well that's craps!

Aren't slot machines supposed to have a 95% payout? Not a 5% payout?

/There's a full article?

Bad subby. Nowhere even close to what the article says.

Playing against the house in a game involving no gambling skill at all is not likely to result in profit.

Casinos rip you off? This is news?

I have had personal contact with the entertainment industry and I know how film crews work. You probably have seen movie scenes or television spots depicting a joyous player winning a big jackpot.

FAIL.

NexusSix: Playing against the house in a game involving no gambling skill at all is not likely to result in profit.

MOAR at 11!

By that FAIL I mean on the part of the reporter. Using film props to explain reality? Ridiculous.

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno shiat?

I don't know why the article has the complicated math speculation for explaining it.
It's very, very simple.
Slot machines are designed to make money for the casino.
The occasional big win for a player is just a promotional stunt.
Like the old saying goes: You gotta spend money to make money. And the casinos spend very little compared to what they make.

You may as well toss your coins in a fountain and make a wish.
Chances are you'll get the same outcome.

Yeah, but they're fun to play.
I especially like the Wheel...Of...FORTUNE!! slot machines.

actually, the three times i've been to the one in Grantville, i've made over $50 in profit.

Of course A: I was lucky, and B: I was paying the penny slots.

Just another rainy, bleak Sunday in the Rendell Regime...I don't know whether to trust the author, but I sure don't trust the governor so I suppose rigging is likely by default.

We really need table games here and then maybe it'd be worth the trouble.

And then people would put that $1500 back in and loose it as well.

And that's why I play table games.

Driver: I don't know why the article has the complicated math speculation for explaining it.

He's alleging (very, very poorly) that the state's gaming control board rigged a machine to provide a payout to a potentially-friendly state legislator. He doesn't have any actual evidence of this, so he needs long, complicated explanations, straw men and false analogies.

In other words, he is in a Fark politics thread.

What about Ma's? Do hers pay out more?

OHhhhhh...you mean PA.

I hated this idea from the get go. I don't care whether gambling is immoral or not, but it is tacky to use the money on education. And my town is going to have a casino go in soon. The traffic nearby is going to be horrid. It's going to suck, a lot.

Mr Logo: And then people would put that $1500 back in and loose it as well.

I hear they have the losest slots though.

I hadn't thought of slot machines as a way to pay bribes but it makes a lot of sense.
Getting your payoff and not having to hide it is sweet.

Those odds are almost as good as lottery tickets.

The author says you need to spend an average of 3.75 million before you'll get the $1500 jackpot. You'll almost certainly get smaller wins along the way. The net payout is 85 percent so you can expect to lose 15 percent of what you put in.

basket548: Bad subby. Nowhere even close to what the article says.

FTFA -- If it takes a regular player 50 million three-second plays to get a big jackpot, it would take more than 11 years, playing 10 hours a day, every day. More important, if each play averages 50 cents, the player would have to put $25 million into the slot. The 85 percent payback would be $21,250,000. So, odds are, the cost of playing long enough to get a $1,500 jackpot would be $3,750,000.

Isn't the payout rate suppose to be for a group of machines or the whole casino rather than for each individual machine? I know sometimes there will be a payout rate on individual machines but in general the rate is averaged over all of the machines. So while one machine might be super stingy, another will payback almost everything put into it. Most likely the high return machines are placed near the doors so people walking by often see people winning.... though most of those wins (if not all) will be small amounts. It doesn't matter that the amount is small because the "win" lights still go on and the person jumps around like a money with a stun gun up its rectum.

Back to the main point... the state regulations probably allow individual machines to have the terribly low payout mentioned in the article only if there are enough other machines set to higher payback rates to cause the average to meet the stated 85% or whatever is state minimum/casino advertised rate. As long as the individual machine doesn't specify a particular payout rate, I don't see the problem as long as all the machines in the casino as a whole average out to be the state required rate or casino advertised rate (whichever is higher).

With only a few exceptions, gambling is a tax on those who aren't very good at math. Heck, even the exceptions only exist for those who are able to recognize that the odds have temporarily tilted in their favor by analyzing the situation with their math skills.

/Obvious man says: Casino can be fun for reasons other than winning money

Captain Darling: The author says you need to spend an average of 3.75 million before you'll get the $1500 jackpot. You'll almost certainly get smaller wins along the way. The net payout is 85 percent so you can expect to lose 15 percent of what you put in.

The article is worded somewhat awkwardly. What it actually says is that you'll win $21 million and lose $25 million in the average time it takes to see the $1500 jackpot. So the payoff is still 85%.

The author sure thinks he makes a striking conclusion, while pushing no actual substance.

He has "had contact with the entertainment industry", therefore it's proven the machine was rigged.

