Ask me anything (about slots)!

[trancemonkey]

Still trying to get my head around how an essentially fixed payout over time can be described as random.

Pseudorandom sounds more romantic than fixed or rigged I guess?

Read my post in this thread about random.... that explains it...

 

[trancemonkey]

Thanks for the long replay Trancemonkey, but I cant agree with answer 1 and 2...

[sic]

Another thing... RTG casinos...download version...a few years ago and back to beginning of RTG Real series slots...Cleopatra(first game) you could follow the symbols on the reels as they slowed down and may trigger free spins or feature...very exciting and if you knew the game you could see depending of where the reel started to slow down if the last scatter would land on screen trigger feature...loved the excitment...but nowadays its not possible, spinning reels are just fake graphic illution...symbols landing on screen has nothing to do with the slow spinning reel...and you dont know if youre even close to hit the triggering scatter...I think its quite boring.... What did that change, you know?

You're allowed to disagree - that's the joy of this thread. However, unless you can statistically prove that what you're saying is true, i will respectfully disagree with you. Forgive me if this sounds condescending - it's not meant that way - but you are coming at this from a perception / experience point of view. I totally get that - i'd have said the same before i came to "this side" of the games. However, i'm coming at it from the point of view of knowledge. I will caveat that by saying i can not be 100% sure that some providers do not do some underhand things BUT I would stake my life on the fact that ALL the major providers do not do this. It's more than their licence is worth - their licence is their business. Without it they have no business... it's just not worth doing anything like that.

Also, there's just no point. For example - you say the casino has just made $100 off you right? So they can afford to loosen the slot up - right? Wrong - the game has an RTP. When you lose the $100, someone else is winning $97 (assuming a 97% RTP). I know that's simplistic, but it's fact. If they then "loosen" it up for you, and the other player withdraws his $97 and then you withdraw your money that this new "loose" slot has given you, the casino lose.

Anyway - in my experience i don't know of any slots provider that does this, and as the casinos have no control over the slot content (unless it was developed in house - then there is a chance they could) i'm afraid your experience is just an experience, and unlikely to be fact.

Sorry for disagreeing - but hey, that's what this thread is for. I don't expect everyone to believe me, but some peoples minds are not for changing, and i'm sure there will be some who just think "more bullshit from someone in the industry - lying bastards" - and that's fine... i was there once!

 

[Deeplay]

You're allowed to disagree - that's the joy of this thread. However, unless you can statistically prove that what you're saying is true, i will respectfully disagree with you. Forgive me if this sounds condescending - it's not meant that way - but you are coming at this from a perception / experience point of view. I totally get that - i'd have said the same before i came to "this side" of the games. However, i'm coming at it from the point of view of knowledge. I will caveat that by saying i can not be 100% sure that some providers do not do some underhand things BUT I would stake my life on the fact that ALL the major providers do not do this. It's more than their licence is worth - their licence is their business. Without it they have no business... it's just not worth doing anything like that.

Also, there's just no point. For example - you say the casino has just made $100 off you right? So they can afford to loosen the slot up - right? Wrong - the game has an RTP. When you lose the $100, someone else is winning $97 (assuming a 97% RTP). I know that's simplistic, but it's fact. If they then "loosen" it up for you, and the other player withdraws his $97 and then you withdraw your money that this new "loose" slot has given you, the casino lose.

Anyway - in my experience i don't know of any slots provider that does this, and as the casinos have no control over the slot content (unless it was developed in house - then there is a chance they could) i'm afraid your experience is just an experience, and unlikely to be fact.

Sorry for disagreeing - but hey, that's what this thread is for. I don't expect everyone to believe me, but some peoples minds are not for changing, and i'm sure there will be some who just think "more bullshit from someone in the industry - lying bastards" - and that's fine... i was there once!

