Ainsworth MHB frustrations

I've taken or been a part of approximately 7-8 major chases in this game. I've only had two wins. Our fastest hit was 4% into the potential climb, which gave us a nice $9500 profit, but nearly every single other one I've ever been involved in has run up to 9980 or even 9990+ (and all of them except that quick hit ran at least to 9950+). Most of these are 4-8% anomalies in the other (bad) direction, and we've had our fair share of losses over $10k. It feels like a River Dragons skin at this point, where it almost always goes all the way up. Has anyone actually looked at a PAR sheet for these games or otherwise compiled data to confirm these actually pay out in a uniform distribution? Obviously my sample is low, but it's pretty terrifying to be potentially tossing away hundreds of thousands of dollars of EV just to get a slightly reasonable sample that can lead me to believe it's rigged.

My observation is that they almost always hit close to maximum. I don’t play them for this reason. There is nothing in the law that requires them to use a uniform distribution for a MHB. I seem to recall a thread on here where someone did get a par sheet for a MHB machine (no idea if it was Ainsworth) and the average progressive listed in the par sheet suggested something other than a uniform distribution.

The one I think you might be referring to is the River Dragons PAR on here, which is an AGS game. Those are fairly well known to run to the top. However, the cult knowledge among APs regarding Ainsworth machines is that they award their must-hit-by progressives in a uniform distribution. This hasn't been my experience with the game.

Quote: ctslots

I've taken or been a part of approximately 7-8 major chases in this game. I've only had two wins. Our fastest hit was 4% into the potential climb, which gave us a nice $9500 profit, but nearly every single other one I've ever been involved in has run up to 9980 or even 9990+ (and all of them except that quick hit ran at least to 9950+). Most of these are 4-8% anomalies in the other (bad) direction, and we've had our fair share of losses over $10k. It feels like a River Dragons skin at this point, where it almost always goes all the way up. Has anyone actually looked at a PAR sheet for these games or otherwise compiled data to confirm these actually pay out in a uniform distribution? Obviously my sample is low, but it's pretty terrifying to be potentially tossing away hundreds of thousands of dollars of EV just to get a slightly reasonable sample that can lead me to believe it's rigged.
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I think you're confusing Ainsworth must hits (Thunder cash, mustangs, etc) with AGS (River Dragons).

Ainsworth:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/KWEAAOSw9lVfD1WK/s-l1600.jpg

In my experience, Ainsworth must hit is random. I've hit the Major at $91xx chasing the minor.
AGS hits near the top.

Quote: ctslots

I've taken or been a part of approximately 7-8 major chases in this game. I've only had two wins. Our fastest hit was 4% into the potential climb, which gave us a nice $9500 profit, but nearly every single other one I've ever been involved in has run up to 9980 or even 9990+ (and all of them except that quick hit ran at least to 9950+). Most of these are 4-8% anomalies in the other (bad) direction, and we've had our fair share of losses over $10k. It feels like a River Dragons skin at this point, where it almost always goes all the way up. Has anyone actually looked at a PAR sheet for these games or otherwise compiled data to confirm these actually pay out in a uniform distribution? Obviously my sample is low, but it's pretty terrifying to be potentially tossing away hundreds of thousands of dollars of EV just to get a slightly reasonable sample that can lead me to believe it's rigged.
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IMO, Ainsworth is one of the few progressive brands that gives you a fair shake. Some progressives have insane PDFs that are not even uniform in the hit zone. I am not in the biz any more, so my data is years old. Ainsworth could have changed their strategy after seeing how successful the AGS-like strategy is in sucking unwary gamblers in.

I have 23 majors and 97 minors that I hit in my database. The average hit point isn't very useful. You should record your starting point and endpoint. If you are chasing a minor, you are still collecting data on the major. If you moved the $10K major from $9000 to $9010 while chasing a minor, you should trigger the major 1% of the time assuming the PDF is uniform. Because I record starting and ending points for the major, I have much more data than just the 23 majors that triggered. I can build an estimate of the PDF using every bit of this data.

