Slot Mechanics (Was: Fruit Frenzy Game glitch or frenzy?)

[ugaboga]

Hi all,

My first post, though I must say I've read through the forums for some time now.

I think it's fitting that I reply, given that my company designs and supplies numerous games to both the land-based and net gaming industries.

My way of background, I was a strategy game designer who fell into gaming (gambling) games after many years whiling away the hours in a multitude of Australian pubs, clubs and casinos.
I joined IGT and ended up designing over a hundred slot games there, before joining a company founded by by former IGT director to design and develop games with a wider industry focus (by that read "internet", to accompany traditional development)
I have, throughout the years, designed games for most of the majors, both land-based and net.

Now to the case in point:
KasinoKing is correct, mathematically it the same whether it is 1 line or 25 lines, and in this case there is no supplementary weghting system required (indeed unless the software is absolute crap I can't think of a case in which it would be required).
In its simplest form:
While the chance to trigger at max line is 25 times the chance on 1 line, the bet is proportional.
In both instances the play in free games is at 25 lines.

Let's say RTP per free game is 5000%, since calculations would be based on single line play, but 25 are now being used (so base game RTP in this instance is 25 that of the typical base RTP, assuming no reel strip or other adjustments are occurring).
The chance to trigger on 1 line may be, for example, 1 in 2500.

So in the case of a trigger on 1 line: 1/2500*5000% = relative return per game = 2% (of total RTP)
In the case of trigger on 25 lines: 25/2500*5000%/25 = 2% of total RTP (you're dividing by 25 as the bet is now 25 times higher)

If there were on average, say, 12 games, feature RTP would be 12*2% = 24% (out of say a 95% game total RTP)

Hope that makes sense

Da Dog

Good to see another Aussie here and especially one who is involved in slots development. I assume you're only involved in online slots now?

Also, do you still play the pokies at the pub etc? If so, talk about ridiculously low payout percentages compared to online play! Another point is how low the paylines are at the physical pokies compared to online.....

But I still enjoy aristocrat games like "5 dragons", "indian dreaming", "King/queen of the nile" etc more then online variants... I guess it's the atmosphere that makes the difference.

[Simmo!]

You are right about one thing Dogboys contributions are most welcome.

Yes indeed. And can I suggest we keep off the subject of whether or not RTG is a good provider in this thread please. That's not Dogboy's area - it's game design...let's stick to that and spare him the contentious stuff please.

And please - this is an excellent thread, don't derail it on other issues.

[Zoozie]

Welcome DogBoy!

It seems you have some real valuable information and I can see no flaws in your arguments, so they are probably correct. Besides they are all identical to what this forum already have figured out, except for the information about the 'true video-slot' non-weighted RTG reels, which we still missed better information to confirm. I gave you a substantial reputation boost as my appreciation

First of all I must say I have not been very active on this forum for a while, but that is another story. Secondly I have really much to add to this discussion so I will not use quotes since this will take up too much space.

To answer the original post about the Fruit Frenzy glitch, then it indeed seems like a glitch. I have had 5-symbols twice several times and always received the correct number of free spins. Also I think I remember hitting 3*5 symbols once which also gave me the correct number of shots with the canon and resulting number of free spins.

I agree with KasinoKing and DogBoy that playing any number of lines on Fruit Frenzy result in the same RTP under the assumption that the reels are non-weighted of course. To clarify the term "Non-weighted" means each position on a reel has same probability and of course same symbol are allowed multiple times on each reel. I believe this is what vinylweatherman was referring to.

To sum up the information you provided about RTG slots you basically claim that they are fair. We known this to be true for MG, IGT , Rival, 3Dice and Intercasino slots, but for several good reason I had my doubts about RTG slots. The first MG 5-reel video slots are a shameful exception though. They are weighted!


In short with fair I mean the video slots have the following properties:


1) The 5 reels are 'fixed' ie. does not change except maybe during bonus games. Multiply symbols can occur several times on each reel. So the slots has 5 virtual reels where for each you can write down the symbol sequences.

2) Reels are independant and non-weighted.

3) In case of random jackpot, the probability for hitting it must be propertional to total bet-size.

4) The casino operator can only switch between a few predetermined number of RTP configurations for each slot. (I case of MG, only one configuration for each slot)



Here is the my previous knowledge about these four rules for RTG slots.

1) The slots seems to be true to this. However I remember the spinning animation-blur showed symbols that was not on that reel, but MG also did this mistake. (the same spinning animation was used for all reels)

2) This was my real concern. The notoriously long reel #5 on RTG slots made it hard to tell.

