Random Thoughts on Slots

I saw something in the newspaper this week that caused me to pause and ponder slot machines. I realized that I’d had several occasions to consider slots recently, and figured that lots of Strictly Slots readers have probably had thoughts on the same subjects.
Here’s what I have to say…

Random is Random
There’s plenty of frivolous litigation going on in the world today, and more than its fair share has to do with disputes over gambling.
It’s been eight years now since a woman at the Frontier walked away from a slot machine she’d been playing for 12 hours, only to return and find that someone else had hit it for a $98,000 jackpot. She sued the Frontier, claiming that she’d requested the machine be reserved for her while she went to breakfast. She contends the jackpot should have, make that would have, been hers.
It’s a she-said/they-said thing, encompassing everything from how long she was gone to whether or not a bribe to reopen the machine was involved.
It’s all nonsense.
Assuming no outside influence (cheating, for example), the appearance of a slot jackpot is governed by a random number generator that runs continuously at a very high rate of speed. The woman would have had to stop the RNG at precisely the same time that the winner did, which would amount to a coincidence of epic proportion.
This plaintiff has no legitimate claim on the jackpot, but the attorneys are happy.

Parallel or Serial?
A Casino Player article by Bob Dancer, in which he discussed the way video poker machines deal cards, provided more cause for thought.
Everyone seems to think it’s important to know whether machines replace discards with cards that have been pre-dealt and are already lined up behind the originals (parallel), or with cards that come off the top as they would be dealt in a real poker game (serial). Dancer tells us that most of the machines in big casinos deal the cards in a serial manner.
Now we know. So what?
Say you’re playing Jacks or Better and are dealt 7s,Jd,Qh,Kh,Kc. You keep the Kings. Now the Ten, Jack, and Ace of hearts pop up. Did you cost yourself a royal flush by not holding the Qh,Kh? You sure did. Did you have any way of knowing that the three perfect cards were there prior to the deal? You sure didn’t. Is there any scenario by which knowledge of how the cards come off the deck would sway you to make a ridiculous play like throwing away the Kings? I can’t think of a single one. Stop torturing yourself.

Poor Players Hit More Royals
On a related subject, another form of torture is listening to your friends tell you about all the royals they’ve hit. Can they really be that much luckier than you?
They may have been over a given period of time (probability is like that), but here’s another plausible scenario: Maybe they play worse than you do.
Poor players tend to make more decisions designed to improve their chances of hitting a royal flush. By doing so, they may increase their frequency of hitting the royal by as much as 30 percent, but the bonehead plays cost them dearly in money lost between royals.

Players Want Action
Speed is a tricky thing. An important question concerning the industry of late has been: "Is it too fast?"
Take the video versions of Let It Ride and Caribbean Stud. The speed of play in these games was so great that it blew customers out too fast. That was bad. Now I think we’re seeing the opposite with the decline in popularity of the clunky Odyssey machines that take time to queue up and are graphics intensive.
When players want action, they don’t like waiting around.

Game Shows are Complicated
I don’t think I like the new slots that are based on games or game shows. Monopoly, Yahtzee, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune—most of these seem far too complicated to me.
Slots have been successful because they’re unintimidating and have a minuscule learning curve. With the exception of Wheel of Fortune, the new games have neither of these qualities.
The name brands have value, and have been buoying the new games thus far. But I can’t see that lasting.

Cashless is Great
I think I like the new slots that take folding money to play and dispense print-outs that you cash in for payment at the cage. They’re cleaner, there’s no waiting for fills, and, though this won’t sit well with the fine men and women who work hard making change, there’s no need to tip when something good happens.
The casinos should like these machines, too. As I was folding my laundry the other day, I found two cash-out slips in my pants pocket. One was for 62¢, the other was for $1.17. I guess I was in too much of a hurry to bother with my $1.79. If someone like me is willing to do that, a whole lot of other people must be doing it, too. I’m sure it adds up.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor. For ordering information call 800/244-2224.