Video slots without concept of reels
Not sure if this question applies to just online gambling or to to casino gambling as well so I'm posting it here.
Anyway, here goes: Can video slots be expected to model the concept of reels? Not as a physical thing, of course, but encoded in bits and bytes.
A bit of context: Being a computer programmer, I like to reverse engineer online slots to see how they work and to verify that the payouts are correctly stated. Admittedly, it's an eccentric hobby with little real life application. I've managed to reverse engineer various video game slots from different vendors and usually they seem to behave as I would expect them to do; they have five reels of varying length, and at each spin, a random position is picked. Knowing the reels, the rules, and the payouts, such a game is easily modelled in computer code.
However, the Egyptian Magic slots by Neogames seems to work differently. As far as I can tell (from 10,000 spins recorded in demo mode), it just fills in random symbols in all positions, i.e. the "spinning of the reels" is really nothing but smoke and mirrors. Some symbols occur far more often than others but the exact probability of each symbol is a secret kept by the server. My 10,000 spins does give an idea of the probability distribution, though.
Still, the whole thing strikes me as odd. Wondering if there is anyone on the forum who is has some insights on the internals of video slots and how they are implemented by various software vendors.
I asked a similar question and the answers may answer your question.
The payouts are based on the symbols/weights per reel, so you can't really randomize the number of times the symbols appear on a given reel or the weights that may be applied to the symbols.
It doesn't seem likely that the positions of the symbols are randomized either. The position of the symbols, and the weights if weights are used, are chosen very carefully. For instance, in reels that have "blanks" between each symbol, the weight applied to the blanks surrounding a "wild" will have a higher weight in order to give the illusion of a "near miss".
As a computer programmer myself, if I were to design a slot machine to test my theories, I would create a fixed size array of "symbol indexes" for each reel. Then you could calculate your payouts and run simulations.
Appendix 2 of the wizards slot machine odds has a great explanation of probabilty, odds, and weighting.
Quote: tinkererHi,
Not sure if this question applies to just online gambling or to to casino gambling as well so I'm posting it here.
Anyway, here goes: Can video slots be expected to model the concept of reels? Not as a physical thing, of course, but encoded in bits and bytes.
A bit of context: Being a computer programmer, I like to reverse engineer online slots to see how they work and to verify that the payouts are correctly stated. Admittedly, it's an eccentric hobby with little real life application. I've managed to reverse engineer various video game slots from different vendors and usually they seem to behave as I would expect them to do; they have five reels of varying length, and at each spin, a random position is picked. Knowing the reels, the rules, and the payouts, such a game is easily modelled in computer code.
However, the Egyptian Magic slots by Neogames seems to work differently. As far as I can tell (from 10,000 spins recorded in demo mode), it just fills in random symbols in all positions, i.e. the "spinning of the reels" is really nothing but smoke and mirrors. Some symbols occur far more often than others but the exact probability of each symbol is a secret kept by the server. My 10,000 spins does give an idea of the probability distribution, though.
Still, the whole thing strikes me as odd. Wondering if there is anyone on the forum who is has some insights on the internals of video slots and how they are implemented by various software vendors.
There are some slot games in casinos that have "independent reels" So the the 3x5, 4x6, whatever configuration, acts like 15 different reels for each possible position, 24 different reels for each position, etc. It sounds like this game may be the same way.
I just looked at the game screen, it looks like full reels with 3 visible positions, not 15 mini-reels. If it's actually acting as 15 mini-reels or doing something else, it's at least misleading.Quote: tringlomaneThere are some slot games in casinos that have "independent reels" So the the 3x5, 4x6, whatever configuration, acts like 15 different reels for each possible position, 24 different reels for each position, etc. It sounds like this game may be the same way.
The OP should bear in mind that some games work backwards, randomly selecting an award and then jiggering a display to match that award. That's how a lot of lottery and Class II games work. In other words, don't just assume the game works the way it looks. If it's an unregulated online casino, all bets are off (pun intended). The best bet might be to start with the regs (if there are any) in whatever jurisdiction the game operates. That can often narrow things down.
For what it's worth, WoO has several pages on slot game reverse engineering. I cited one of them in a trial last year:
https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/blazing-sevens/
https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/jackpot-party/
https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/hexbreaker/
The casino is licensed in the EU but I'm not sure that it matters a lot. I don't think the software vendors allow the individual casinos to tinker with the odds; at least to me that would seem like a very quick path to self destruction for any casino software vendor. As for whether the software vendor can be trusted .. dunno. It's not the most established vendor on the market. On the other hand, they don't have much to gain by cheating the player. It's not like it's a "feature" that they could put in writing anywhere in their promo material.
As for the game in question, I agree that the graphics is misleading which is why I was a bit confused by how it actually worked. I've looked at other games where the server communicates the reel positions and the win. In this one, the server communicates all symbols along with the win. If the model were backed by an actual reel model I would expect that for each reel, the set of three displayed symbols would quickly start to repeat itself. However, there seems to be no such pattern.
The payout, BTW, based upon my 10,000 game sample, is in the 92% range which is pretty stingy.
I wouldn't call that stingy for a slot, I would actually call that good.Quote: tinkerer
The payout, BTW, based upon my 10,000 game sample, is in the 92% range which is pretty stingy.
Quote: AxelWolfI wouldn't call that stingy for a slot, I would actually call that good.
Pretty standard forVegas, but a bit stingy for EU online. In my experience, they like it to be about 96%. Of course, in 10,000 games, the volatility can be throwing it off.