3) Boy I got into trouble with one! But I am sincerely happy for you answer, since it means I was right all the time
In short there was a discussion about the randomness of the "random jackpot" for RTG slots. INetBet forum-representative joined the discussion and claimed hitting the random jackpot did not depend on the bet-size, but had an equal chance on each spins. This did not make sense (payout favor small bets) to me and I proved mathematically that it could not be true. INetBet was then helpful and provided me with a sheet of ~60 RJ hits and corresponding bet-size and player name. Also InetBet wrote to RTG and asked this question, but RTG answered the same as INetBet did(ie. bet-size did not matter). However statistical analysis of the seemly short data gave a clear answer: The bet-size DID matter. I was not allowed to publish the jackpot data for INetBet with my results. This made sense as I was able tell a lot of InetBet players/bet-size under the assumption of jackpot depended on bet-size.

Anyway here is one of the threads about it if you want the full read:
RTG random jackpot thread

If the RTG answer was correct, it would mean the video slots could not be
fair video slots due to math not adding up. If RTG was lying there was no reason to believe much else that come of them. RTG already had very little credibility due to not interfering with the RTG rogue casinos.

4) RTG casinos rarely published payout reports, so we only assumed they had something to hide. (But I am sure they do, most RTG have the slots on lowest setting.)

Besides there once was a curious but most devastating Fruit Frenzy bug that existed for weeks. No matter what - you could never hit the target in the bonus game. It missed 100%. So the number of freespins was always a minimum. Since payout% contribution of the freespin bonus games for typical slots are in the range 20-40%, this would mean Fruit Frenzy was having a really low payout% (RTP) during that bug. Was this a configuration issue? Because then some slots could be set to a really low payout%. (85% range)

When you could tell a bonus game was coming up before reel #5 stopped, this also added to the suspicion. But you gave a good explanation for this.

As an interesting fact I can confirm RTG can change the payout% in realtime, however the players are booted, but they can log in right after and they will be downloading the new version of the game. I tried this with 9/6 JoB videopoker that changed into 8/5 when I was still clearing a welcome bonus.

I was not aware that the weird maximum payout (40000*line bet on RTG) or maximum number of free-spins on IGT (Cleopatra II, Wolf Run etc.) was due to a legal issue about maximum payout. And you are right in most cases that this is really negligible in terms of payout%(RTP). But in case of "Rain Dance" I think the number of lines you play makes substantial difference in terms of payout%, maybe as much as 1%. This is because that IF you hit the 5-scatters then there is a really good chance you are hitting the cap. So if you are playing less lines the total win/bet-size will be higher due to the *40000 line bet cap.

"Items like reel strip layout are like any other trade secret." This surprises me. It was not that hard to crack the MG slots (done using two different methods that gave the same result). Besides it is very easy to design a new slot and configure payout% to certain levels. And as you did with RTG, simply making reel#5 very long makes small adjustments easier. Besides with my slot-analyzer anyone can make a new slot (standard free spin slot).

I think this was enough for now. Keep the information flowing DogBoy!

[DogBoy001]

Microgaming publish monthly audited payout figures for broad categories. Overall, slots, tables, and poker. These are per casino, but we know that MG software uses the same RTP for each casino. We know that RTG is different, in that individual operators can set higher or lower RTP values for their games. For card games, they change the paytable, but with slots they change the characteristics of the game, probably by symbol substitution. On top of this, they do not publish the returns as do Microgaming, so that a particular RTG casino could have set the slots to 93%, and players could be thinking they have 95% RTP, and there is no way of finding out. This leads to all sorts of "conspiracy theories" when particular RTG casinos seem far tighter than others, especially when many players report this over a period of time. Since we know that RTP can be varied by operators, it is reasonable to conclude that one explanation is that the "tight" RTG casino is running at 93%, and a benchmark "normal" RTG casino is running at 95%, or even 97.5%

Worse still, is the fact that RTG casinos do not allow players access to their play history, and support are often reluctant to provide it even on request, and this also feeds the conspiracy theories.

Given the vacuum of "official" information, all it would take is for someone to show that RTG games are not as players have been lead to believe, and the reputation of RTG will go lower than it already is.

The reputation of RTG has suffered most by the rogue casinos operating out of Costa Rica, who have a long reputation of ripping off players with RTG just looking the other way. The player dispute process, although now up and running, has seemed to be of a very low priority, with a near 2 year gap between the pulling of the old version, and implementation of the new.