The bottom line is that the PDF for Ainsworth minors looked uniform enough that I use that assumption in my EV calculations. The data on majors is much sparser, and the data on and specific major (say $10K) is even more sparse. The PDF that I generate for majors is skewed a bit to the high side, especially for the $10K majors. I tended to be much more conservative on majors because it is so hard to get the PDF nailed down. Of course, now I am not generating any new data. My worst major hits were $9994.19 and $9996.00 (the game rounded up from 9999.XX).

If you could find a PAR sheet that mentions the average progressive hit point, you can see if it is consistent with a uniform PDF. The PDF could still be nonuniform and have the same average.

I've finally, after a very long time, found another good play for data. This one was an MHB 8000/300 that starts at 7000/200 with increment per $20 of $0.03/$0.08. With a starting point of 7749 and a machine RTP of 96.48%, I calculated (given the minor was increased a bit) that my EV was roughly $3,100. The problem is that the MHB, like always, popped all the way up at 7996, and we lost about $9100. The fact that I've had so many extreme events occur, and yet the fact that I have also seen the game pop at much earlier points in the progression, especially quite low when the game is nowhere near +EV to play, leads me to a hypothesis: Perhaps the way the game awards jackpots is very often uniform, but has a bias to make it so that some of the MHBs are set to go to the top few percent of outcomes at a higher frequency than would be expected by purely random chance. This would mean that finding an Ainsworth MHB at a high value means you're more likely to have found one that is set to go to the top rather than one that is uniform. It would also make sense from a marketing perspective: Designing the game to have these very high jackpots more often than expected by random chance, yet still having the illusion of fairness, would drive a lot of people to play them more. That's the whole reason we advantage players sit down in the first place!
My sample size is still relatively low, but this would make sense given my results so far.

Quote: ctslots

I've finally, after a very long time, found another good play for data. This one was an MHB 8000/300 that starts at 7000/200 with increment per $20 of $0.03/$0.08. With a starting point of 7749 and a machine RTP of 96.48%, I calculated (given the minor was increased a bit) that my EV was roughly $3,100. The problem is that the MHB, like always, popped all the way up at 7996, and we lost about $9100. The fact that I've had so many extreme events occur, and yet the fact that I have also seen the game pop at much earlier points in the progression, especially quite low when the game is nowhere near +EV to play, leads me to a hypothesis: Perhaps the way the game awards jackpots is very often uniform, but has a bias to make it so that some of the MHBs are set to go to the top few percent of outcomes at a higher frequency than would be expected by purely random chance. This would mean that finding an Ainsworth MHB at a high value means you're more likely to have found one that is set to go to the top rather than one that is uniform. It would also make sense from a marketing perspective: Designing the game to have these very high jackpots more often than expected by random chance, yet still having the illusion of fairness, would drive a lot of people to play them more. That's the whole reason we advantage players sit down in the first place!
My sample size is still relatively low, but this would make sense given my results so far.
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I'm curious---what was the Minor and how do you get yourself to +$3100? Are you counting backend? You're saying that you drop 3.52%, but it's not as if that's reels; the RTP accounts for average hit point and base progressives, as well. It also includes meter increase.

The minor is a $2.50 meter that starts at $200, MH's at $300, so we would say $250 expected hit.

That's 5,000 meter moves from base, so you get $250 for every $12,500 coin-in there. 250/12500 = .02, or 2%.

We have a very unusual $7,000/$8,000...at least I've never seen that...with a $6.6667 meter move.

We figure 50,000 meter moves to get $7,500, so call it $333,335 coin-in, roughly.

7500/333335 = 0.0224998875 or 2.25%.

With that, we are at 4.25% expected return coming from Progressives as part of the base pay. If 96.48% is total Expected Return, then we knock the spins return down to 92.23%, which means that you're going to drop 7.77% on spins with fairly high variance...which could be higher or lower depending on what you're betting.

I don't really use halfway anymore, but we can, so $7749.00 and we want $8000.00 it has to hit by:

800,000-774900 = 25,100/2 = 12,550 Expected Meter Moves.

12550 * 6.667 = $83,670.85 Expected Coin-In.