Wait wait wait, wait a god-durn minute.

You tellin' me those casinos ain't built on the backs of winners?

If it is 50M-1 odds for a jackpot, wouldn't it take an average player only 34M(-ish) tries to hit it? Then they'd be out only $2.55M before winning the $1,500.

welcome to Pennsylvania

/watch out for the potholes

Willaim Penn is doing Quaker casket laps as we speak.

Slot machine gambling is just theft, usually from the poor and stupid. A lot of states allow gambling because it pays a lot of money in taxes, but the damage it does is a lot worse than any amount of money they might get out of it.

At the very least, machines should not be allowed to trigger a jackpot any time the owner feels like, and they should not falsely misrepresent the odds by pretending almost-jackpots.

Tell me about it---last time I played the slots I only took 3,749,975.75 in quarters with me. At least now I know why I lost

No no no.

Maybe they can expect to rake in 3 million for each 1,500 single jackpot.

But they are likely going to be paying out 2.8 million for each 3 million.

Nobody would sit there for 1500 for 3,000,000. That would require some dummies to sit there and spin 2000 times without winning anything.

People wont do that. The only people that will play that much without winning are lotto players.

This author is so stupid it is scary and a lot of people that read his article is going to just assume he knows what he is talking about because, after all, he is a journalist. Some of you have already pointed out his stupidest conclusion that machines can be made to hit for movie sets. That's not a machine, that is a set of three reals set behind a piece of glass on a set in Beverly hills. Why do they always show the hit with the camera 6 inches from the glass and not a birds-eye view of a hit? If it is a birds-eye view hit you'll note that the reels are locking in right to left instead of left to right, which means the machine is in a test mode.
The math he used is also exceedingly bad. In a nutshell, it's a random number generator. So you can't say "If I put in 100 dollars I should at least win 85 of it back." Which is basically what he is saying only for the entire number set.

I'm just glad to hear that all the huge casinos in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City are built on the backs of winners....

More Losers = more lights and girls...

Computer slots are indeed rigged. Or did Farkers already forget the case where a man won a jackpot, and then was told the jackpot was simply a "test" or error sent through the computer system?

Coincidentally, that little pile of bullshiat from was from a PA casino, too.


Organized crime. They're like insurance companies, just with free drinks and flashing lights.

March_Hare: Captain Darling: The author says you need to spend an average of 3.75 million before you'll get the $1500 jackpot. You'll almost certainly get smaller wins along the way. The net payout is 85 percent so you can expect to lose 15 percent of what you put in.

The article is worded somewhat awkwardly. What it actually says is that you'll win $21 million and lose $25 million in the average time it takes to see the $1500 jackpot. So the payoff is still 85%.

You're right.

/slots FTL

Slot machines are for retards.

Well, I think TFA made some errors, but:
1) Laws say you can rig odds down to 50M:1, that is legal.
2) Laws say it must still payout at 0.85:1.

So a dollar slot at 50M:1 would have to pay out at 42.5M, in theory.

But are they at the SAME time??
See, I wonder about the wording here. If my bro comes over and I run off the riffraff and rig a machine so its chances of winning are 100:1, he'll profit immensely. Then I rig the machine to 50M:1 with a payout of $5. He does the same thing for me with his "business". So, on the whole, I'm losing money on paper while running crooked slots.

Depends on the wording!
I like the "near win" illusion... isn't that what state-run scratchoff tickets do? Cherry, cherry... mule? I assume they do make losing tickets look like near-wins.

I see no problem whatsoever with casinos or gambling in general. The corruption behind it is what irks me. For instance, gambling in Atlantic City's been legal since 1978 and the revenue was supposed to revitalize what was once a luxury resort spot. The casinos have completely transformed the boardwalk area, but if you go 2 blocks in any direction from there, you're in the middle of tenements.

Then the AC town council used Eminent Domain to displace 100's of residents to build a tunnel from the boardwalk to the marina, so that tourists could more easily get to Trump's, Harrah's and The Borgata.

/Still gamble at AC & even Mohegan Sun in CT.
//I do okay at craps & blackjack

j0ndas: Slot machine gambling is just theft, usually from the poor and stupid. A lot of states allow gambling because it pays a lot of money in taxes, but the damage it does is a lot worse than any amount of money they might get out of it.

Sorry, it's not theft when the mark feeds you his cash of his own free will. Fraud, maybe- but that means you have to promise returns or value for that money. A casino promises entertainment and the chance of winning- not an actual win.

That said, anybody with a basic understanding of arithmetic won't gamble against the house. Heck, anybody with a basic understand of the fact that a business exists to make money won't gamble against the house. You'll always lose.

Lamune_Baba: Computer slots are indeed rigged.

