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Gaming Guru
Buying Your Own Slot Machine27 November 2003
Dear JQ, Depending on where you live, you might be able to buy your own Plinko machine. There's a chart that lists which games can be legally purchased in each state at www.royalbell.com. There's no home version of the machine that I know of. Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Dear Sandy, The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act created three classes of gaming: Class I - social games solely for prizes of minimal value or traditional forms of Indian gaming as a part of tribal ceremonies or celebrations; Class II - bingo and related games, including pulltabs, lotto, punch boards, tip jars, instant bingo and some card games, excluding house banking card games such as blackjack and baccarat; and Class III - all forms of gaming that are not Class I or Class II, including slot machines and blackjack. I don't know if there is such a thing as a Class I gaming device. Class II gaming devices can look like a Las Vegas-style slot machine, but they're really based on bingo drawings or pulltab-like games under the hood. Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Dear Michael, Jackpot Party assigns values to the boxes and the bonus you get is determined by the boxes you pick. The machine does not predetermine what your bonus will be. Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Dear Jayme, Thanks for the kind words about the newsletter. I have to admit that I don't know much about the tribal casino regulations, but I have been learning more about them as more and more people ask questions about them. I believe the answer to your first question is that it depends on the state and the type of games offered. If the casino offers Class II gaming (these devices can look like slot machines you'd find elsewhere, but the results are determined by bingo-like drawings or simulated scratch-off tickets under the hood), the tribes can regulate those games themselves provided that they meet some conditions specified in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Regulation of Class III gaming (these are house-banked table games and slot machines that determine their own results) is governed by tribal-state compacts. The state could require the tribal casinos to follow the same regulations as the non-tribal casinos in the state. As for the man who can "read" the machines, I won't call him crazy, but I will say that he was fooled by randomness. He thought he found a pattern that was backed up by empirical evidence, and now that the system doesn't work, he blames its failure on some outside force. What really happened is he made a couple of lucky guesses--and I'm sure there's plenty of selective memory going on here--and now he's just not as lucky. And the reason is because the results are chosen at random and there's no way to predict the results. I would ask him one question: If the casino won't let him win anymore, why is he still playing there? Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Dear Cindy, The casino's marketing plan has much more to do with the paybacks on the machines than the presence of bonus rounds. Most machines have a variety of payback programs available for them and the casino can order whichever payback percentage they want for the machine. That said, a smart casino will order higher paybacks for their multi-line/multi-coin nickel machines than for their reel-spinning nickel machines. Reel-spinning nickel machines usually max out at 15 or 25 cents per spin, while many video slots max out at $4.50 or more per spin--and many players max out these machines. Anyone risking a dollar or more per spin deserves a dollar-machine payback. However, I'm afraid that most casinos see "nickel machine" and order a payback in the low 90s or high 80s because that's what they've traditionally paid on nickel machines--never mind the fact that many of the people playing the nickel video slots are betting more per spin than many of their dollar-machine players! If I were a casino operator, though, and I had plenty of patrons willing to wager a couple of dollars per spin at 90% payback on a nickel video slot instead of at 98% on my dollar or $5 machines, why would I want to change that? Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Well, I don't know what you mean by "equal chance of winning." The two machines would probably have different hit frequencies, but over the long run they would both return the same amount of money to their players. We're really being a bit imprecise when we refer to a video poker machine's payback. Because players choose which cards they hold, there's strategy involved and we really have to talk about a particular video poker paytable's payback when played with a particular strategy. One strategy is the mathematically perfect strategy and playing that strategy gets the maximum payback possible from the machine. But nobody can play the mathematically perfect strategy because there are too many penalty card situations to take care of. So, I really can't answer your question, but I can say that even a monkey will get the theoretical payback from a slot machine in the long run because the only skill involved is being able to hit the Spin button. Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Thanks for the kind words about my articles. I've never been to Seneca Niagara (and I think the last--and only--time I've been to Niagara Falls was in 1965), so I can't offer any opinions on the place. I don't think there's anything in the compact the tribe has with the state of New York that says the minimum bet must be 10 or 15 cents, but it's possible. More likely, the casino just wants to increase the minimum bet possible on the machines and I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing for them to do. Players can play anywhere from five cents to $4.50 or more per spin on these machines. The person loading up the machine should enjoy a higher payback than the person playing one coin at a time, but there is a limited number of ways that the machine's programmers can reward the max-coin players. The only things they can do are 1) pay more on the last line, and 2) pay a bonus for playing the last coin. They are not allowed to program the machine to use different payback programs based on how much the player is betting. It's possible that Seneca Niagara chose to make the minimum bet two or three coins on their machines so they can afford to have higher paybacks on them. It's also possible that they're using a very low payback program on them and they need that minimum bet for the machine to generate the desired profit. We're seeing more and more nickel and penny machines because people love to play them and coinless technology has eliminated the problems of dealing with large numbers of small-value coins. Nevertheless, a casino can't offer a high payback on a machine if many players play just a few cents per spin on it. Until the slot manufacturers come up with a way to scale the paybacks based on the player's bet, I think you'll find more and more machines that have minimum bets of more than one coin per spin. Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
Dear Grace, Yes, the RNG on a video poker machine is also constantly running, in effect constantly reshuffling the electronic deck of cards in the machine. Best of luck in and out of the casinos, Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net. This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. Recent Articles
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