83670.85 * .0777 = $6501.225045 Expected Drop on Reels.

In other words, not accounting for the Minor, halfway puts you at +$1300-$1400ish. I don't understand anything that the minor could be doing that doubles that.

Hold on...if I use 3.52% reel drop. 83,670.85 * .0352 = 2945.21392

Ahhh...that's what you did. You have to subtract the progressive average values from the RTP to get your reel drop. You can't subtract the RTP from 100% and have that be your reel drop because the Progressives are part of the RTP and need to be accounted for.

I don't think I'd even use halfway on an Ainsworth anymore, to be honest with you. The second digit needs to be an eight and the third digit at least mid before I'd ever even have something to think about. $7,84x.xx, something like that.

I hope you have backend. Even if your EV were $3,100, which it wasn't, that's only 86770.85/83670.85 = 1.03704994033

Not even 4% on a play with that much potential downside? Gross. You can definitely have those. LOL.

I hope the next one goes better. Don't forget to account for Progressives next time.

I have over 200 ags par sheets at my disposal i may be able to help you out here but most of them are duplicate/ variations of the same game

If you know where to look on the internet you too can have these at your disposal btw

No point in going over all of the numbers but it looks like you were down about 17k when it hit with about $165k of coin in. This is about a 10% burn rate which is quite good for an Assworth. Even if it hit half way between your start and 8000 you have would have been down about $8000, so break even. That was no where near $3000 in ev. It probably wasn’t even break even.

Quote: Mission146

Quote: ctslots

I've finally, after a very long time, found another good play for data. This one was an MHB 8000/300 that starts at 7000/200 with increment per $20 of $0.03/$0.08. With a starting point of 7749 and a machine RTP of 96.48%, I calculated (given the minor was increased a bit) that my EV was roughly $3,100. The problem is that the MHB, like always, popped all the way up at 7996, and we lost about $9100. The fact that I've had so many extreme events occur, and yet the fact that I have also seen the game pop at much earlier points in the progression, especially quite low when the game is nowhere near +EV to play, leads me to a hypothesis: Perhaps the way the game awards jackpots is very often uniform, but has a bias to make it so that some of the MHBs are set to go to the top few percent of outcomes at a higher frequency than would be expected by purely random chance. This would mean that finding an Ainsworth MHB at a high value means you're more likely to have found one that is set to go to the top rather than one that is uniform. It would also make sense from a marketing perspective: Designing the game to have these very high jackpots more often than expected by random chance, yet still having the illusion of fairness, would drive a lot of people to play them more. That's the whole reason we advantage players sit down in the first place!
My sample size is still relatively low, but this would make sense given my results so far.
link to original post

I'm curious---what was the Minor and how do you get yourself to +$3100? Are you counting backend? You're saying that you drop 3.52%, but it's not as if that's reels; the RTP accounts for average hit point and base progressives, as well. It also includes meter increase.

The minor is a $2.50 meter that starts at $200, MH's at $300, so we would say $250 expected hit.

That's 5,000 meter moves from base, so you get $250 for every $12,500 coin-in there. 250/12500 = .02, or 2%.

We have a very unusual $7,000/$8,000...at least I've never seen that...with a $6.6667 meter move.

We figure 50,000 meter moves to get $7,500, so call it $333,335 coin-in, roughly.

7500/333335 = 0.0224998875 or 2.25%.

With that, we are at 4.25% expected return coming from Progressives as part of the base pay. If 96.48% is total Expected Return, then we knock the spins return down to 92.23%, which means that you're going to drop 7.77% on spins with fairly high variance...which could be higher or lower depending on what you're betting.

I don't really use halfway anymore, but we can, so $7749.00 and we want $8000.00 it has to hit by:

800,000-774900 = 25,100/2 = 12,550 Expected Meter Moves.

12550 * 6.667 = $83,670.85 Expected Coin-In.

83670.85 * .0777 = $6501.225045 Expected Drop on Reels.

In other words, not accounting for the Minor, halfway puts you at +$1300-$1400ish. I don't understand anything that the minor could be doing that doubles that.

