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Ask the Slot Expert: Rebutting an article about why slots are not random - Part 3

1 March 2023

For the past two weeks I've been rebutting the statements I found in an article about why someone believes slot machines are not random. This week let's continue looking at some of the author's experiences that he says show non-randomness.

Many years ago Bob Dancer wrote an article in which he wrote that experience is a poor teacher in gambling. I'd generalize that to say that experience is a poor teacher for random events with thousands of possible outcomes. You can probably flip a coin or throw two dice enough times to get a good feel for how frequently each outcome occurs. But no one ever plays a slot or video poker machine enough times to get a good estimate of their long-term paybacks. You can't even use experience to determine which cards to hold in a video poker hand. Is any inquisitive NSU player who is dealt a hand with one deuce going to play the choice between 3-of-a-kind and a double-inside straight flush enough times to determine that giving up the sure thing is the proper play?

It often feels like some algorithm is at play, preventing a certain feature from happening too soon after starting a slot game and only happening once you've lost enough money to cover the feature's payout.

Just because someone feels like something is there, that doesn't mean it actually is there. Notice the qualifier "often." I guess that is there to discount the times that you sit down at a slot and hit a bonus shortly after starting to play. Moreover, I've rarely been down over $1000 before hitting 4 deuces on NSU. (In fact, I was a few dollars ahead today!)

Let me build on may last thought. You can't hit a feature if you're ahead on a machine?

Have you ever missed out on a good winning combination because just one reel wasn't in the right position? Then lo-and-behold, on the next spin, the symbol you needed is right where you needed it to be on the previous spin! Random? No! Teaser? Yes!

Random? Yes! Teaser? Eh?

Reel-spinning slots are frequently regulated to limit the occurrences of near misses. The reel stops above and below jackpot symbols can't be weighted to appear on the payline more than, say, six times more often than the jackpot symbol they're surrounding. This regulation controls how frequently near-the-payline near misses can occur.

The example in the author's observation would be a next spin near miss. There's no way to control this type of near miss -- if it even is a near miss -- because each spin must be independent. When the symbol you needed for the jackpot or the card you needed for the royal appears on the next play, it's just a coincidence.

Have you also noticed that after a modest win or payout, assuming you keep playing the same slot machine, it almost seems the game NEEDS to win that payout back before giving you another, albeit smaller, payout?

You really can't be surprised when a machine with a hit frequency less than 50% tends to give you long streaks of losing spins and shorter streaks of winning spins. Larger payouts usually hit less frequently than smaller payouts, so it's also not surprising that the hit you get after a cold spell isn't as large as the one you hit before.

If a game needs to win back a big payout before giving another one, how is it possible that I've been able to hit three sets of deuces and cashed out tickets worth more than $3000 more than once? How is it possible that I hit four deuces and then a royal 20 minutes later on a $2 NSU bar-top machine at South Point? (That was a good day.)

In my experience, it seems quite obvious that slot machines have to have some computer-coded system at play to ensure you can't win over and over again - Which is why when you win big, it is always followed by a long cold losing streak.

In my experience, a big win is sometimes followed by a cold streak, sometimes by a choppy streak, and sometimes by some more big wins. See above. Big wins are not always followed by long, cold losing streaks.

Also, in my experience, any big wins I've had in the past have come when I've spent a small fortune on that particular slot - almost as if the slot is forced to bring you back in line with the payout figure percentage rules.

The machine doesn't care -- or even know -- who's playing it. The game program reports play data to the slot club subsystem, which stores it in the slot club database, which is able to calculate your win/loss. Data doesn't flow back to the game program.

Regulations require that the reels stop where the numbers generated by the RNG say they should stop. Regulations also require that the RNG have no outside influences. The RNG doesn't care or know about how much you've lost, or won.

The author may not have had big wins unless he was losing big on the machine., but it seems like most of the people who hit multi-million-dollar jackpots on slots played only $20 to $100 before they earned the big cardboard check.

Notice how I said "it seems." That means I didn't do any research to back the statement. It means I don't have any records to support my statement.

The author almost always qualifies his accusations with "it seems" or "I feel." He has no records to back him up.

I worked closely with an electrical engineer at one job I had. I saw his notebook when we were troubleshooting a problem with some equipment. I was amazed at all of the notes he took. Whenever something was changed, he made a note about describing what was changed and the result. He could see everything we tried and what effect it had on the system.

The author's conclusions about non-randomness are based on feelings and not hard data. He did not share any records to back his claims, so I assume he has none.

Feelings are subject to Selective Memory. Incidents that match our theories are remembered, while incidents that don't are forgotten. Feelings are also subject to Confirmation Bias. Incidents that match our theories strengthen our belief that the theories are correct, while incidents that don't match our theories do nothing to disprove the theories in our minds.

Finally, all of the author's experiences are consistent with randomly determined outcomes on a slot machine.


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John Robison

John Robison is an expert on slot machines and how to play them. John is a slot and video poker columnist and has written for many of gaming’s leading publications. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the prestigious Stevens Institute of Technology.

You may hear John give his slot and video poker tips live on The Good Times Show, hosted by Rudi Schiffer and Mike Schiffer, which is broadcast from Memphis on KXIQ 1180AM Friday afternoon from from 2PM to 5PM Central Time. John is on the show from 4:30 to 5. You can listen to archives of the show on the web anytime.

Books by John Robison:

The Slot Expert's Guide to Playing Slots
John Robison
John Robison is an expert on slot machines and how to play them. John is a slot and video poker columnist and has written for many of gaming’s leading publications. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the prestigious Stevens Institute of Technology.

You may hear John give his slot and video poker tips live on The Good Times Show, hosted by Rudi Schiffer and Mike Schiffer, which is broadcast from Memphis on KXIQ 1180AM Friday afternoon from from 2PM to 5PM Central Time. John is on the show from 4:30 to 5. You can listen to archives of the show on the web anytime.

Books by John Robison:

The Slot Expert's Guide to Playing Slots