3Dice Swings

[mysticjoz]

Well, I have to jump in on this one since I brought it up many, many months back. Even then I heard, "Unfortunately it's just a run of Bad Luck" and i am still hearing the same thing this day.

The most I have cashed out as of recent was $20 to my QT account because every single game was so tight and I was not seeing anything at all. YET AGAIN. No free spin rounds on ANY SLOT last night.

IMHO .. this is not just UP and DOWN "swings"... I have not had a good hit (and by "good hit" I mean anywhere from $200 up ACCUMULATED of course, so I am not being greedy at all about this) For SO many months I can't even count them! About 1-2 weeks ago I had my balance up to $180.00 and just wanted to reach the $200 mark to pay the "overnight" fee... it went down, down, down and that was low rolling!

I find it very odd that when they first came to the scene almost everyone here was hitting!! The Winners Screenshot Thread was filled with screenies from almost everyone and if it was not in there it was mentioned in a thread somewhere.
From October to December we were seeing "someone won ____ in real money" come across chat screen all the time. AT LEAST a couple times a day.
(I have not been into chat for a few weeks) but I do know that the "red print that tells us "someone won ________ in real money" has decreased so dramatically I think I have seen it once a month in the past 3 or 4 months, IF THAT!! I don't understand how SO MANY of us can have such LONG stretches of "a run of bad luck!" and to be honest. The "bonuses" we used to get tossed at us every once in a while.. well those don't seem to exist anymore. at least for me they don't. (when I lost that $180.00 I got a $10 bonus.)
The No wagering requirement bonuses are no longer also.
Yes, it's fun, yes they have free tourneys and "the best customer support around" ... but I know I am starting to get very impatient even trying to win a tourney.

Babs.. I hope you win the 3D in a row. I myself haven't seen 3D's EVER. And in tourneys... there is always 1 person who hits that. and that's it tourney over!

(oh, and still no word from Enzo yet...

 

[1819]

With all due respect, I'd say that 'monster hits' rather belong to those casinos that, unlike 3D (till recently my favourite one), offer Random Jackpots. No?

not really. "monster hits" maybe 400x, 800x, 1200x your bet are alot more frequent than a random jackpot. just on thet butterfly game i have hit the 1600x twice and the lower ones a few times. on vp i have hit 4 dueces, on deuces wild, at least a dozen times. 4 deuces w/ace on bonus deuces wild, and 5 of a kind on joker poker more than a few times. not one random jackpot ever. i'd rather have the bigger amount x bet than a fixed amount. what good is a 2 thousand dollar random jackpot if you are betting 20 bucks a spin?

 

[Fleur-De-Lis]

Thanks for your input, 1819!
I guess I saw it too straightforward and may be personal - I lost way too much, and the only hope for me to recover is to hit one of those 32red jackpots Even 1600 times max bet on 3Dice won't help I am too far gone I am afraid...

 

[1819]

Thanks for your input, 1819!
I guess I saw it too straightforward and may be personal - I lost way too much, and the only hope for me to recover is to hit one of those 32red jackpots Even 1600 times max bet on 3Dice won't help I am too far gone I am afraid...

lol. i too am way behind and will never show a profit but that is not why i play. like i said i dont mind getting beat up as long as i can hit back once in a while. the reason i only play 3d anymore is at least i know some good hits will come. i enjoy seeing how long i can play on a deposit. very, very rare to cashout unless it is an exceptional run. except for t.i.v.(before they went south) 3d is literally the only place i have cashed out from. maybe one or two from inet but that place has become a disaster. gaming as entertainment is supposed to be fun and the other places have become no fun. 3d is great but they will have to get some more games soon or i will quickly become bored. i have way too many b&m choices near by to sit in front of a computer. hope your gaming turns around for ya.

 

[Eliot Jacobson]

Posting to keep active on this site

3Dice slots are higher variance than most, and they can generate some truly spectacular, if rare, payouts.

Greetings, I got a few emails saying I haven't visited in a while and requesting a post, so I thought I would respond to this interesting statement.

Recently I have been doing the programming for some slot machines for a Nevada based slot machine company. They request two things when I do the programming. One of the things is called the RTP, the "Return to Player" -- this means that over the long run, what fraction of each $1 invested will be returned to the player. The RTP of the slots I have been making is under 90%, which is pretty tough on the players. The other thing they request is the variance.

The RTP has to be separated from the variance when designing a game. A variance of 0 on a game with RTP = 90% would mean that on each pull of the handle, with a $1 wager, the player won 90 cents (lost 10 cents). Period. That would not be much fun, but is essentially an equivalent form of the game from the casino's perspective.

