Slots are simply a more complicated version of coin flips. Yet some fall victim to the gambler's fallacy - the idea that if a machine hasn't paid out money for a while, it is "due," said Bill Eadington, a gambling expert at the University of Nevada at Reno. "Any person who plays a slot machine needs to go into it looking at it as an entertainment expense, just as they would look at going to the movies." With the exception of certain skill games such as video poker, there is no real strategy, said Anthony Curtis, who publishes a newsletter called Las Vegas Advisor. So in the long run - and often in the short run - the gambler always loses. But the state does not allow payouts above 100 percent otherwise, the government would have no casino profits to tax. In practice, most slots are designed to be more generous - often above 90 percent - to keep gamblers playing. Earlier this month, he calculated that one machine had a theoretical payout of 85.9 percent. Statistician Nimish Purohit uses a spreadsheet to run the numbers for each machine. Williamson's staff ensures that the 85 percent rule is followed and that the machines are not too "volatile" - that is, they reach that threshold within 10 million plays.
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Hot Hot Penny and Deal or No Deal - a version of the popular TV game show - are among the devices flashing their cheerful lights. His team has a 10th-floor headquarters overlooking the state Capitol in Harrisburg, in an office where traditional work cubicles share space, incongruously, with disassembled slot machines. The head of the operation is Richard Williamson, a veteran casino investigator whom the state Gaming Control Board hired away from New Jersey. In Pennsylvania, a team of statisticians, computer scientists and engineers puts each machine through its paces, calculating its theoretical performance, then making sure the device actually plays that way. Still, states impose strict rules on the machines. The industry doesn't disclose the odds, he said, because state rules don't require it. "The outcomes of the games are random," said Ed Rogich, spokesman for Nevada-based International Game Technology, which made the Double Diamond slot machine that Zdunkczyk was using. Industry officials deny deceiving their customers. "They think they're getting close to winning, they're about to win, they'd better stay on the machine," said Roger Horbay, a consultant and expert on problem gambling. With the exception of certain games - such as video poker, considered a slot machine even though it simulates a dealer's deck of cards - the odds are secret.Ĭritics say slots mislead gamblers and foster addiction. But if you want to know the exact chance of getting three cherries or some other jackpot, you are out of luck. States require that machines pay back a certain amount over the long term - at least 85 percent of what is wagered in Pennsylvania's case, 83 percent in New Jersey's. Often, the odds of hitting a particular symbol vary from one reel to the next, allowing game designers to give users the impression they are close to a winning combination when they are not. In reality, the third wheel stopped there because an internal computer told it to - a result randomly determined when Zdunkczyk pressed the button, before the wheels started spinning.įor years, the colorful devices have been computerized, with a dizzying array of outcomes to entice the gambler. "If that bar had come down here, I would've won something," she said in her first visit to the new slots parlor at Philadelphia Park Casino. But tantalizingly, just one space away, she saw the third bar she needed. Then the second wheel stopped - another bar. The first wheel stopped spinning, displaying the image of a purple bar.
Gerrie Zdunkczyk pressed a button and watched the three wheels spin, the seductive lights of the slot machine reflected in her eyeglasses as she sat in an orange padded chair.