How exactly do slot machines work?

Has anyone ever owned one? Any settings that will give a win at a set time etc?
I went to a casino with my friend yesterday, he always put in $10 and at doubled it twice. I placed $5 in and didn't double it at all lol. Is there like a set amount you have to bet in order to win?:suspicion:

 

They have payout percentages, after taking in so much money they have to pay out to even up their ratio.

Basically watch someone lose a lot of money in one, then go play it.

 

Slot machines are a loaded question. It depends on the jurisdiction (e.g. is winning determined as an area-wide or from individual machines), but it is completely random, not fixed and certainly not pre-programmed. If you look around at something like a reel strip replacement kit, you'll see that the reels have a large number of symbols on them and when you spin three or five reels, the probability of getting a winning combination is pretty low. The machines that advertise a certain win percentage (e.g. 95%) is actually the average probability of getting your money back across a large number of spins, not that you will always get 95% of your money back.

 

All I can say is never put money in a video slot machine.

 

They are computer controlled over here, they are certainly not random. They pay out when they want to, based on how much money they have taken and how much they have already paid out.

 

yep same here, I have seen several insides of local machines, there are specific processors/programs (IIRC most are Scorpio boards or something like that) that calculate everything....

 

That's what I was waiting for, the same people were there when we got in the game room and left. Seeing $500 worth of credits on one guy's machine shocked me.

We only have video based slots over here now, and we were trying to win a car. Oh well we tried.

 

Same. In fact my cousin works for the state and goes around looking for gas stations with the slot machines and confiscates them and fines the owner. I think you have to have a certain percent of native american to have slots in your store.

 

You may win sometimes, but the average payout is always less than the average price you have to pay for one round.

 

Computer controlled = RNG, so yes, it is random.

 

on the features, lower than an 11 will give you a 12 99% of the time when its high stake. When its a low amount, you will give you it, its not random.

I get the feeling the machines we have in the UK must be different to what you have over in the states.

Website about UK ones:
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/fairplay/fruit/fruit1.htm

 

I work on the slot machine industry in Spain, the machines are not random at all, even there is a random part on the game.
Here the machines give 75% of the money that gets into. I dont work on the machine development side, so i cant really tell how the machines work in detail (i just know the rules and how it operates with the money), but how the machine works is ruled by law, so its not random at all.

 

Yeah, video slot machines or the ones with reels are no different. It knows what the result is going to be before they move. The reels are driven with stepper motors that can accurately be moved to the correct position. It doesn't look at the reels to determine whether to pay out, the reels just show what the computer inside decided to give you.

They use psychological tricks to get you to think you're on a winning streak when your credits are running low, to persuade you to put in more money. To make you think "This time you only needed one more nudge to get the jackpot so you must be close", but really you'll win when it wants you to. If it gives you holds on two items that would give you a win and you don't hold then it will spin in the symbol you needed, if you do hold then it won't.

More information here as to why you don't want to play fruit machines (unless you know how to cheat).

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums...os/44743-uk-general-fruit-machine-pubs-3.html

It may be different in the US, but everywhere else they are rigged.

 

Do you know in computer science doesen't exist random?

 

ALL slot machines for the last 12+ years are ic controlled... a "video" slot machine and a reels one are the same thing basically, all that changes are the screen or mechanical parts
even if a machine seems vintage it really isn't....

 

<-- Ph.D. in Computer Science, with a hell of a lot of experience playing and making all forms of casino games.

I'm not going to get into the semantics of random versus pseudo-random, as the gaming industry has gotten pseudo-random number generators to the point that they are a near approximate of a true random number. Why? Because they have to in order to satisfy gaming legislation and to prevent people from cheating by predicting the outcome of a game. I will say that most of the information about "fruit machines" cheating is just a bunch of people talking out of their asses because they don't understand how the system actually works. Yes, the machine knows the outcome of a game before it begins. Depending on the jurisdiction or how the machine is programmed, the outcome may be determined after the player's action instead (e.g. higher wager = different pay table). Regardless, it is a RNG/PRNG which determines the outcome.

