AWP's and the UK regulatory system

[DiamondGeezer]

Rusty I was in a light hearted way talking above about the differing psycological approaches to slots gambling in the UK and US. I mean we have Blackpool and they have Vegas need I say more?

It may be true to say in general the British expect to lose on their slots gambling and only see them as entertainment but I must qualify this.

I know a guy quite well who lost so much money on snooker club £100 and £500 JP machines he almost lost his house and ended up getting bailed out by his employer. I don't know exactly what he was playing but I doubt he knew the difference between random and AWP games. Certainly at the time he had no idea he couldn't win. It may be true for the UK as a generalisation that we have an AWP view of slots but I don't think it holds true for the individual.

I think that if you are a gambler and you get behind you don't really think AWP/slot but more like how the hell can I get my money back I must be due a win soon. Rusty clearly your knowledge is way above the understanding of the typical player.

It's about time us UK players acknowledged the total sickdom of AWP's and campaigned for their abolition. I believe the reason for their introduction was to limit the liability of pubs and chip shops etc and prizes were modest. Like when I started playing many years ago the JP of my pub fruitie (the brilliant pacman) was £2. I remember my hands used to shake when I got a mystery feature or a big nudge gamble.

Back then you couldn't lose more than about £3 playing the thing but only a few years later machines were up to £10 JP's and they had these sick repeater features where you could repeat £10 three or four times. I retired from fruities when the JP's were like £3 but I imagine the sums later got pretty mindboggling.

In summary AWP's are an anomoly from a different age. It's especially sick they are allowed online and casual players are being taken for fools playing a game they cannot win. The whole thing is a very 'noose' concept. This is a different age to a trip to Bognor and a few spins on the fruitie.

The whole idea of AWP's online is scary. It can only reduce confidence in the randomness of MG slots. It's just so easy to go from thinking 'if they can make AWP's so cleverly what's to stop them coding regular slots to be a little non random in certain situations like high coin sizes?'

[DogBoy001]

On a serious note though the essence of your argument gives a separation between AWP games and slot games which personally I do not believe exists or at least I believe the distinction is misleading.
In fact I believe the introduction of AWP games by MGS was a premeditated move to cut off criticism of weighted software and make an obvious distinction between AWP slots and their other games.

Why introduce AWP games at all unless you want to make that distinction?
Why is it necessary to make such a distinction after all these years?
if AWP's are a good idea why did all software companies go out of there way to avoid having their games labelled as such before the shit hit the fan?

The main distinction would be that pooling RTP on an AWP system, if operating in the same manner as B&M Uk devices, accomplishes the same thing for an on-line operator as it does a B&M one, to whit:
By pooling RTP and having top prizes never occur except when RTP has dipped to a trigger point, the operator cannot lose.

This is distinct from a random slot, where the operator could be placed into an overall loss.

Right, the point I am making is, AWP slots and online slots are different beasts but one is what it is while the other pretends to be something it is not.?

That's the crux of the argument IMO, whether or not the on-line AWP's function as per a B&M AWP.

I know you would argue that but my question would be can you point me to any regulatory body that licences RTG casinos which makes makes a clear distinction of the game mechanics between AWP slots and RTG's real series slots through the regulations it enforces?

This is the crux of the matter because no matter how deep I dig and how often I ask I have never found regulations that specifically ban weighting.
In fact I am not even sure most regulatory bodies have any idea of how this may be applied to alter RTP of online slots.

Weighting is legal in most U.S. jurisdictions, but not in Australia:

NSW standards (which reflect the Australian standards):

http://www.olgr.nsw.gov.au/pdfs/Gmns10_0.pdf

3.9.58, page 50

This effectively prohibits weighted outcomes from a fixed reel strip order.

As an interesting side note, the games that are deployed via RTG are the same games deployed via Voyager Gaming in B&M Australian pubs, clubs and casinos (in Queensland as of last year, in NSW as of March and Victoria later this year)

The implementation by both RTG and Voyager has been largely identical (and in no small part due to our input, which is based on our experience in the B&M Australian market and regulatory system), except for specific jurisdictional requirements such as the display of Information icons, re-wording of rules to meet standards, jurisdictional prize capping (with resultant prize changes where required) and so forth.

As far as the essential mechanics of the games, they are the same (except that the B&M use far lower RTP variants, and have 6 options)

Also, at least half of dozen of the games, including Cleopatra's Gold, Goldbeard, Aztec's Treasure, Sunken Treasure and Honey to the Bee, have been deployed by Voyager in the UK since 2007, at Quicksilver/Talarius centres.
Some have a particular Triple Chance Bonus feature addition, but many are simply the same games with the same features, modified to meet UK machine class requirements.

AWP's compared to random slots compared to weighted reel-slots are 3 very different animals IMO.

I'll stick to designing random games, as I fail to see any advantages to a weighted reel strip outcome over a random outcome. Weighted-outcome-driven near misses, as per U.S. games (3 reelers in the main) are purely designed to piss players off...again IMO.

Woooof