Those of us at Flip The Switch will admit to not necessarily being the most math-minded, but it certainly is understandable why slots can feel more punishing sometimes, even if in the end it makes sense because of math.
That leads us to today’s question:
If there are not any dead machines then why can you put hundreds in and not ever get a winning payback? Even on your videos you have experienced putting $2,000 and not winning. Sometimes you do “adding in one more ticket” and still not win. In the 80s, the employees that you would get you coins from would give tips on which machines were paying.
R Keith C.
Brian loves to use the example of a bag of 100 marbles. Let’s say you’ve got a bag of 100 marbles and you reach in and grab one. 99 of them are white and one of them is black. You have a 1 in 100 chance of grabbing the black marble.
Regardless of what you grab, you have to put the marble back in the bag before grabbing again. Therefore, you always have a 1 in 100 chance of grabbing the black marble, even if the last 100 times you grabbed a white one.
Slots work the same way, but let’s shift the scenario. Let’s say that a slot is designed with a 25 percent hit rate. That means that out of every 100 spins over time, 25 are designed to be winning ones. But that doesn’t mean that every time you complete 100 spins, 25 will be winning ones.
The randomness of slots means that over the long run it will happen, but in the short term it doesn’t have to happen – in fact, it likely won’t be perfectly in line with that 25 percent chance.
For instance, there’s a 31.64% chance you won’t get a winning spin after four spins – higher than 25 percent! After 10 spins, there’s still a 5.6% chance of getting no wins. And keep in mind a “winning spin” in slots doesn’t necessarily mean your money back. And if you take 10 spins and only have one winning one that’s not your money back… hopefully you get the idea here.
The other thing we have to keep in mind is that the randomness of slots means any outcome the machine’s capable of is possible on the next spin, regardless of what came before it, just like the marble example.
So a “dead” machine is only what we understand it to be after something has already happened. It doesn’t mean it will continue to be that way, any more than having no wins means a bonus is due to hit.
Losing $2,000 tells you nothing about a machine’s long term destination, and a machine that’s been hitting is no guarantee it will continue to hit. This is why we say there’s no such thing as a dead machine.
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It’s a really simple answer, people don’t understand how a RNG works and how the return on the machines work.
Just a simple example:
A machine is listed as 95% pay back
You could $1,000 worth of spins $1 at a time and end end up with $500 for a 50% return.
Someone else could do the same $1,000 worth of spins $1 at a time and end up with $1,400 or 40% win
So $2,000 worth of $1 spins and the players netted a total of $1,900 or a 95% return.
It’s all about mathematics and overtime the machine will pay out what it’s intended to, it’s never a short term proposition. The goal is to make money and slot machines do just that for the house.
If it were up to the casino, they would have nothing but slot machines and the penny versions as they make the house the most $$$$
That’s a nice example, Thomas, and I think many players appreciate that chance to be able to walk with a win – if 95% payback slots just paid $95 out every time you wagered $100, well it wouldn’t be much fun then would it?