Meanwhile, the notorious Virtual casino group continues to thrive in Costa Rica, preying mainly on the novice players who are unaware of their reputation.

The sudden closure of the Crystal Palace group, and the announcement by RTG that funds unclaimed will simply become "forefeit" has done their reputation no favours. This group has now been rebranded, and is running under a new company, but no-one seems to be able to confirm who is actually running them, and the current presumption is that Virtual have gained control of these casinos, and are using them to "hide" from the notoriety of their main brands.

RTG had good reason to leave the USA, but Costa Rica hardly inspires confidence. Microgaming, on the other hand, are based in the IOM, and have to adhere to the IOM regulatory standards, which are a great deal better than those in Costa Rica.

If RTG want to ditch their association with rogueness in the online industry, they need to get rid of licencees that continue to rip off players, and only retain those that behave. In time, this will give RTG a far better reputation, and the eventual aim would be to not have a single RTG powered casino in Bryan's rogue pit.

Heya,

Unfortunately I'm only here to comment on the way the system and the games work, rather than the operators and commercials

Da Dog

[DogBoy001]

Well since it is not necessary to do this and much more natural to treat as individual spins I am bound to assume it is because the free spin rounds are predetermined. Being that, as yet, I am unconvinced the games work entirely as advertised.

Heya,

Merely because the most efficient (and seemingly best) way to develop a system from scratch is to have the free games get called down one at a time doesn't necessarily mean that that is how a system (in this case RTG's) was produced.

You have to remember that the system architecture was constructed long before our association, and it was obviously set up in a manner other than what you describe.

That does not mean that it is not random...which it is.

May I also ask you what is the rationale behind having different sized reel strips?
Is it just that it gives you more freedom mathematically?

Thanks

Absolutely.

I can't recall the last time I designed a game with exactly even reel strips, or the same reel strip distribution from reel to reel.
There's no need to do so, and it only hamstrings the designer.

Da Dog

[Rusty]

Yes indeed. And can I suggest we keep off the subject of whether or not RTG is a good provider in this thread please. That's not Dogboy's area - it's game design...let's stick to that and spare him the contentious stuff please.

And please - this is an excellent thread, don't derail it on other issues.

I thought it was a pertinent point in light of Dogboys previous comments;

I've made RTG aware that I was posting to the forums here, since I felt there was a need to clear up some miscomprehensions.
The other reason is that we deal with a lot of land-based markets and land-based groups...our reputation is on the line too, so it's important to realise that a fair system is highly important to RTG

I am sure Dogboy can make his own decision as to whether it warrants a response.

If the last part of that statement is relevant to your recent editing activities, then yes I agree.

[Rusty]

Well Dogboy, I guess that leaves us at an impasse.
I have really enjoyed discussing this with you and thank you for your level and informed approach.
Obviously there are still issues that I feel remain unresolved as to the integrity of online gaming software and until they are I will remain suspicious that they have payouts as high 97% and are truly random and unweighted but we will just be going around in circles if I continue to site them here.

Thanks again for the inside technical info

PS
Did you make any contribution to Achilles my favorite RTG game?

[DogBoy001]

Good to see another Aussie here and especially one who is involved in slots development. I assume you're only involved in online slots now?

Heya, or rather G'day

We still supply to the land-based guys, predominantly to Bally Technologies until recently.
They had 30 games from us, and sold in 22 countries.
Another one of the majors is, shall we say, imminent

We also deal with a group selling into the South African and South American markets, and Voyager Gaming (a Queensland operation) that has a downloadable intranet system.
These guys are deployed with Tattersals through the Talarius operation they took over in the UK. They're also in the process of trialing at the moment in the South African and Queensland markets.

I'll post a link to our site late this week, as it's currently at the end of a re-vamp...the old one that's up there is, shall we say, old

Also, do you still play the pokies at the pub etc? If so, talk about ridiculously low payout percentages compared to online play! Another point is how low the paylines are at the physical pokies compared to online.....

But I still enjoy aristocrat games like "5 dragons", "indian dreaming", "King/queen of the nile" etc more then online variants... I guess it's the atmosphere that makes the difference.

Yup, I still play quite a bit in the clubs, and sometimes at the casino, despite the crappy payouts ...mainly as a social thing and mainly with my folks, who are equally convinced that the operators rig things on an ongoing basis, despite my claims to the contrary

Re the number of paylines? If so:
Most land-based manufacturers are transitioning from 20 lines to 25 for the low denomination market.
You do get some movement towards 30 from a few, but more lines doesn't necessarily translate to better game play anyway.
Works well with a large symbol-driven jackpot, but they've vanished from the Australian scene.