Think this sums up the whole question of is it rigged or not. Said very well. I have never really personally doubted the integrity of the games from reputable providors. And have played a good few years online now. Some real highs some lows (lots of lows in fact ) but over all when I look back its a pretty fair game. And I think if anyone goes into this "vice" with the hopes of making a living they need to find another job. In the end unless we win the mega Moohla JP we are all doomed to loose in the long run. But if loosing can be made fun it can hurt less.

I have always felt there is no need to manipulate any game as the maths model in the end takes care of that. But some people just dont wanna believe. And the other week at the CM meeting in London hearing it from the game reps themselves made so much sense. Think this is quickly becoming the thread of the New Year

 

[Tourettesguy]

The license is another thing...how can they lose a license? How can a software be controlled? The developer ofcoarse have a "testing mode" which the controllant are shown...where everything shines... LOL.. No periods of 4000 half dead spins without bonus features
Without casinos there would not be any licenses to get payed for...who needs who?
I dont belive anything is random...slots is same as lottery ofcoarse and your own account is separated from any other account..you fight your own average payout %. Which will land at around 96% sooner or later. I just have to face it and hope for that little jump and withdraw and get the hell out and close account. But its hard to close account after a big win..

 

[Playford7]

Maths models and rtp..all providers won't lie and are fair as they have no need to lie. Great I accept that. But as I've said in a previous post, where there is money there is corruption, that's the world over. Nothing will change that...ever.
I'm not saying at all a provider would even consider such a ghastly underhand tactic, but there is always no that possibility.

 

[interlog]

I get it often when I play during my stream, and get suggestions if you do such and such on a slot it will give the bonus, it will pay.

Surely, that being the case, I would say the slot is well and truly broke?

Do you agree or disagree? Can slots give tell tale signs it is about to do something?

 

[Playford7]

I get it often when I play during my stream, and get suggestions if you do such and such on a slot it will give the bonus, it will pay.

Surely, that being the case, I would say the slot is well and truly broke?

Do you agree or disagree? Can slots give tell tale signs it is about to do something?

100% not. That's just pie in the sky. Otherwise everyone would be on said slot where the bonus was guarenteed. It happens randomly. Could be 3 scatters in 10 spins or zero in 1000....

 

[paul7388]

I get it often when I play during my stream, and get suggestions if you do such and such on a slot it will give the bonus, it will pay.

Surely, that being the case, I would say the slot is well and truly broke?

Do you agree or disagree? Can slots give tell tale signs it is about to do something?

Well put it this way. The fact that you are posting and asking that question provides your answer. If you could tell for definite and do something to make it pay then you would have made a fortune and would not be on here asking.

Same as all the experts that watch your stream. If they knew when slots would pay features or ways to make slots pay then they would be gambling away with their own money not sitting watching streams giving advice.

 

[Ork]

Play Money

Do spins in demo mode affect overall payouts of the real money equivalent?
For example does somebody winning big(or losing big) on a slot with play money count towards the rtp of the same real money slot or are they run off different servers?

 

[Playford7]

Well put it this way. The fact that you are posting and asking that question provides your answer. If you could tell for definite and do something to make it pay then you would have made a fortune and would not be on here asking.

Same as all the experts that watch your stream. If they knew when slots would pay features or ways to make slots pay then they would be gambling away with their own money not sitting watching streams giving advice.

I must give the finest of high 5's to that answer. That is all.

 

[interlog]

Well put it this way. The fact that you are posting and asking that question provides your answer. If you could tell for definite and do something to make it pay then you would have made a fortune and would not be on here asking.

Same as all the experts that watch your stream. If they knew when slots would pay features or ways to make slots pay then they would be gambling away with their own money not sitting watching streams giving advice.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't believe them and say so on my streams. I may give it a go once in a while to see what happens.

But as this is a topic where the OP answers, I want to hear his (I guess predictable) answer.

 

[Janek12]

I will caveat that by saying i can not be 100% sure that some providers do not do some underhand things BUT I would stake my life on the fact that ALL the major providers do not do this. It's more than their licence is worth - their licence is their business. Without it they have no business... it's just not worth doing anything like that.