Most people when they get a paycheck, expect to earn $x dollars, with 0 variance. If you told someone they would get paid an average of $1000 per week, over the long run, but on some weeks they might earn $0, and some weeks they might get paid $2000, and they never knew which would happen, well, that would make it hard to pay the bills. So a variance of 0 is good when it comes to income and bad when it comes to enjoying a casino experience.

When someone speaks of high variance slots, it is really not the key point. The key point is "what is the RTP?" Slots that return 92% or more are good slots. Slots that return 96% or more are great slots. Slots that return under 88% suck. That's the theoretical RTP built into them by the programmer, not the individual's experience.

As for variance, I've built slots that are high variance and low variance. They pay the same in the long run, but some players like to go for the few but huge wins, others like to play games that stress more frequent lower payouts. In either case, the player loses. In the first case, the variance is higher.

So, in practical terms, one can compute these two numbers for ANY casino game (slots, table games, etc.): the RTP and the Variance. The RTP is the actual amount the casino is winning from you when you play the game. The Variance describes the ride you go on while the casino takes your money.

If I wanted an answer, and a casino rep was willing to come forward, the real question is the RTP, not the variance. You're going to lose at the rate determined by the RTP. That's the bottom line.

Hope this helps clarify the matter,

--Eliot

 

[Rusty]

Thanks for that Eliot but your post just touches upon the important questions for me which are;

Do you calculate the payout% based on every possible reel combination (eg 5 reel slot 20 symbols each reel 3.2 million combinations) and adjust the paytable accordingly or do you randomize a sequence of all combinations and then playback this sequence or do you use an algorithm that dynamically weights the symbols to achieve the desired RTP?

Perhaps you use another method but all Three of the above methods could be described as random but only one would meet a players expectations of how an online slot should function.

In much the same way a slot can have natural variance dictated only by the paytable and more importantly expected Feature returns but I would expect your clients would want a greater level of control to maximise the "rollercoaster" and thus ask for variance to be "programmed in."
Would this be a correct assumption because it certainly would tie in with my experience of online slots.

 

[Eliot Jacobson]

Thanks for that Eliot but your post just touches upon the important questions for me which are;

Do you calculate the payout% based on every possible reel combination (eg 5 reel slot 20 symbols each reel 3.2 million combinations) and adjust the paytable accordingly

The way traditional slots are analyzed is by something called a PAR sheet -- That stands for Paytable and Reel Strips. Every possible outcome is analyzed in a spread sheet analysis. Every possibility is enumerated and the paytable is adjusted via this enumeration to give exactly the RTP and variance the client wants. Often this is verified using a "robot" that plays (in my programming) at least 100 million simulated rounds to double check.

Bingo slots are not so easy. I've done a lot of those. But Bingo is too big of a game to analyze combinatorially (just think of the formula combin(75,24) -- that's the size of the computation of one cycle).

For slots, the RTP and variance are not dynamically adjusted based on the player, the player's previous results, or any other interaction with the player and the slot. The casino makes its money over millions of rounds of these games being played, and for the casino the RTP is all that matters. A good or bad week for a player is entirely under the radar of the average casino's bookkeeping.

Hope this helps,

Eliot

 

[Eliot Jacobson]

Another comment

I would expect your clients would want a greater level of control to maximise the "rollercoaster" and thus ask for variance to be "programmed in." Would this be a correct assumption because it certainly would tie in with my experience of online slots.

I would like to correct a misconception that seems to be hinted at by this statement. Variance is not a thing that happens or doesn't happen. That seems to be how it is used here a lot. "You just experienced bad variance," is a common phrase I often read here.

In truth, variance is a single number, just like RTP is a single number. If you think of a bell curve (why not draw one just so you can follow this) then the RTP corresponds to the high point of the curve. The square root of the variance corresponds to the distance between the high point of the curve and the point at which it turns from being concave down (an upside down bowl) to being concave up (a rightside up bowl). High variance just means this distance is greater, low variance means this distance is shorter. That's all.

Variance means nothing more than this: a distance between two points with a suitable metric. To say that one is "experiencing bad variance" is an expression that is often used rhetorically, but it is without meaning.

Best regards,

Eliot

 

[USA2112]

@Eliot Jacobson

Correct me if I'm wrong but basically your saying that the difference between playing a low variance machine and a high variance machine is notthing more than the amount of times the machine will payout within an alloted amount of time, the higher variance machine paying less times with higher payout wins and the lower variance machine paying more times with lower payout wins. Then if both machines were to have the same RTP of 92% the overall payout of the two machines is the same and has nothing to do with any given time schedule or amount of pulls that determans when the machine will pay. Correct?

Reason I ask is it would make sense then to play the high variance machine due to the possibilities of bigger payouts even though there's fewer wins. I find myself doing this more often then not because when I play low variance machines compared to high variance machines, the low variance just seems to go up and down and the high variance I can get further ahead "WIN MORE" per amount invested and time played. Whether I cash out is determaned by how much I win.

