Regular readers of the site have seen us reference the random number generator, or RNG – it is designed to ensure any outcome the machine’s designed to offer could come out on any spin – but in the long run, since the odds of any individual outcome are the same, across millions of spins each outcome is expected to come out roughly the same number of times.
That’s how slots can be designed to pay back a certain percentage over time – the percentage of wins it’s built to offer leaves that margin for the house.
Of course, theoretically there might be other ways to accomplish this:
I always thought machines were programmed by the spins made. Like it would go off on spin 100 or 57 etc.
Regina A.
Prior to the era of the computer inside the slot and the RNG, there were certainly scenarios where slots probably worked on a cycle, particularly when the stakes weren’t high enough to make much of a difference. When the prize was a small amount of money or something of lesser value like gum, the patterns probably didn’t matter.
But modern slot machines (and the term “modern” goes back many decades – the mechanical reels slots on a casino floor today have an RNG as well) can award much larger sums of money. Imagine a detectable pattern where you knew in the spins leading up to the big win that it was approaching it, because it always approached it the same way to appease that pattern? It would make beating slots entirely too easy, especially to those who did the homework.
That’s where the RNG comes in, and its existence isn’t just good mathematical theory, it’s also a best practice that is effectively codified in gaming regulations nowadays – it’s effectively required as part of the foundation of a traditional slot machine.
So at this point slot makers couldn’t even rely on spin counts or cycles or anything like that because it’s against the rules. But from a fairness standpoint it’s a better implementation to have the RNG anyway.