Ainsworth's attempts at a 4x5 (4 row/5 reel) have almost exclusively failed, because they simply tried to translate a straight free game feature with more lines onto the new layout. Once you move beyond 3x5 players are going to struggle with payline layout, so you need to give players something fairly obvious to look out for and chase.
Grouping top symbols and/or wilds is the way to go.
Aristocrats 4x5 50 Lions and 100 Lions games work well, largely due to this grouping the top symbol and wilds on the reels, and an obvious trigger symbol on 3 reels (MG would no doubt have drawn on this success when designing Cashapillar...nothing wrong with that mind you, it's always good to draw on a successful model).

Back to the normal layouts: 25 lines is a good level in my opinion, especially as the maths for a 20 line game translate fairly well to 25 lines.
Be interesting to hear what other players prefer a non-symbol-driven jackpot game's max line structure to be.

Da Dog

[Simmo!]

Aristocrats 4x5 50 Lions and 100 Lions games work well, largely due to this grouping the top symbol and wilds on the reels, and an obvious trigger symbol on 3 reels (MG would no doubt have drawn on this success when designing Cashapillar...nothing wrong with that mind you, it's always good to draw on a successful model).

And IGT on Wolf Run of course

Talking of which, when a port of a land-based slot like WR is taken online, is the % adjusted up by changing the reel combinations based on what you said earlier? So in actual fact, it isn't execatly the same game. Also, with the land based ones, how do they alter the payouts? Being video slos, can something be changed on the chip to change the reel symbols or something, or are they a fixed % ?

[ugaboga]

Heya, or rather G'day

We still supply to the land-based guys, predominantly to Bally Technologies until recently.
They had 30 games from us, and sold in 22 countries.
Another one of the majors is, shall we say, imminent

We also deal with a group selling into the South African and South American markets, and Voyager Gaming (a Queensland operation) that has a downloadable intranet system.
These guys are deployed with Tattersals through the Talarius operation they took over in the UK. They're also in the process of trialing at the moment in the South African and Queensland markets.

I'll post a link to our site late this week, as it's currently at the end of a re-vamp...the old one that's up there is, shall we say, old



Yup, I still play quite a bit in the clubs, and sometimes at the casino, despite the crappy payouts ...mainly as a social thing and mainly with my folks, who are equally convinced that the operators rig things on an ongoing basis, despite my claims to the contrary

Re the number of paylines? If so:
Most land-based manufacturers are transitioning from 20 lines to 25 for the low denomination market.
You do get some movement towards 30 from a few, but more lines doesn't necessarily translate to better game play anyway.
Works well with a large symbol-driven jackpot, but they've vanished from the Australian scene.

Ainsworth's attempts at a 4x5 (4 row/5 reel) have almost exclusively failed, because they simply tried to translate a straight free game feature with more lines onto the new layout. Once you move beyond 3x5 players are going to struggle with payline layout, so you need to give players something fairly obvious to look out for and chase.
Grouping top symbols and/or wilds is the way to go.
Aristocrats 4x5 50 Lions and 100 Lions games work well, largely due to this grouping the top symbol and wilds on the reels, and an obvious trigger symbol on 3 reels (MG would no doubt have drawn on this success when designing Cashapillar...nothing wrong with that mind you, it's always good to draw on a successful model).

Back to the normal layouts: 25 lines is a good level in my opinion, especially as the maths for a 20 line game translate fairly well to 25 lines.
Be interesting to hear what other players prefer a non-symbol-driven jackpot game's max line structure to be.

Da Dog

Thank you for your input. Yeah I'm quite happy with 20 - 25 line games, which as you said is where a majority of land based slots are (in Australia).

What I actually meant to say is that the top paylines pay so little in comparision to online casinos. It can be up to 50% less of what a similar payline at the same denomination would pay in an online casino (RTG for example). I've converted alot of physical slot players to online because of this; but as you said, the social aspect of playing at a club or casino is an integral part of the atmosphere.

I've generally found star city to have the highest pay percentage (seeing that you're in Sydney), so I do most of my physical slotting over there. Pubs and clubs have really reduced their payout percentages in my opinion (increase in gaming tax, economic downturn etc).

By the way; you mentioned that you worked for IGT, did you play any part in the development of "Cleopatra"? Another great slot