Hold on...if I use 3.52% reel drop. 83,670.85 * .0352 = 2945.21392

Ahhh...that's what you did. You have to subtract the progressive average values from the RTP to get your reel drop. You can't subtract the RTP from 100% and have that be your reel drop because the Progressives are part of the RTP and need to be accounted for.

I don't think I'd even use halfway on an Ainsworth anymore, to be honest with you. The second digit needs to be an eight and the third digit at least mid before I'd ever even have something to think about. $7,84x.xx, something like that.

I hope you have backend. Even if your EV were $3,100, which it wasn't, that's only 86770.85/83670.85 = 1.03704994033

Not even 4% on a play with that much potential downside? Gross. You can definitely have those. LOL.

I hope the next one goes better. Don't forget to account for Progressives next time.
link to original post

This is a screenshot from the calculator I'm using. It seems you're not including the minor as part of the game's base reels payout for the major calculation. The minor accounts for 2% of the game's payout, so the base pay should be considered to be 94.23% instead of 92.23%.

Quote: heatmap

I have over 200 ags par sheets at my disposal i may be able to help you out here but most of them are duplicate/ variations of the same game

If you know where to look on the internet you too can have these at your disposal btw
link to original post

Where do I look and can you share this?

Quote: ctslots

Quote: heatmap

I have over 200 ags par sheets at my disposal i may be able to help you out here but most of them are duplicate/ variations of the same game

If you know where to look on the internet you too can have these at your disposal btw
link to original post

Where do I look and can you share this?
link to original post

Ill share give me a period of time to gather some instructions

Quote: ctslots

Quote: Mission146

Quote: ctslots

I've finally, after a very long time, found another good play for data. This one was an MHB 8000/300 that starts at 7000/200 with increment per $20 of $0.03/$0.08. With a starting point of 7749 and a machine RTP of 96.48%, I calculated (given the minor was increased a bit) that my EV was roughly $3,100. The problem is that the MHB, like always, popped all the way up at 7996, and we lost about $9100. The fact that I've had so many extreme events occur, and yet the fact that I have also seen the game pop at much earlier points in the progression, especially quite low when the game is nowhere near +EV to play, leads me to a hypothesis: Perhaps the way the game awards jackpots is very often uniform, but has a bias to make it so that some of the MHBs are set to go to the top few percent of outcomes at a higher frequency than would be expected by purely random chance. This would mean that finding an Ainsworth MHB at a high value means you're more likely to have found one that is set to go to the top rather than one that is uniform. It would also make sense from a marketing perspective: Designing the game to have these very high jackpots more often than expected by random chance, yet still having the illusion of fairness, would drive a lot of people to play them more. That's the whole reason we advantage players sit down in the first place!
My sample size is still relatively low, but this would make sense given my results so far.
link to original post

I'm curious---what was the Minor and how do you get yourself to +$3100? Are you counting backend? You're saying that you drop 3.52%, but it's not as if that's reels; the RTP accounts for average hit point and base progressives, as well. It also includes meter increase.

The minor is a $2.50 meter that starts at $200, MH's at $300, so we would say $250 expected hit.

That's 5,000 meter moves from base, so you get $250 for every $12,500 coin-in there. 250/12500 = .02, or 2%.

We have a very unusual $7,000/$8,000...at least I've never seen that...with a $6.6667 meter move.

We figure 50,000 meter moves to get $7,500, so call it $333,335 coin-in, roughly.

7500/333335 = 0.0224998875 or 2.25%.

With that, we are at 4.25% expected return coming from Progressives as part of the base pay. If 96.48% is total Expected Return, then we knock the spins return down to 92.23%, which means that you're going to drop 7.77% on spins with fairly high variance...which could be higher or lower depending on what you're betting.

I don't really use halfway anymore, but we can, so $7749.00 and we want $8000.00 it has to hit by:

800,000-774900 = 25,100/2 = 12,550 Expected Meter Moves.

12550 * 6.667 = $83,670.85 Expected Coin-In.

83670.85 * .0777 = $6501.225045 Expected Drop on Reels.

In other words, not accounting for the Minor, halfway puts you at +$1300-$1400ish. I don't understand anything that the minor could be doing that doubles that.

