Casinos have some control over slots – which games, what long term payback, etc. – but there’s limits to what they can do, for a variety of reasons. Here’s a question along those lines:
Wait, is it my understanding that they can fix the slot machines for your advantage? I watched another player online tell one of the big wigs at the casino as he was walking conveniently by him and an influencer told him to make sure that you “FLIP THE SWITCH.” Within 3 spins he had a jackpot. Even someone made a comment about it. Rhenna
The reason we named our site Flip The Switch is to play off the casino myth that casinos have some way of turning paybacks on and off in such a deliberate way. They don’t.
Here’s a couple of things to consider to understand why that can’t be.
First, casinos can only choose the payback percentage. The Random Number Generator (RNG) is responsible for the individual slot outcomes as players play. A slot set to the lowest setting can deliver jackpots. A slot set to the highest setting can still trounce players, especially games that are higher in volatility. They can’t say “give player X outcome Y.”
A lot of this has to do with the design of slots and the regulations they’re designed to meet. Imagine a world where a casino could decide who got paid and how much. Imagine the variety of illegal money laundering schemes and other scenarios that could come out of having such power.
As such, the regulations are designed to take away that opportunity and power – casinos have no way to decide who will get a specific win. By making it random, it ensures the proper amount will get paid out over time, and it truly is luck who ultimately is the winner of that big progressive or a sizable bonus.
So in this case it was a joke followed by coincidence of a jackpot, no different than Brian Christopher getting a bonus right after he “windexes” his slot. The timing just happened to work out here, as opposed to anyone having any actual control over what outcome a particular player would get (other than hitting spin and making a wager).
I appreciate all the intelligence you provide. i do wonder if my Indian Casino, owned by the Confederated Tribes of Grande Rhonde has those same limitations or if they have the freedom to set their own slots rtp.
Thanks for the question Kathy! Tribal casinos buy in many cases the same equipment sold to commercial casinos. So they have the same basic settings that they do elsewhere. So while they could choose a different setting than a different casino might choose, they still have the same limited set of payback options any other casino has, and can’t otherwise control the outcome of a spin.
🤑 Thank you for the reply to my question.
Most casinos have slot tournaments where the payback per spin is very high. How does the casino change the payback percentage on these machines and then later use these same machines as a normal play machine? Seems like all they do is flip a switch somewhere.
Thanks for the question Tom! We’ll be doing a post on this soon but think of it as them basically activating a different game altogether – even if it’s the same theme or reels on the surface, a slot tournament is something altogether different (from the time limit to some of the other extras that often appear), so it’s not a payback option but a different game mode.