Pull-tab slots?

The Wizard kindly explaine dabout "pull-tab" video poker machines with "guardian angel" programming. Briefly, these VP machines are really lotteries and the outcome of each hand is predetermined as would be for a scratch-off lottery ticket. Meaning if you dump three jacks and keep a three and four you'll get, say, three tens, and be paid for three of a kind. Maning also strategy doesn't make a difference.

In Mexico there are a few slot parlors (not casinos, since there are only slots). My interst in slots is very low. I did go to one of these palces once, though. By the entrance there was a prominent sign which said "The machines in this establishment operate under a drawing of random numbers."

A bit of an explanation is needed. Mexican law does not permit the existence of casinos. When the first slot parlors opened, usually along sports books and bingo parlors, they were promptly shut down by the authorities. The law does permit sports books, bingo and drawings at fixed establishments, and also sweepstakes. This is a stupid kind of law, I heartily concede, especially in a coutry which has operated a national lottery for over 150 years, and a national sports/lotto agency for over 30 years; not to mention state-owned race tracks. In any case, games like blackjack, poker, roulette and craps are banned.

So the sign indicates either: 1) legal mumbo-jumbo to make the slot parlor appear to comply with the law, or 2) a kind of pull-tab slot game.

If the second alternative, then the question is: does it make a difference?

I mean, if freely spinning reels (or video simualtions of reels) give you a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting the jackpot, is this any different from a machine programmed with prizes to hand out where the jackpot has a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting?

I've heard some slot parlors in the norhtern part of the country are starting to unveil VP machines. These, I've no doubt, are disguised lotto tickets.

Funny side note: one reason the government gives for its continued refusal to allow casinos in the country is that they'd draw organized crime (roll-eyes!) I suppose the shoot-out involving a drug lord's "sicarios" and marines last week had nothing to do with organized crime.

I define a pull tab in my glossary. I've personally designed some bingo/keno type games I've heard are in us in Mexico.

Quote: Wizard

I define a pull tab in my glossary. I've personally designed some bingo/keno type games I've heard are in us in Mexico.

Thanks!

Any game names?

I still don't play slots much, but I was thinking of visiting a slot parlor in the half-dead days just before New Year's.