Hold on...if I use 3.52% reel drop. 83,670.85 * .0352 = 2945.21392

Ahhh...that's what you did. You have to subtract the progressive average values from the RTP to get your reel drop. You can't subtract the RTP from 100% and have that be your reel drop because the Progressives are part of the RTP and need to be accounted for.

I don't think I'd even use halfway on an Ainsworth anymore, to be honest with you. The second digit needs to be an eight and the third digit at least mid before I'd ever even have something to think about. $7,84x.xx, something like that.

I hope you have backend. Even if your EV were $3,100, which it wasn't, that's only 86770.85/83670.85 = 1.03704994033

Not even 4% on a play with that much potential downside? Gross. You can definitely have those. LOL.

I hope the next one goes better. Don't forget to account for Progressives next time.
link to original post

This is a screenshot from the calculator I'm using. It seems you're not including the minor as part of the game's base reels payout for the major calculation. The minor accounts for 2% of the game's payout, so the base pay should be considered to be 94.23% instead of 92.23%.
link to original post

I disagree with you, but you might be right. I'm WAY more conservative than you are anyway in that I would never even contemplate $7,7XX.xx anything.

I think you're double counting the minor because my method calculates for drop on reels. You drop 7.77% (or whatever it was) on the reels and the Minor gets treated as a wash the way I do it. Actually, maybe I shouldn't phrase it as you're double-counting the minor, but rather, you are not sufficiently accounting for how much you expect to drop on the reels. The Minor, in my opinion, should not be treated as part of return on reels.

With that, my method accounts for drop on the reels, determines my expectation on the Major (which it subtracts the drop on the reels from) and basically treats the Minor as though it doesn't exist as it is part of the base RTP.

Of course, I don't actually use this method. The usual way I do it is ignore the progressive that I am NOT targeting, assume halfway point, but then also assume a 20% drop on the reels. If I still like my expectation after that, which I almost never will, then I would play it.***

I just don't think these things are worth it without backend somehow coming into play.  It's nothing to run 60-70% on them over a prolonged period of time betting max lines, but minimum bet per line. I should know because I have done it. I bet it's possible to run sub-50% on them if you're betting $50/spin or whatever the max happens to be.

Basically, I think Free Games account for 25%+ of your RTP. That being the case, how an individual play is going to go (in addition to the obvious of when does the MH actually pop) is highly incumbent on hitting free games at roughly the expected quip and the results of those Free Games not being abysmal.

Beyond that, some of the RTP also comes from top line pays on non free game base spins, which you probably won't hit on a given attempt.

I also don't think halfway can be taken for granted as the likely case anymore. Of course, assuming a 20% drop sort of makes up for that.

***If pennies, I'd assume a 25% drop on the reels.

I plugged those numbers into my own calculator and it's different by $6 ($3,138.69). But I do a lazy Minor calculation.

However much coin in the Major takes ($83,451) is divided by the average minor coin in ($12,500) and multiplied out. So my calculator shows you'll hit 6.67 Minors worth $1,763.75 on this play. Mine is a little bit inaccurate because this minor starts at $227 and I ignore that value.

One nice thing I put on my calculator is expected hourly win rate.
Major Coin In / Bet Size = Spins. Spins / SPH = Hours.
For Spins Per Hour just track meter movement for 20 minutes and * 3.

I agree with that part. Hasn’t it already been accounted for in the base RTP though?

I just look at drop on reels v. expected hit point ($$$) from Major and treat the Minor as EV neutral. The cash you get from the minor is already a part of the base RTP, so why does it count twice?

Quote: ctslots

Quote: heatmap

I have over 200 ags par sheets at my disposal i may be able to help you out here but most of them are duplicate/ variations of the same game

If you know where to look on the internet you too can have these at your disposal btw
link to original post

Where do I look and can you share this?
link to original post

Google and bing allow you to search for a specific file type using "filetype" to locate publicly accessible files found while crawling.

example: site:google.com filetype:pdf

Some companies have much better practices than others. You may find par sheets, manuals, game slicks, or absolutely nothing. They also see your ip for all the requests, so maybe use a VPN when searching for stuff these companies consider trade secrets.

