Slot Holds at Various MGM Casinos

A friend and I were having a discussion about this last night. Each MGM (or Caesars) casino caters to a slightly different market. From ultra high end all the way down to a budget level casino.

Let us take the same denomination slot machine across all of their casinos. Would they have the same house edge? Would they be different, based upon their target market?

The reason why this came up is that locals casinos or low roller casinos in downtown Las Vegas tends to have lower house edges. All of MGM casinos are on the Strip, but cater towards different markets. Does the MGM offer better edges at their low rolling (or high rolling) casinos?

Thoughts?

I think your thoughts should start out with the RNG chip in the individual machines and consider that it would be one fine nightmare to be changing those chips to fine tune different casinos rather than changing the game mix to suit the customer demand.

A higher end casino might have higher denomination slots but it won't monkey around with the chip set in its 1.00 slots for any reason. It just might have more or fewer of the machines depending on its strategies but its not likely to change out the chips and put a different chip in. That takes time, effort, paperwork and gains darn little because any impact it has is poorly detected and severely diluted.

If there are variations, the upscale casinos will have tighter slots but once again, why even pay for the cab fare to a looser slot machine? Its just not worth it.

From what I know about MGM, each casino is run as a single entity competing against each other and the market. This would allow each VP and head of slot operations to make their own determinations on house hold percentage. Most games these days have several different settings, which can be easily changed by the operator to achieve their desired hold %.

Many casinos are now also looking into server based gaming, which would allow them to manipulate hold percentage and denominations on the fly. This would allow casinos to manage slots like table games, manipulating hold and denomination based on current demand and volume.

I am not in the industry, but as I understand it, the process to change the slot machine's hold is not that difficult, especially if you just do it initially.

If each MGM casino does operate independently from each would their slot holds for machines be different from casino to casino? Which ones would you believe to have a lower house edge?

As you know I am not much of a slot player, though I admit that I play a tiny bit for fun. Some of my friends are big slot players however, so this question came up.

Quote: gambler

I am not in the industry, but as I understand it, the process to change the slot machine's hold is not that difficult, especially if you just do it initially.

If each MGM casino does operate independently from each would their slot holds for machines be different from casino to casino? Which ones would you believe to have a lower house edge?

As you know I am not much of a slot player, though I admit that I play a tiny bit for fun. Some of my friends are big slot players however, so this question came up.

It's really hard to figure out what each casino executive is thinking, especially if they truly are given free reign to operate how they see fit. From the outside looking in I would have to guess the cheaper and older casinos would also employ a strategy of looser slot machines. That would lead me to believe places like Aria and Bellagio may have the highest hold %, while casinos like Monte Carlo may be better for the player. This is all pure speculation, because just as all casinos are different, so are all casino executives. One may believe hold % changes cannot be felt by the player and increase their hold %, while another executive may believe hold % is transparent, market towards value and give the player a break on hold %. It's really all guessing, but checking video poker pay tables may give you a little visibility into what strategy each casino may employ regarding hold %.

Quote: gambler

A friend and I were having a discussion about this last night. Each MGM (or Caesars) casino caters to a slightly different market. From ultra high end all the way down to a budget level casino.

Let us take the same denomination slot machine across all of their casinos. Would they have the same house edge? Would they be different, based upon their target market?

Not the same at all. Most games come with a range of paybacks so the casino operator can pick and choose. Changing it takes about 30 seconds - turn the admin key in the side, enter the menu, select the desired payback, exit out of everything. Certain newer systems even allow the operator to make the change from the back office, eliminating the need to even physically touch the machine.