 

[bb28]

Whew.......this thread is making my blonde head spin.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't quite understand it all but I have somewhat of a grasp on it.

On a serious note.....thank you Eliot for coming on and addressing this.

 

[Eliot Jacobson]

Yes....

...your saying that the difference between playing a low variance machine and a high variance machine is notthing more than the amount of times the machine will payout within an alloted amount of time, the higher variance machine paying less times with higher payout wins and the lower variance machine paying more times with lower payout wins.

Bingo. But, this is not for a single player for a single session, this is the long term average over millions of plays. Any individual can have quite a different experience. For example, the person who buys the winning lottery ticket and the person who buys a losing ticket have very different experiences of the same game, with the same RTP and variance.

Then if both machines were to have the same RTP of 92% the overall payout of the two machines is the same and has nothing to do with any given time schedule or amount of pulls that determans when the machine will pay.

Yes, this is correct. Two machines with the same RTP will payout the same amout, over a sufficiently large number of pulls.

Reason I ask is it would make sense then to play the high variance machine due to the possibilities of bigger payouts even though there's fewer wins.

Some people like high variance, some low variance. This is simply a matter of taste in your games.

As an easy example, think of Roulette. Every bet is exactly the same in Roulette, they all pay back at an RTP of 36/38 = 94.74%. Now, a player who plays $38 on Red-7 and a player who plays $38 by placing $1 on each of the 38 squares have the same RTP (yes they do!!!), they each stand to lose $2 on average over the long run. The first player will either lose $38 or win $1330(straight up pays 35-to-1). The second will always lose $2. In the long run it's the same. Which seems more fun to you?

Most people play somewhere in between these two strategies, peppering the board with wagers in some haphazard fashion. The way their wagers fall is a statement about the variance they enjoy, it has nothing to do with their RTP. They stand to lose, on average, about 5.26% of all money wagered, no matter how it falls on the table. Thus Roulette is the ultimate player's game -- choose your variance, from full on playing one number straight up, to the risk free person who is playing $1 on each square. It is the same. When you understand this, that's when you'll really see why casinos don't care about variance, they only care about RTP.

So, the question is, what's the RTP? If I was a player (I am not), that would be the only question I would ask. Beyond that, it becomes just a question of style -- how do I enjoy losing the money I am predicted to lose?

This post may lead to more questions, forgive me if I rest on this thread and leave on a note of encouragement with no further responses.

Play for fun, find the variance that is fun for you, and play high RTP games so that your money lasts.

 

[USA2112]

Thanks for the info. For me I like high variance slot machines I seem to win more. I'll chalk it up as luck...

 

[me_and_ed]

As promised Enzo sent my payout percentages, I had a 700x on Moolah hence the 106%. Doesnt look bad on paper, doesnt feel as good in real life.



DoubleDice 1101 bets 97.26%
Industria 1415 bets 74.94%
FortuneFalls 7448 bets 87.92%
HappyValley 16131 spins 93.15%
MedievalMoolah 6129 bets 106.88%
Poker_new 1294 bets 76.17%
SquirrelPike 18510 spins 99.78%
SuperSuits 22780 bets 101.13%
Tutankhamon 21710 spins 86.04%

 

[lauram]

Yep my blonde head is spinning with you. Am i the only one that just deposits
and SPINS. Slot player here so i always take it that it is just like with cards the luck of the draw. Even though i think at times this game owes me, give me a good hit. But must rmbr that game doesnt know that, has no feelings and more or less couldnt give a darn if you hit something or not.

 

[lovetogamble]

Me Too

Am i the only one that just deposits
and SPINS.

Nope....me too. ....and just hope for the best!

 

[Fleur-De-Lis]

Nope....me too. ....and just hope for the best!

I personally no longer hope. 15K gone (thanks to Enzo for stats provided)... no chance to recover even half, ever :sob:

 

[Rusty]

I would like to correct a misconception that seems to be hinted at by this statement. Variance is not a thing that happens or doesn't happen. That seems to be how it is used here a lot. "You just experienced bad variance," is a common phrase I often read here.

In truth, variance is a single number, just like RTP is a single number. If you think of a bell curve (why not draw one just so you can follow this) then the RTP corresponds to the high point of the curve. The square root of the variance corresponds to the distance between the high point of the curve and the point at which it turns from being concave down (an upside down bowl) to being concave up (a rightside up bowl). High variance just means this distance is greater, low variance means this distance is shorter. That's all.

Variance means nothing more than this: a distance between two points with a suitable metric. To say that one is "experiencing bad variance" is an expression that is often used rhetorically, but it is without meaning.