Quote: itsmejeff

Quote: ctslots

Quote: heatmap

I have over 200 ags par sheets at my disposal i may be able to help you out here but most of them are duplicate/ variations of the same game

If you know where to look on the internet you too can have these at your disposal btw
link to original post

Where do I look and can you share this?
link to original post

Google and bing allow you to search for a specific file type using "filetype" to locate publicly accessible files found while crawling.

example: site:google.com filetype:pdf

Some companies have much better practices than others. You may find par sheets, manuals, game slicks, or absolutely nothing. They also see your ip for all the requests, so maybe use a VPN when searching for stuff these companies consider trade secrets.
link to original post

everything i have ever found is on archive.org but yeah pretty much tomato tomato

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
link to original post

Congratulations! I’ve only had that happen once where I was chasing one and hit something above it. Not on a 10k, unfortunately.

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
link to original post

I headed back over to this casino this week (they're giving me $3k a week in free play). Almost instantly in the door they trespassed me, citing usage of a cheating device on my phone, and said I was "looking at PARs" on my phone. I imagine they were likely talking about the very calculator I posted in here, which I used to determine my EV before playing. Conclusion: Check your calculators in the bathroom.

Quote: ctslots

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
link to original post

I headed back over to this casino this week (they're giving me $3k a week in free play). Almost instantly in the door they trespassed me, citing usage of a cheating device on my phone, and said I was "looking at PARs" on my phone. I imagine they were likely talking about the very calculator I posted in here, which I used to determine my EV before playing. Conclusion: Check your calculators in the bathroom.
link to original post

I assume that they just don't like progressive hustlers who win big and wanted to trespass you. Checking the calculator your phone doesn't give you any advantage over a guy who does the math on a piece of paper or in his head. In fact, he has no advantage over a guy who has simply memorized the meter number for an advantage play.

What bothers me about your posts is the extremely high RTP used in your example. An RTP of 96.48% would be high for an online slot machine. For B&M casinos, I would expect dollar slots to have an RTP of 90-92%. Games with a minimum bet of $5 or games in certain NV locations might be a bit higher.

Quote: Mental

Quote: ctslots

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
link to original post

I headed back over to this casino this week (they're giving me $3k a week in free play). Almost instantly in the door they trespassed me, citing usage of a cheating device on my phone, and said I was "looking at PARs" on my phone. I imagine they were likely talking about the very calculator I posted in here, which I used to determine my EV before playing. Conclusion: Check your calculators in the bathroom.
link to original post

I assume that they just don't like progressive hustlers who win big and wanted to trespass you. Checking the calculator your phone doesn't give you any advantage over a guy who does the math on a piece of paper or in his head. In fact, he has no advantage over a guy who has simply memorized the meter number for an advantage play.

What bothers me about your posts is the extremely high RTP used in your example. An RTP of 96.48% would be high for an online slot machine. For B&M casinos, I would expect dollar slots to have an RTP of 90-92%. Games with a minimum bet of $5 or games in certain NV locations might be a bit higher.
link to original post

I'm inclined to agree with Mental. If you had done the math either in your head or on paper, then they would have just needed a different excuse to 86 you...not that they really need an excuse at all as they can 86 anyone for any reason they want, in most jurisdictions.

Did you only play your card or the cards of others who were physically present on these occasions? It's such a bizarre thing if the stated reason is the only reason, but then the alternative to that is that they'll pretty much 86 anyone playing numbers that are even entry-level playable. Given that numbers, sooner or later, are going to become entry-level playable...kicking out everyone who happens to touch a certain machine in a certain state certainly doesn't seem like good business.

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.
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I looked at my database of online slot games. I am more interested in higher RTP games, but I have recorded the RTP of many of these games because I was induced to play them for promotions. I have 507 games with RTPs. The average RTP is 95.96% and a std. dev. of 0.49%. I don't really object to calling a RTP of 96.48% average for online games, but it is not within one SD of my average.

I do think anything above 95% RTP is super high for B&M slot machines with less than a $100 min bet.

