hours, that was a freak.

Ring 'em up is a funny game because I have known a few completely different companies offering different games called ring 'em up. They all had different pay tables and methods of metering. I usually play them out of boredom.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Ring 'em up is a funny game because I have known a few completely different companies offering different games called ring 'em up. They all had different pay tables and methods of metering. I usually play them out of boredom.

I have heard hints of that but have never actually seen anything other than the modern IGT version. I'd sure like to see a photo of the same title by another company. The game as it is is virtually useless to me.

Funny, when I originally back-constructed the reels I made a big mistake and cost myself a significant amount of money playing at numbers that were too low. Fortunately it just felt wrong to me and I checked myself and found my simple but careless error.

Quote: bobbartop

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Ring 'em up is a funny game because I have known a few completely different companies offering different games called ring 'em up. They all had different pay tables and methods of metering. I usually play them out of boredom.

I have heard hints of that but have never actually seen anything other than the modern IGT version. I'd sure like to see a photo of the same title by another company. The game as it is is virtually useless to me.

Sorry to bump an ancient post, but I found this thread via a Google search and I have some information to contribute.

Ring 'Em Up was created by the defunct slot machine manufacturer Video Lottery Consultants (VLC). VLC eventually became part of Powerhouse Technologies, which was later bought by Anchor Gaming. Anchor Gaming was bought by IGT in 2001. Like a number of companies before and after, IGT bought out their competition, killed off their platform, and then used the intellectual property they got in the deal in future IGT games. Silicon Gaming with their way-ahead-of-its-time Odyssey slot machines were another notable company where this scenario played out.

Ring 'Em Up was available on the VLC 8724 as seen in this menu:




It was also available in their next generation of machines, the 8825:








Those screenshots are from a YouTube video I found which has just a few spins of that game, starting at 1:52 in the video:



Alternate link to YouTube video

Hopefully this information was interesting or useful for someone.

Thanks for the history!

Cal-Nev-Ari Casino had one of these VLC machines when I visited around 2016.

Apparently only one guy in Vegas has the capability of resetting or repairing these machines.

Quote: smoothgrh

Apparently only one guy in Vegas has the capability of resetting or repairing these machines.

As the story goes, VLC used "self destructing" EPROMs for their clear/reset chips, which meant that if you attempted to duplicate the EPROM it wouldn't work and it would render the original chip useless as well. The clear/reset chip is needed anytime the motherboard batteries are replaced, and anytime you want to make significant setup changes to the machine.

Because the chips could not be duplicated, and because of how long ago these machines were made and VLC was bought out, only a small number of original chips still exist and are in the wild. The guy in Vegas is one of only a few people that still have the chips and the knowledge to work on the machines. If you're ever considering buying one for home use, don't. They'll become a boat anchor once the motherboard batteries eventually die. Honestly, in 2024, the games really don't hold up for entertainment value. I used to own one years ago and I was happy to have sold it off.

Quote: knagl

Quote: smoothgrh

Apparently only one guy in Vegas has the capability of resetting or repairing these machines.

As the story goes, VLC used "self destructing" EPROMs for their clear/reset chips, which meant that if you attempted to duplicate the EPROM it wouldn't work and it would render the original chip useless as well. The clear/reset chip is needed anytime the motherboard batteries are replaced, and anytime you want to make significant setup changes to the machine.

I have programmed lots of slot machines and I am not aware of any self destructing EPROMS. I did some work for Anchor Gaming when they aligned with VLC and don't remember hearing any such thing.