Unfortunately, I think you lost the bet - see the Frankenstein slot fiasco from NetEnt - one of the most reputable software providers (if not THE most reputable one).

The thing is - the slots are created by people and the companies are run people... And due to this "human factor" there is always room for shady and underhand things.

Granted, the Frankenstein slot fiasco (presumably, the slot paid after a certain combination of keys on the keyboard was pressed; as far as I know, NetEnt never came clean on what actually was the problem with the slot) was dealt with eventually - but only after several years, unless I am mistaken in the timeline.

 

[SpinUk]

What i meant was when it was switched to the html4 format. The game play seemed to have changed since then. Hope that makes sense )

100% the maths was changed on Twinspin to smooth the variance on the game. When you play now the balance hangs around and seems to last longer but the big wins are more remote. The RTP will remain the same, but the game will play differently.

On DOA its the same but more pronounced. Sure, you can still get the wild lines, but they are fewer and farer between, whilst the majority of bonus rounds appear to pay marginally more (50x stake much more common as opposed to previous 10-20x).

Certainly these games remain capable of producing the previous big wins, but the alteration means that these are even rarer than they were before as the RTP has been "fleshed out" with the increased abundance of medium wins at the expense of the mega wins.

Why does this matter?

Im sure from a developer point of view, then it will be argued that it is what is popular with players, and they are feeding this demand. I don't buy it though.

From a casino point of view, by lowering the slot variance slot then the player is playing for longer, but crucially, the bonus beating and withdrawal inducing mega wins are now rarer -remarkably so - meaning that despite the RTP remaining the same the actually REAL net loss to the casino - the point where the player will actually hit the withdraw button - has been reduced.

So the Casino bottom line is increased and risk is reduced, even though the house edge has remained the same.

This fact has also driven the recent releases from the major software houses like Netent (from Warlords and pretty much everything in the last year or so) releasing slots where the so called "big wins" are more around the 150x stake mark compared to 500x stake on the previous releases. MG are the same.

 

[Janek12]

From a casino point of view, by lowering the slot variance slot then the player is playing for longer, but crucially, the bonus beating and withdrawal inducing mega wins are now rarer -remarkably so - meaning that despite the RTP remaining the same the actually REAL net loss to the casino - the point where the player will actually hit the withdraw button - has been reduced.

So the Casino bottom line is increased and risk is reduced, even though the house edge has remained the same.

This fact has also driven the recent releases from the major software houses like Netent (from Warlords and pretty much everything in the last year or so) releasing slots where the so called "big wins" are more around the 150x stake mark compared to 500x stake on the previous releases. MG are the same.

I know I have pointed out this before but it bears repeating IMO: I believe the above is also the reason why almost none (or actually none, as far as I know) of the new slots allow for changing the number of lines (because reducing the number of lines played greatly increases variance). And I believe it is also why NetEnt even removed this option from some of the older slots...

 

[mclee321]

Why don't we keep the thread to asking Trancemonkey the questions, and leaving out everyone's endlessly boring, half-cocked, unproven theory's and personal vendettas regarding slots.

It's immensely rare for a slot developer to open up and enlighten us, I'd hate for the bullshit to drive him off.

Thanks Trancemonkey!

 

[Deeplay]

Why don't we keep the thread to asking Tracemonkey the questions, and leaving out everyone's endlessly boring, half-cocked, unproven theory's and personal vendettas regarding slots.

It's immensely rare for a slot developer to open up and enlighten us, I'd hate for the bullshit to drive him off.

Thanks Tracemonkey!

Agree 100% the conspiracy theories are boring and without any basis of fact. Its great Tracemonkey has offered to answer straight up questions and would be good to see this thread back on topic.

 

[trancemonkey]

Unfortunately, I think you lost the bet - see the Frankenstein slot fiasco from NetEnt - one of the most reputable software providers (if not THE most reputable one).