If you want real information on slot probabilities and how they actually work, go to a legitimate source:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/

 

HAHA it's hilarious you'd pick a site saying the machines are random with this in the bottom right corner;
"Recommended: Vegas Click • Sponsored by: Online Casino Games"
That brings me back to the scientists proving animals that smoke heavily don't get cancer. You can prove anything to be false or true if you really want to.
Gambling machines are and always have been made to make the operator money, they are not random (Until you video yourself going into a place with them. opening it up and showing me the chip that is approved to generate random numbers like security tokens are, they will stay not random) and they spin to how the machine wants/makes money. Someone was even selling the development board for a few gambling machines on here a while back.

 

It's not a question if random or pseoudo random exist.
It's a question, in computer science, you can't create an alogorithm that execute/give random result/operation, same for the slot machine.
So your affermation:
"Computer controlled = RNG, so yes, it is random."
It's totally wrong!

EVERY algorithms are based on a logical reasoning and well definite conditions. Nothing is given to the case in such a random way

P.S. Either in electronic doesen't exist a random number/output generator chip!

 

Slot machines work on a psudo-random number generator. They use this to calculate the odds of you winning a particular 'pull' or not. Regardless if the machine has digital reels, or physical reels, it's all being controlled by the computer. The game operator can set the percent of return as well as configure other settings like bonus rounds, progressive wins, etc.

You'll note that on the side of the machine there are usually 'counters' that display the amount of money going in, going out, and how much a particular unit has been played, etc. Most of this now is computerized over a network but some machines still have this. The reason being, wins are not pre-determined in the same sense of "Every 100th time, let them win". They are setup (especially for games which require some skill, like video blackjack or poker) to give you odds of winning based on optimal play. So you could be on a machine thats heavy on the money taking, but still loose because your play was bad. But most operators don't care if you loose. What they want to track is defective units, or units which don't seem to be generating the correct odds. So if a machine is paying out too much money, which goes against what has been set, it will flag itself and the machine will be taken down for servicing.

 

The information on that site is really not correct for the UK/rest of europe:

"Myth: Slot machines are programmed to pay off a particular percentage of money bet. Thus, after a jackpot is hit the machine will tighten up to get back in balance. On the other hand, when a jackpot has not been hit for a long time it is overdue and more likely to hit.

Fact: As just mentioned, each spin is independent of all past spins. That means that for a given machine game, the odds are always the same. It makes no difference when the last jackpot was hit or how much the game paid out in the last hour, day, week, or any period of time."

But it even contradicts itself by then talking about adjustable pay out percentages.

"The kind of place you're likely to find tight slots are those with a captive audience, like the Las Vegas airport. So, if the slot manager feels that 92% is the right return for a penny game, for example, he is likely to set every penny game all that way, and keep them that way for years. "

The only way to get anywhere near an accurate pay out percentage is to take previous spins and their outcomes into account.

I believe in the states they do actually try to stop people from rigging the slot machines, but in the UK they just include small print on them that says they are rigged.
It's very easy to hide code that will likely never be found which will stop the machine paying out more than you want it to, so in the states it comes down to whether they take the risk.

The crane grabbers are rigged over here too. Although they've started moving to ones that are just always impossible to win, instead of letting you pick stuff up when it's taken enough money.

Just because there is a pseudo random number generator in there, it doesn't mean the slot machine always uses it or if it uses it that it always uses it in the same way. Some older fruit machines over here go crazy if they keep giving you the chance of winning, but you keep turning it down by nudging different reels etc. They didn't test that situation very well, so it trips over some bugs in the AI. That's the kind of thing that allows you to force a higher win than you'd normally get.

Those type of things aren't possible if the slot machine isn't rigged. Writing the software for a fair slot machine is trivially easy, writing one that cheats is a trickier.