Quote: Mental

Quote: ctslots

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
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I headed back over to this casino this week (they're giving me $3k a week in free play). Almost instantly in the door they trespassed me, citing usage of a cheating device on my phone, and said I was "looking at PARs" on my phone. I imagine they were likely talking about the very calculator I posted in here, which I used to determine my EV before playing. Conclusion: Check your calculators in the bathroom.
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I assume that they just don't like progressive hustlers who win big and wanted to trespass you. Checking the calculator your phone doesn't give you any advantage over a guy who does the math on a piece of paper or in his head. In fact, he has no advantage over a guy who has simply memorized the meter number for an advantage play.

What bothers me about your posts is the extremely high RTP used in your example. An RTP of 96.48% would be high for an online slot machine. For B&M casinos, I would expect dollar slots to have an RTP of 90-92%. Games with a minimum bet of $5 or games in certain NV locations might be a bit higher.
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I assume you haven't been to Oklahoma. My "home base" of the midwest generally has RTP on these machines in the range of 85-92%. In Michigan, where I got banned, it's generally closer to 92-94%. In Oklahoma, I rarely find these below 95%, and the highest I found was an Eagle Bucks at 97.25%.

Quote: Mental

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.
link to original post

I looked at my database of online slot games. I am more interested in higher RTP games, but I have recorded the RTP of many of these games because I was induced to play them for promotions. I have 507 games with RTPs. The average RTP is 95.96% and a std. dev. of 0.49%. I don't really object to calling a RTP of 96.48% average for online games, but it is not within one SD of my average.

I do think anything above 95% RTP is super high for B&M slot machines with less than a $100 min bet.
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It's all good; I think we can both agree that we're essentially debating semantics, at this point. Flirting with high 1SD, low 2SD; I'd be willing to call it high-average.

Quote: Mission146

Quote: Mental

Quote: ctslots

Quote: ctslots

Fun little story. Today I found two 10ks above 9700, one at 9776. I got on the $9776 one with an estimated EV of $2700. I was down about $12k on that one when the other got pushed up to $9730 with a $465 minor. I decided to go for that one until just the minor popped, then hop off. I was playing on both machines at the same time. Minor got to 494 when I got the "WINNER" screen: Major of $9742. First time I ever got it that early into a play. The other one ran up to $9910 and had a loss of $1182. The one with an early major made a profit of about $8800.
link to original post

I headed back over to this casino this week (they're giving me $3k a week in free play). Almost instantly in the door they trespassed me, citing usage of a cheating device on my phone, and said I was "looking at PARs" on my phone. I imagine they were likely talking about the very calculator I posted in here, which I used to determine my EV before playing. Conclusion: Check your calculators in the bathroom.
link to original post

I assume that they just don't like progressive hustlers who win big and wanted to trespass you. Checking the calculator your phone doesn't give you any advantage over a guy who does the math on a piece of paper or in his head. In fact, he has no advantage over a guy who has simply memorized the meter number for an advantage play.

What bothers me about your posts is the extremely high RTP used in your example. An RTP of 96.48% would be high for an online slot machine. For B&M casinos, I would expect dollar slots to have an RTP of 90-92%. Games with a minimum bet of $5 or games in certain NV locations might be a bit higher.
link to original post

I'm inclined to agree with Mental. If you had done the math either in your head or on paper, then they would have just needed a different excuse to 86 t that they really need an excuse at all as they can 86 anyone for any reason they want, in most jurisdictions.

Did you only play your card or the cards of others who were physically present on these occasions? It's such a bizarre thing if the stated reason is the only reason, but then the alternative to that is that they'll pretty much 86 anyone playing numbers that are even entry-level playable. Given that numbers, sooner or later, are going to become entry-level cking out everyone who happens to touch a certain machine in a certain state certainly doesn't seem like good business.

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.
link to original post

Only cards of physically present people. My girlfriend and I generally hit this spot together. They did complain one time, on our first visit, that the person hitting the button has to be the one with their card in, so we started following that rule after that complaint. I do multi-card in most spots, but I happened not to here.