The thing is - the slots are created by people and the companies are run people... And due to this "human factor" there is always room for shady and underhand things.

Granted, the Frankenstein slot fiasco (presumably, the slot paid after a certain combination of keys on the keyboard was pressed; as far as I know, NetEnt never came clean on what actually was the problem with the slot) was dealt with eventually - but only after several years, unless I am mistaken in the timeline.

Faults are very different to purposely to making the game behave in a dodgy way. I've had slots pulled (taken off all sitez) because of faults before. The faults weren't on purpose but they were missed by test and NMI. Does that mean we were dodgy... of course not.

I don't know about Frankenstein but it sounds like some debug / dev command was left in by accident...

 

[trancemonkey]

The license is another thing...how can they lose a license? How can a software be controlled? The developer ofcoarse have a "testing mode" which the controllant are shown...where everything shines... LOL.. No periods of 4000 half dead spins without bonus features
Without casinos there would not be any licenses to get payed for...who needs who?
I dont belive anything is random...slots is same as lottery ofcoarse and your own account is separated from any other account..you fight your own average payout %. Which will land at around 96% sooner or later. I just have to face it and hope for that little jump and withdraw and get the hell out and close account. But its hard to close account after a big win..

Every reputable casino and games provider has to have a licence in the UK and in most other regulated jurisdictions. Within those companies are also personal licence holders in the UK. For a game to have a UK release, one of those licence holders must sign the game off as compliant. If it later turns out that game is not compliant, the personal licence holder can be found responsible. So there is a lot of pressure in the UK to make sure games are compliant.

 

[trancemonkey]

I get it often when I play during my stream, and get suggestions if you do such and such on a slot it will give the bonus, it will pay.

Surely, that being the case, I would say the slot is well and truly broke?

Do you agree or disagree? Can slots give tell tale signs it is about to do something?

As someone else has said... if this were true, you'd be very rich

As part of our games design process we always go to great lengths to design in "player control" where we can. This means giving the player the feeling that they can control the game and the outcome.

It plays to people's psychology. This post is proof it works sometimes

 

[trancemonkey]

Do spins in demo mode affect overall payouts of the real money equivalent?
For example does somebody winning big(or losing big) on a slot with play money count towards the rtp of the same real money slot or are they run off different servers?

Not at all... demo spins are not registered in the same way. However, even if they did it would make no difference. Slot games are not affected by previous play so nothing affects anything...

 

[trancemonkey]

100% the maths was changed on Twinspin to smooth the variance on the game. When you play now the balance hangs around and seems to last longer but the big wins are more remote. The RTP will remain the same, but the game will play differently.

On DOA its the same but more pronounced. Sure, you can still get the wild lines, but they are fewer and farer between, whilst the majority of bonus rounds appear to pay marginally more (50x stake much more common as opposed to previous 10-20x).

Certainly these games remain capable of producing the previous big wins, but the alteration means that these are even rarer than they were before as the RTP has been "fleshed out" with the increased abundance of medium wins at the expense of the mega wins.

Why does this matter?

Im sure from a developer point of view, then it will be argued that it is what is popular with players, and they are feeding this demand. I don't buy it though.

From a casino point of view, by lowering the slot variance slot then the player is playing for longer, but crucially, the bonus beating and withdrawal inducing mega wins are now rarer -remarkably so - meaning that despite the RTP remaining the same the actually REAL net loss to the casino - the point where the player will actually hit the withdraw button - has been reduced.

So the Casino bottom line is increased and risk is reduced, even though the house edge has remained the same.

This fact has also driven the recent releases from the major software houses like Netent (from Warlords and pretty much everything in the last year or so) releasing slots where the so called "big wins" are more around the 150x stake mark compared to 500x stake on the previous releases. MG are the same.

