Casinos have a limited amount of control over configuring slot machines, but there are settings available to them in each machine. Today’s question looks at that:
Can a casino change the payable on one machine and not the exact same game next to that machine? I’ve seen it done with video poker, but have never checked on slot games… Thanks! 👍
Joseph H.
Each machine is configured separately, so to your question, yes, a casino could in theory put two machines with an identical theme side by side and configure them with different return to player (RTP) settings. In practice, they don’t.
There are stories floating out there about the random floor director of a casino who would experiment or purposefully put different payouts in different places for whatever reason – gut instinct, testing things, etc. Most casinos today tend to be owned by some sort of corporate entity, and most of their setups are designed to achieve a corporate goal, so they tend to be more monolithic as a general rule.
In today’s world, there are companies that will advise casinos on what the best payback percentage for a certain game is, based on their data from other casinos. They’ll sometimes even conduct tests with casinos on the floor.
An example we were given awhile back was a casino taking a popular machine and configuring Bank A at a higher payout and Bank B at a lower payout to see how they performed. Within a couple of months, the higher paying bank was consistently outperforming the lower bank, meaning it made more money overall for the casino, despite it paying players better, because that difference was overcome by more players playing them. Ultimately, the casinos made more money even with a lower house edge on the better paying machines.
There’s also examples of casinos putting up signage touting crazy payback, like “up to 97% payback” in a given bank, but only 1 or 2 machines in a bank may actually be set that way. There, it’s a marketing gimmick, hopefully to attract those who catch the number but don’t realize the tactic being played.
But as a general rule, casinos aren’t generally setting things up with each machine of the same game type being different – generally, all the machines in a bank will match each other, and generally casinos will set paybacks based on their own financial goals, as well as what’s been proven to work. That means the same game will be set up similarly across a casino’s floor.
Have a question? Submit yours here!