All slots and games of chance are rigged. Mostly, they're simply stacked in such a way as to guarantee a good return. Think of those "crane games" you see in diners and malls everywhere. Do you think they're a game of skill? Hell no- they have a computer programmed with a payout rate. That claw "slips" because the computer told it to. And people still feed quarters into them.

I can usually sort this stuff out. But I just got up a little while ago and haven't had any coffee yet, so can someone explain how this paragraph FTA rumbles along to its conclusion in the last sentence?

"If it takes a regular player 50 million three-second plays to get a big jackpot, it would take more than 11 years, playing 10 hours a day, every day. More important, if each play averages 50 cents, the player would have to put $25 million into the slot. The 85 percent payback would be $21,250,000. So, odds are, the cost of playing long enough to get a $1,500 jackpot would be $3,750,000."

Wow, the author does not seem to understand that when you calculate an expected return, you have to include the unlikely jackpot. If you don't, the EV plummets.

DrBenway: I can usually sort this stuff out. But I just got up a little while ago and haven't had any coffee yet, so can someone explain how this paragraph FTA rumbles along to its conclusion in the last sentence?

"If it takes a regular player 50 million three-second plays to get a big jackpot, it would take more than 11 years, playing 10 hours a day, every day. More important, if each play averages 50 cents, the player would have to put $25 million into the slot. The 85 percent payback would be $21,250,000. So, odds are, the cost of playing long enough to get a $1,500 jackpot would be $3,750,000."

He seems to be assuming that the $1,500 is the "big jackpot" whose odds can, by Pennsylvania law, be set at up to 50 MM:1 and that the machines set those odds exactly there. Even if I'm right he's still making all kinds of errors. He is almost terminally stupid and should have no input whatsoever into public opinion. He should be checking the dwindling number of classified ads for typos which their word processor program missed.

Of course slots are rigged. Its the house advantage, every game in the casino is designed so you have less then a 50% chance of winning payout.

Some slots are setup individually while others are networked together, like the ones for progressive slots that share a jackpot.

Have you ever noticed a section of slots get hot and everyone flocks to them then the section of slots goes cold just for the payouts to move somewhere else?

Something else they'll do it when the machine knows you are on your last credit it'll let you win an amount almost equal to your original deposit so you think you have a chance of getting ahead again,

I RTA right up to the incredibly bogus math.

Subby gets -1

Manfred J. Hattan: He is almost terminally stupid and should have no input whatsoever into public opinion. He should be checking the dwindling number of classified ads for typos which their word processor program missed.

I don't think I've ever seen an Internet Tough Mathematician. Gun nuts, knife nuts, karate nuts, yes. Differentiation nuts? No.

He seems to be assuming that the $1,500 is the "big jackpot" whose odds can, by Pennsylvania law, be set at up to 50 MM:1 and that the machines set those odds exactly there. Even if I'm right he's still making all kinds of errors. He is almost terminally stupid and should have no input whatsoever into public opinion. He should be checking the dwindling number of classified ads for typos which their word processor program missed.


Thanks, Manfred J. Hattan. Like I said, I'm usually pretty good at following stuff like that, but this kind of dropped me off a cliff, logic-wise, and I thought it was only because I was still groggy.

t3knomanser: Think of those "crane games" you see in diners and malls everywhere. Do you think they're a game of skill? Hell no- they have a computer programmed with a payout rate. That claw "slips" because the computer told it to. And people still feed quarters into them.

Actually, the whole G4TV 'expose' on that - that the strength of the claw changes - is only in the skeeziest of places, that import their machines from outside the US. (I believe that G4 special was a Europe roll) US Law states that the claw has to be the same strength, every time, just like those 'Stacker' games don't stop exactly when you push the button, but they are 'off' the *exact* same amount each time.

In the US, the cranes just, well, suck. They are always set to the lowest setting, because other than that, you'd get the smart guy who runs the machine. Everyone, honestly, would *love* the 'slip sometimes' cranes. Those work like this (we'll use SegaPrize, the leading crane-game manufacturer in Japan).

Prizes are 2000 Yen prizes. (boxed figures, usually, with EZ-grad sides)
100 Yen per play.
1 out of 20 times, the crane is super strong, and you get it.

If you want the prize, you just keep playing until you get it. You are happy, since Joe Schmo did your first 3 losses for you, and the owner is happy, because he just sold you a prize that retails for $20, and made $20 doing it.

Over here, SegaPrize is TOTALLY different - they sell crappy plushes that cost little to nothing, and you make your money like all other crane games - selling crap to people 50 cents at a time.

/vending owner-operator
//that means that I stand here all day and watch kids play games
///don't run crane games with their crap prizes, but would if they were 'rigged', so I could put in awesome Gundam models and stuff
////PA's slots are still crooked, though