Best regards,

Eliot

In your first reply you are legitimising the slots you program by stating they are indeed random and each spin is independent of previous results (I am reading between the lines).
That is very much what a slot player would want.

I do not know which software providers you have worked for or which slots you have helped develop but there are several reasons why I do not believe MG or RTG or any other main software providers slots work in this way.

Firstly there is the problem of slots playing differnetly when a bonus taken.
In my experience the higher the bonus and WR the more likely I am to hit a good win early in the session and as If I am doing well as I approach the WR payout will fall away to very unlikely levels <50% and quite often 30%.
This occurs time and again so I find it impossible to put down to coincidence.

There is also the problem of "dissapearing symbols" where especially after a good payout the Wild and/or scatter symbols will go AWOL.
This is not a matter of perception but fact.

Another issue would be that the reels are weighted (although this does not mean the game is not fair in itself) and though I accept this as a shortcut in some games it becomes a serious issue when this weighting is obviously dynamic in other games.

There is also the basic problem of slot returns being nowhere close to that advertised.
Over millions of spins on various software my average returns would be around 80% a long way short of the 90+% claimed.

As regards variance I thank you for your eloquent and informative post.

I think you understand perfectly well what I am hinting at.
Variance does not have to be a natural product.
For a very basic eg;
If 20% of a slots total payout is made up from a bonus round that 20% can be dished out in anyway a programmer sees fit.

Infact there endless ways to manipulate variance just as there are payout%.

Of course those arguments could be disregarded if the games were seen to operate in way you describe.
Unfortunately that is not my experience and without getting my hands on the code that is all I have to go on.

It is good of you to go into such detail to explain how the slots you work on operate and I appreciate that.

 

[Eliot Jacobson]

As promised Enzo sent my payout percentages, I had a 700x on Moolah hence the 106%. Doesnt look bad on paper, doesnt feel as good in real life.



DoubleDice 1101 bets 97.26%
Industria 1415 bets 74.94%
FortuneFalls 7448 bets 87.92%
HappyValley 16131 spins 93.15%
MedievalMoolah 6129 bets 106.88%
Poker_new 1294 bets 76.17%
SquirrelPike 18510 spins 99.78%
SuperSuits 22780 bets 101.13%
Tutankhamon 21710 spins 86.04%

According to my calculations, this gives an overall RTP of 94.7262% based on a total of 96518 spins.

It takes many more spins than 96518 to accurately determine slot RTP's, but based on this limited sample, the slots at 3Dice seem to be quite good from the consumer side.

 

[me_and_ed]

According to my calculations, this gives an overall RTP of 94.7262% based on a total of 96518 spins.

It takes many more spins than 96518 to accurately determine slot RTP's, but based on this limited sample, the slots at 3Dice seem to be quite good from the consumer side.

Yes, as I said it looks good on paper, the jist of my rant here is that most of these percentages have been from a few decent hits, its the in between time that really kills, I can have a $1000 win from one session and go for a month or two and have virtually no wins, saying that I am a thrill junky, the thrill of knowing that a large hit can happen keeps me playing here, it does get very frustrating over the long haul.

 

[pacers31]

Just got a free $50 no WR bonus from 3D along with the scratch card. I emailed them to thank them for the bonus, it was a nice gesture. The bonus however only lasted 4 and a half minutes on 7s wild VP at $1.25 spin. The scratch card gave me two unhappy faces, so I don't quite get how this is a bonus at all. Seems ever since the new bonus system was implemented at 3D I don't enjoy playing there as much. Seems unless you have a huge bankroll you are not going to win there at all. I guess I'm not one who enjoys the high variance thing. Sorry Enzo, but I can't justify this kind of investment even for entertainment purposes. I usually deposit $50 at a time and it is gone in five minutes (usually). $10 a minute for entertainment is too rich for me!!

 

[kakata]

same story here with a 25 scrath card.....unhappy faces......great bonus
Theyr faces were not so unhappy when we deposited....

 

[RedKaos]

2 happy dollars for me 25 10x WR
Cashed out 140 after the wagering requirements

 

[pacers31]

Good for you Red! I still don't consider this a bonus though!

 

[me_and_ed]

Seems like the norm. Hasnt taken long to go from Silver**** to Silver**, 3 weeks.

 

[Elizabeth]

I hit the jackpot on double dice slot, during a tournament! The graphics when you hit are amazing and fun to watch. But it made me physically ill to hit it for a $10.00 prize. I must agree here, 3Dice slots are so frustrating, and nerve-racking. You can deposit $100.00 and KNOW if you don't hit quickly, it will be gone in about 20 minutes..I've timed it...
How does everyone feel about the new bonus system? I do not care for it.