Ask the Slot Expert: My Spin Poker machine froze in the middle of a hand

Question: Thank you for your great insight into slot/poker machines!

I just read the column about malfunctioning machines. Here’s my story.

I wasn’t playing high stakes poker so the final “win” doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the matter.

Here’s the hand that I was dealt when the machine froze. The attendant came over and fixed the machine and I hit the deal button. Of course, what came up wasn’t a ‘6’ or a ‘2’ resulting in a nothing hand!

Very suspicious to me. How unlucky can I get? LOL…

I’ll never not think this was the machine’s whole plan all along.

Answer: Thanks for the kind words about my columns.

A picture of the screen on a Spin Poker machine at Rampart Casino (now The Resort at Summerlin) was attached to the message. Here is the hand that was dealt:

8♥ 6♥ 6♣ 2♦ 6♦

The screenshot shows that the player held the sixes and the deuce for a 4 of a kind.

It's impossible not to think that a slot tech has somehow altered a machine after they've touched it. We complain about manipulation only when we've been winning on a machine and then start losing after they've touched it.

I was playing slots at Caesars Palace back in the day when they would send me good offers to come back from New Jersey. There was no way I could play enough to earn a free night or a comped buffet once I was there, but Caesars would dangle freebees in front of me to get me to return. I guess there aren't anywhere near enough higher rollers to fill all those rooms so they had to give some away to lower rollers.

A slot tech came up to me while I was playing a reel-spinning machine. He asked me if he could make an adjustment on the machine.

I was doing okay on the machine, so I didn't really want him messing around with it. I knew he couldn't be changing the long-term payback on the machine because doing that is a big deal. You can't mix performance data from the two configurations, so you have to close out the machine under the old payback before starting over at the new.

The change had to be unrelated to determining results. I believe he just wanted to lower the volume level.

I watched as he turned the key to put the machine in configuration mode and pressed the buttons to walk through the menu options displayed on the dot matrix display. (This was over 20 years ago.) He did what he had to do and left me to continue playing.

I don't remember how well I did after he left. That means that I didn't hit a jackpot. I would have remembered that. So I probably just continued doing about as well as I had been before the change.

I had my picture on the Winners' Wall at Suncoast when I was dealt a $10,000 royal flush on a 10-play quarter machine. I pass by a scrolling display of players who have recently won anything from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands when I walk into Red Rock Casino.

I don't think Rampart would have sweated paying 100 credits per line with 5 sixes.

Did I mention he was playing nickels?

I thought it would never become law, but starting January 1, 2027 it will be illegal in the UK to sell tobacco products to anyone born after January 1, 2009. Supporters say that creating a smoke-free generation is the first step in creating a smoke-free UK.

I was surprised to learn from a clue on the Memorial Day episode of Jeopardy that the UK was not the first country to enact such a ban. Last November, a ban on sales to individuals born before January 1, 2007 took effect in the Maldives.

And the Maldives wasn't actually the first. New Zealand enacted a generational ban in 2022, but it was repealed by a new government arguing that it would create a black market for tobacco and significantly reduce state tax revenues. "...the government says it will use the revenue from taxes on tobacco sales to pay for its promised tax cuts." (New Zealand Walks Back Historic Smoking Ban Legislation)

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

My proposal is not to ban all smoking. I would just like to see the default flipped. Instead of casinos creating (or not creating) non-smoking areas, by default the casino is non-smoking and the casino can create smoking areas. Casinos have shown they won't make this change voluntarily, so we need the Nevada legislature to amend the current law exempting casinos from smoke-free regulations.

We're in a holding pattern now. There's no chance the Nevada legislature will enact anything that might affect casino revenues while inflation, the economy, visitorship, and casino revenue is so volatile. I think we'll have to wait for 2029.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

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