Ask the Slot Expert: Breaking up with my favorite video poker machine

Question: Your column on annoying players who don't use the deal button mirrored my feelings completely. You forgot to mention that those same players always pick the loudest machine in the area. I always have a pair of earplugs in my pocket for when I encounter these individuals, they really help. Great column.

Answer: Thank you very much for the kind words about my column.

I had the same thought about Bet Maxers and loud machines. Why do they never play a machine that has the sound turned off?

Then I gave myself a dope slap after I realized that maybe some of them do pick silent machines but I don't know it because their machines are -- silent.

Suncoast used to have an incredibly loud slot machine next to its only bank of good video poker machines. I used to lower the volume on the machine before I played one of the video poker machines. When people played the machine, though, it was just as loud as ever.

One time nobody played the machine while I was playing. I went back to it to check the volume level. It was back at max. I figure that the machines resets to default levels at some point, so my lowering the volume was futile.

I wish all video poker machines let me configure the machine to the way I like to play. Let me control the volume level. Let me control the speed. Let me decide whether I want to see the paying hand on deal banner.

My pre-game ritual on my favorite machine includes setting the volume level to the middle setting. The volume isn't too loud at the maximum setting, but I want the volume level to be loud enough for me to hear but not so loud that it alerts the players near me when I hit a good hand. Even though I never let a machine count out the credits on a large win, the machine is quick enough that the awarding-credits tones change from the 10-15 credits notes to the larger win notes.

I'm going to have to break up with my favorite machine. I fell in love with it because there's no glare on the screen and it deals quickly when set to the maximum dealing speed. In addition, it is in an area that is usually relatively quiet and not too crowded.

Other players like the machine too. Many times I wasn't able to play it because there was another regular already playing it.

I'm going to have to break up with the machine. It's not me; it's her.

There's something flaky with the slot club subsystem in the machine. Everything is fine when I start playing, but the bezel around the card slot changes from green (hunky-dory) to flashing orange (at least I think it's orange, which means game play without card, according to the IGT documentation). I haven't touched my card.

The change in bezel color has happened to me on other machines. When it happens, I check that my session points score is correct and still increasing as I play. As long as the subsystem knows who I am and is still counting my points, I know that regardless of what is wrong right now, the subsystem will eventually report my point total to the slot club server.

The situation sometimes resolves itself. The bezel goes back to green. But sometimes things go pear shaped.

And that is what's been happening regularly on my steady. At some point while I'm playing, the bezel starts flashing. And instead of going back to green, the slot club banner at the bottom of the screen disappears and a minute or so later, the screen flashes a few times and then displays messages indicating that the slot club subsystem is rebooting.

After the subsystem recovers, it's not like the slot machine itself, which resumes right where it left off before rebooting. The subsystem tells me that my card is invalid and I should reinsert it.

The subsystem has rebooted each of the last two times I played the machine. The last time it even rebooted twice.

I don't think I've lost any points -- if I did, the number I lost was minimal -- but I don't want to take a chance. In addition, I can't play for a few minutes while I wait for the subsystem to reboot.

I have to end the relationship.

As I write this, polls have closed in Georgia and results are starting to come in. Polls show that a large number of people don't trust the polls and polls also show that a large number of people don't trust polls.

By the polls, I mean the vote counts reported by precincts, counties and states. Election commissions have counted, re-counted and audited their vote totals in the last presidential election and have certified their results. No evidence of widespread fraud has been presented in court.

John Bolton recently said that either there's no widespread fraud or the Trump campaign has the worst lawyers ever. I would like to point out that the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive.

By polls, I mean surveys that show what people are thinking. Part of the reason is that people think the polls are saying something they're not and the reason for that, I think, is that we're not teaching enough probability. I wonder if gamblers understand the results of polls better than non-gamblers.

I submit into evidence this transcript of a segment in the November 6, 2020 episode of Tooning Out the News, a predominantly animated lampoon of the news streaming on CBS All Access. The segment is a clip from ABC's election night coverage in which George Stephanopoulos talks to pollster Nate Silver.

GS: Let's bring in Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight. Nate, talk about the forecast you had coming into election night.

NS: So, coming in we had Joe Biden with an 89% chance of winning, Trump with 10%, 1% chance of a tie. [edit] So in 2016 we had Trump with a 30% chance of winning, roughly.... [edit] But look, you know, I don't control when the 30% happens, the 10% happens, so there--

At this point, an animated reporter walks into frame and puts an animated sash that says Mr Wrong 2020 on Mr. Silver.

Reporter: Congratulations to Nate Silver, the new Mr. Wrong 2020. As Mr. Wrong, you will write a think piece about why you were actually right before the news media gives you another chance in 2024.

The writers of this segment, and maybe many people in general, don't understand the probabilities that Silver gives with his predictions. In 2016, Silver gave Trump a 30% chance of winning. Need I point out that 30% is not 0%.

Gamblers understand that they can't know the outcome of a bet with certainty, but that they can know how likely different outcomes are. Furthermore, unlike elections, which are singular events, bets can be made over and over again and we can see the probabilities validated in the long run.

Silver isn't wrong when the underdog wins. To prove him wrong, we'd have to rerun the election many, many times to see whether the outcome he said had a 30% chance of happening actually happens only about a third of the time.

Here are the latest figures from https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases.

Click here for the latest Covid data.

It looks like the Christmas surge is just starting, soon to be followed by the New Year's Eve surge.

Hospitals are full. EMTs are told not to transport patients with a low probability of survival.

On the New Year's Eve coverage, many people said that they were glad that 2020 was finally over. None of our challenges went away as the ball dropped in Times Square. The only thing that changed was the calendar.

Happy New Year!

Meanwhile, Wuhan, China, thrives 1 year after pandemic began.