Ask the Slot Expert: Notes from my gaming legal pad

The headline caught my attention: "Suit: Wheel of Fortune slot bonus wheel rigged".

My first thought: Well, duh! (My first thought, actually, referenced a certain literary detective residing at 221B Baker Street.)

Read these quotes from the article in the Las Vegas Review Journal and see if you can find where their case goes off the rails.

Four slot-machine players...have filed a class action lawsuit against IGT and five casino companies alleging that the bonus wheel on the popular Wheel of Fortune game is rigged, and that millions of players nationwide are being defrauded.

The lawsuit says the bonus wheel’s design is deceptive because even though its segments are of equal size, they don’t have an equal chance of landing on a certain segment because a computer program controls the outcome of the spin.

“Before the advent of electronic gaming devices, casinos offered mechanical spinning wheel games of chance to their patrons,” the lawsuit says. “Roulette is a classic example of such a game. A commonly understood trait of these spinning wheel games is that the wheel has an equal chance of stopping on each space. That is because spinning wheels are naturally subject to the laws of physics and because the area of the wheel attributable to each number is the same, meaning the wheel has an equal chance of landing on 5 as it does 0.”

But that isn’t the case with the Wheel of Fortune bonus wheel, the lawsuit says. In modern-day slot machines, the outcomes of the spinning reels are pre-determined by a computer chip containing a random number generator....

“Based on defendant’s design and presentation of the bonus wheel feature which simulates a truly naturally spinning wheel that will rotate and come to a stop in accordance with the laws of physics, such as a roulette wheel, casino players reasonably believe that wheel on the ‘Wheel of Fortune’-themed gaming devices likewise has an equal chance of stopping at each segment on the wheel – and that they therefore have as much of a chance of winning the highest-value prize on the wheel as they do the lowest-value prize on the wheel,” the lawsuit says. “Stated simply, the wheel device is rigged by an internal computer to stop much more frequently on the segments with lower monetary amounts than the segments with higher monetary amounts.”

The problem with their argument is a few inches below the wheel on a reel-spinning Wheel of Fortune machine. Over 40 years ago, gaming regulators accepted this exact same weighting on the spinning reels. The symbols on a pre-computer slot machine were equally likely to land on the payline. Once a computer started to run a slot machine, the computer used a virtual reel, which had more stops than the physical reel in the machine. Each stop on the virtual reel mapped to a symbol on the physical reel. Each stop on the virtual reel was equally likely to be selected. The symbols on the physical reels were not equally likely because some of them appeared more times than others on the virtual reels.

Slot players accepted this deception because machines paying thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars would not be possible otherwise.

First nail in the coffin: This sort of weighting is already allowed and accepted on a slot machine.

What about Nevada's rule that an Electronic Gaming Device that represents a physical game must have the same odds as the physical game? An electronic blackjack game must have the same odds as the game played at a table. Electronic craps must have the same odds as the game played by the dice controllers and chicken feeders in the pit. Electronic roulette must have the same odds as the spinning wheel as described in the lawsuit. Video poker must have the same odds as when dealt from a Bicycle deck. In each case, players risk their money on the electronic version of the game.

Consider this bonus game: Four progressives, each progressive represented by a different symbol. You choose from a field of twelve items, each one reveals a progressive symbol. First set of three matching symbols wins the corresponding progressive.

Each progressive has three symbols in the field, right? Four progressives times three symbols per progressive equals the 12 items in the game.

Wrong. Three progressives have only two items in the field. The fourth progressive has the remaining six items. The program has already chosen which progressive you will win.

The help screens for many bonus games on many machines have a statement similar to "Player interaction during bonus feature is for entertainment purposes only." In other words, your picks don't matter.

Is this bonus game deceptive because the odds aren't what they appear to be? Is the wheel on a Wheel of Fortune machine similarly deceptive?

Well, yeah, they are, but -- and it's a big but --

Players aren't betting on the outcome of the wheel. The wager is on the base game and spinning the wheel is just one of the payouts possible. To quote Homer Simpson from the Homer bonus on The Simpson's slot machine, "Doh! I can't lose."

Players have no money at risk when the wheel spins. They've already won. The bet is on the base game and the wheel is just an entertaining way to determine how much a combination that landed on the payline will pay.

I haven't found this principle explicitly stated in Nevada's gaming regulations, but I believe it represents the commission's philosophy. Even though the wheel (or any game in a bonus feature) may be based on a real-world game, it doesn't have to have real-world odds because it is a part of a bonus feature and players have no money at risk.

Second nail in the coffin: Real-world odds need not necessarily apply in bonus feature games.

What do you think? Do you feel deceived by the unequal odds on Wheel of Fortune's wheel? Do you want each segment to be equally likely even though that will require lowering the values, particularly of the top prize?

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

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

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.