Many slots now have one or more pots, and the pots visually seem to have a correlation as to when a bonus goes off, as the pot closes/explodes/etc. when a bonus occurs. Do they?
On pot games, do they pop based on how many items go into the pots, or is it only timing of your spin? Maybe it is set to pop when it collects a total of a certain number?
Gail M.
Pots don’t have anything at all to do with bonus timing. The timing of a bonus is based on the random number generator and when you press the spin button. The pot closing is an entertaining feature but has nothing to do with it.
Pot size, how full or how many times coins fly up, etc. don’t have any impact. They’re designed to make a player feel like some sort of momentum is happening and that the game is building to something, but the odds a pot closes right after the last bonus are the same as when the pot is full and a bonus hasn’t triggered for awhile, because the odds of an outcome happen are the same on any spin.
Recently a reader tried to argue in the comments that if it’s been awhile, statistically a bonus should be more likely. But that would presume the slot takes into account previous outcomes when it comes to the next one, they don’t.
Brian Christopher uses the example of a bag of 100 marbles, 10 green “winning” ones and 90 red “losing” ones. You draw a marble. But before drawing the next one, the one you drew goes back into the bag, so the odds remain 90/10. Slots don’t take out previously played combinations or anything like that, so the range of outcomes are always identical, and that means the odds are identical.
Lately, manufacturers have been tinkering with new ways to visualize the pots. Aristocrat, who helped popularize the pots and bags with their three-pot Fu Dai Lian Lian series, introduced Bonus meters on games like Buffalo Ultimate Stampede and Ultimate Fast Cash. They also introduced a bonus dial on their latest Luxury Line series game.
These are just like the pots, visualized differently. The only time there’s any value to these is when they have some sort of meter attached, and those meters impact a bonus, such as the number of wilds or spins you’ll get when the bonus is triggered.
At least at that point in an apples to apples comparison, there’s a difference in what you’ll get, not unlike progressives, when one machine has progressive that’s bigger than another. That is the time when you should review the machines and pick the ones with the biggest numbers. That way, if you win it, you get the best scenario possible.
So no, the pots/bags/etc. don’t have any involvement as to when they trigger. It’s all just for show.
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