Quote: ctslots

Only cards of physically present people. My girlfriend and I generally hit this spot together. They did complain one time, on our first visit, that the person hitting the button has to be the one with their card in, so we started following that rule after that complaint. I do multi-card in most spots, but I happened not to here.
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(Quote clipped, quote-in-quotes removed)

Amazing. If I ever find a time machine, I'm going to travel back to 1980 just to tell John Scarne about casinos trespassing people because the casinos aren't tolerant of advantage slot players just to be amused as he, very reasonably, laughs in my face.

I cannot understand why OK casinos would choose to set their slots so much looser than the competing states. I did some research and could not find any reporting on payback percentages similar to what is available in other US states. Tribal casinos typically have a lot of latitude in how they operate and few requirements to report hold figures.

Quote: Professor Slots

https://professorslots.com/oklahoma-slot-machine-casino-gambling/ No theoretical payout limits are legally set by Oklahoma’s state-tribal compacts. Further, no return statistics are publicly available.

If you are getting the RTP from the game display, are you sure you are using the theoretical RTP and not the historical RTP?

Not really germane to the discussion, but OK has a mix of class II and III games.

Quote: OK 2021 Gaming Annual Report

https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/omes/documents/GameCompAnnReport2021.pdf]
The number of Class III machines fell below the FY 2020 count. In FY 2021, there was a monthly average of 41,891 Class III machines compared to 43,112 in FY 2020.
CLASS III MACHINES The growth of Class III machines was strong from 2005 to 2008, but weakened after the National Indian Gaming Commission withdrew restrictive Class II regulations in 2008. Class II machines declined from 2005 to 2008 but have grown substantially since 2009. The number of Class III machines has begun to decline, while figures available indicate Class II machines continue to grow at a faster pace as a percentage of total machines. The state collects exclusivity fees from Class III machines and nonhouse-banked card games but not Class II games.

As far as I understand, Ainsworth MHBs show theoretical RTP, not historical.

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.

Mission, what makes you believe they are that high? I really don't have any idea what they are using online, but I would have guessed much lower than 96.48.

Quote: DRich

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.

Mission, what makes you believe they are that high? I really don't have any idea what they are using online, but I would have guessed much lower than 96.48.
link to original post

Seeing the stated returns. Most online casinos licensed in PA state the RTP on the help screen for each game.

Quote: Mission146

Quote: DRich

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.

Mission, what makes you believe they are that high? I really don't have any idea what they are using online, but I would have guessed much lower than 96.48.
link to original post

Seeing the stated returns. Most online casinos licensed in PA state the RTP on the help screen for each game.
link to original post

The question is are they saying this on the progressive machines or woukd you say on average you can open up a random slot in Any of the online casinos in PA and itll say above 90… im going to check today but i think its the “any random slot above 90%”… i have also been peeking at some of the PAR sheets and am ready to use the fact that the ones i am looking at are utilizing their progressive payout as part of the RTP

And what I’m saying is that its both ways

Quote: heatmap

Quote: Mission146

Quote: DRich

Quote: Mission146

I will disagree that 96.48% would be, 'High,' for an online slot machine. I'd call that about average.

Mission, what makes you believe they are that high? I really don't have any idea what they are using online, but I would have guessed much lower than 96.48.
link to original post

Seeing the stated returns. Most online casinos licensed in PA state the RTP on the help screen for each game.
link to original post

The question is are they saying this on the progressive machines or woukd you say on average you can open up a random slot in Any of the online casinos in PA and itll say above 90… im going to check today but i think its the “any random slot above 90%”… i have also been peeking at some of the PAR sheets and am ready to use the fact that the ones i am looking at are utilizing their progressive payout as part of the RTP

And what I’m saying is that its both ways
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On average, you can open up any online slot machine game, at a PA licensed online casino, and I would consider any machine that is sub-95% (which do exist) as being very much on the low end of the return range.

I'm sure that all of the slots with a progressive element are including the returns from same; I really don't see why they wouldn't. I maintain that even the non-progressive slots are generally going to be 95%+, though there are a few that are not.

first slot i looked at (BETMGM)