It’s that time again – let’s directly address a comment from someone who says we’re lying:
ANYONE with a lick of common sense that has played slot machines regularly can see that the payouts are absolutely NOT random, the whole lie that they aren’t/can’t be manipulated or that the spins themselves are “random” or that they can’t be made to alter things based on player cards, etc is ridiculous. They are computers, computer software can be structured to do anything and leave no trace. Casinos are built on trickery and greed, these type of lies will always be told.
Keith W.
Computers can be programmed to do anything, but if those programming decisions fail to clear regulatory standards set to protect players and ensure fairness, they will never be able to be legally placed on a casino floor.
If casinos continually fail to follow regulations, and do so purposefully, they will lose their ability to own casinos, because casinos in most markets have to be approved, with that approval regularly revisited. Tribal casinos sign compacts with states to offer Vegas-style gaming, so these aspects are not limited to just commercial casinos in markets like Las Vegas, either.
Then we talk to the people who makes these products. They tell us, consistently, that players’ cards can’t impact payouts. The machines aren’t even designed to offer such a feature. Just because a computer can be programmed to do something doesn’t mean it is.
Randomness is required in regulations to ensure fairness – the whole point is to confirm casinos can’t directly control the outcomes. A modern gaming element that doesn’t leverage randomness to determine the outcome in some way (random number generator, dice, cards, etc.) won’t pass muster, and the games will never reach the casino floor.
Casinos don’t need to rely on trickery and greed because without trickery every game is designed with a house advantage – they will make money over time off every game in the casino, because they’re designed to do so.
So this is one of those times we remind players – if you think casinos are specifically designed to take your money in nefarious ways, you probably shouldn’t be visiting the casino with your entertainment budget.
Players should expect to spend the money they earmark for the casino, just as they would a restaurant or a movie. Gambling is unusual in that there is the chance to leave a winner. That should never be the expected outcome.
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look at it this time Brian, my wife received 15 “free nights” over the course of one year. each and every time she/we went she hit nothing. what I mean by nothing is just that, no line hits of more than one times her bet, no bonus, no free games…………thats 15 separate times, using her players card. so lets put that in prospective… that’s like hitting “0” or double “00” with 25$ on those numbers 15 times in one year. And yet the other 17 times we went in the same year, she never had a trip where she hit “nothing”You say the “regulators” keep the casinos in check. I wonder if states “regulators”
are smart enough “regulate” the casinos. Kinda the US gov. members trying to understand A.I………just saying……
We’re going to focus on the regulations spot because I think selective memory is in play here. No line hits above 1x on 15 trips, for instance? When you get trounced it can feel that way, but that’s probably a stretch, or you like really high volatility games, and that alone can explain some of the reasons for the challenging visits, moreso than a hotel room.
But back to regulators. There are more layers to it than just the regulators themselves. Game makers would have to build in this level of control for casinos to employ (and every manufacturer, right? What are the odds you’d be just picking the games that have it vs. don’t if it’s not universal), lab testing (which every game has to go through to be certified to be available in the market you play) would have to miss that such a scenario existed (because if it did it would fail testing), regulations would have to allow it (or more cynically regulators to be unaware of it – somehow the expected RTP would still need to be achieved to avoid detection) and casinos would have to employ it. That’s a really complex and convoluted scenario just to take some money back because you got a comped room.
The reality is those free rooms (or any other comp) are not a high enough cost to have a casino micromanaging the thousands of players that would be on their floors on any given day, when slots have an 8-10% house edge. Add to that that comps are effectively a rebate on past play, to encourage future play, the casinos have already made their money, but are trying to get you back to make more. Clearly it’s working if you took 32 trips despite being frustrated about how you’ve done!
You’re generally likely to lose on any casino visit. And with higher volatility slots found on casino floors today, you’re generally likely to lose more quickly, except when you don’t. On today’s slots it’s very easy to go into a casino, play for awhile, get absolutely no good bonuses and leave frustrated. It wasn’t as likely 10 years ago, and that’s the aspect most players miss.
The only thing that I have noticed is that in some casinos, when my room is comped, I do not get as many points for my play. As with anything, it depends upon where you play and the policies in place. A supervisor once told me that your play also can go toward the cost of the room. If you’ve received an offer that was not necessarily earned, it could be a reason for not getting a lot of comps. She suggested that I might want to check in after some play as my comps will have already been awarded. The only other difference is that I have tend to play more when I’m staying over. More chance of extended play since there’s no trip home and of course when you wake up the following morning already there…..
Being overcomped is an aspect some are not in tune with, so we appreciate that point being brought up. We were chatting with one of our contributors this week about how his offers were frozen when the casino counted him as overcomped, and kept a running tally until he finally cleared that balance. Of course, some casinos will be more aggressive about this than others, and rooms can have a higher comp value, especially at properties with a limited room count, so it’s certainly an aspect of how all this works.