Re: Twin Spin - again, I would doubt this. You say you're 100% certain so I assume you either work for NetEnt or have contact with them and have info I don't. If not, then it's perception... although I can't say whether you're right or wrong...

Re: lowering slot variance. I don't buy this... I've worked for providers for the last 9 years and not once have we been asked by a casino to lower the variance on slots. In fact the UK based casinos ask for higher variance as they believe their players prefer them.

And also, casinos don't really give two shits about variance - normally it's max liability they worry about. As long as you have enough users on your site, variance isn't really an issue.

Here's a real life example.. Ladbrokes, on any given day, have about half of their FOBTS running at a loss. People win. Some of the terminals lose thousands in a day. However, half of them take enough money that the net gain / loss is actually relatively small and not really that volatile. Sportsbook companies have much more volatility than casinos.

Also ito pertinent to remember that all us guys playing 1 euro a spin.. for most casinos we are pointless. 90% of their revenue comes from about 5% of players. Why you think they have VIP CS.

So as someone who has designed and produced these games for companies I can tell you that I've never been asked to lower the variance of a slot.

Which is why I'm surprised you think NetEnt have. Caveat here though... I'm only going off my own experience.

Also, your assumption as to why NetEnt have created lower big win games such as Warlords us almost certainly wrong... all of us providers do different types of games aimed at different segments of players. To simplify it let's call the gamblers or entertainers.

Twin Spin is for gamblers.
Warlords is for entertainers.

You don't spend 12 months making a game like Warlords only to put volatile maths in it, potantially reducing your total player base. Some people just want to play slots to be entertained. Dunover said it in his review... NetEnt volatility. There are some big wins in there still though...

Anyway... good conversation points. There are some things we will always disagree on

 

[trancemonkey]

I know I have pointed out this before but it bears repeating IMO: I believe the above is also the reason why almost none (or actually none, as far as I know) of the new slots allow for changing the number of lines (because reducing the number of lines played greatly increases variance). And I believe it is also why NetEnt even removed this option from some of the older slots...

Actually it's simpler than that... it makes it far more easy to develop, test, approve (via government test labs) and do the maths for. Also very very few people play at less than max lines. It also means you can't put feature bets/ante bets on very easily if you have line selection.

 

[Ork]

I see.

Okay I think I get it, So each spin is a completely random event independent of any past or future spin but with a slightly weighted choice of outcomes against the player which is determined by the RTP.
Thanks For your patience

Great thread!

 

[interlog]

At what point does a game have to be re-licensed?

Big Time Gaming said they couldn't do changes to the music of the game because it had to go through the licensing again? Music doesn't change the play behaviour of the game, so why would that require re-licensing?

Recently Fruit Warp had a new version (I heard people say it plays different), does each version change require a new re-license or only if the RTP / game behaviour changes?

 

[trancemonkey]

At what point does a game have to be re-licensed?

Big Time Gaming said they couldn't do changes to the music of the game because it had to go through the licensing again? Music doesn't change the play behaviour of the game, so why would that require re-licensing?

Recently Fruit Warp had a new version (I heard people say it plays different), does each version change require a new re-license or only if the RTP / game behaviour changes?

It depends - here's an example from when i worked at Inspired... When you submitted a game (to NMI for example - a test house) they gave you back a list of critical files. These are files that they determine are critical to the game logic - i.e the maths. If you want to make a change to a non-critical file at a later date, it is much easier and cheaper to do so as you don't need to test the maths again. However, if you need to make a change to a critical file EVEN IF THE CHANGE DOESN'T AFFECT THE MATHS, then it has to be retested and the maths have to be verified again. This is where the bulk of the costs lie.

If you change the game at all from the version which was tested (homologated) then it needs to be re-evaluated by the test house. The scope of that evaluation is the only thing that changes... (I think it's ok in some circumstances for the software provider to self-certify via the internal personal licence holder if the changes are to non-critical files, but i'm not 100% sure of this - and of course the personal licence holder is personally responsible if something goes wrong!