Ask The Slot Expert (Slot Machine Randomness)

Dear John,

Do slot machines have cycles?

O.D.

Dear O.D.,

Yes, slot machines do have cycles, but they are a result of randomness and not a deliberate act on the part of the program in the machine. There's nothing in the programming of the machine that determines that it is time for the machine to enter a pay cycle or a take cycle.

There's no way to determine when a pay cycle will start or when it will end. The result of each spin is determined completely at random by the Random Number Generator and the result of one spin has no effect on the result of any other spin.

Cycles, furthermore, exist only in the minds of slot players. The program in the machine doesn't know anything about cycles--it just chooses outcomes at random.

A slot machine acts much like a coin flip. You will have streaks of heads and streaks of tails, but there is nothing in the coin that causes it to have a streak. The coin doesn't know anything about the streak. The streak exists only in the minds of the people tracking the flips.

All the best in and out of the casinos!
John

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

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