An "um, what?" at Bet365

The 'spins' are just eye candy... It doesn't matter.

You could briefly see a naked picture of Nifty29 and it would never land.

Press spin, registers with server, server sends back result - relevant reels are displayed.

Agreed though, it's lazy they left that in.

P.S

Goddess of Love

You were directing this question directly at me based on the above, right?
 
The 'spins' are just eye candy... It doesn't matter.

You could briefly see a naked picture of Nifty29 and it would never land.

Press spin, registers with server, server sends back result - relevant reels are displayed.

Agreed though, it's lazy they left that in.

P.S



You were directing this question directly at me based on the above, right?

Would make for a very short slot session too I should think :puke: :puke:
 
oh, I'm aware it has zero impact on where symbols land; just seems pointless to add to the reel though

It's worse than pointless, it raises unfounded concerns that the game might be rigged to block certain symbols from landing as often as they should. Why can't they make the animation out of the actual reelstrip, so that sharp eyed players don't notice such oddities and start wondering what is going on.

It is, after all, a visual representation of an actual machine, which used to be made from actual reels in a cabinet. Although merely a visual reproduction, our brains interpret them based on what we understand a real machine might show if it had a big enough cabinet to hold such a reel. We therefore expect that we are seeing a true representation of the reel spinning round, and that what we see at this stage is the same reel we see a segment of when it is stopped. The shortcuts taken by programmers are not meant to be seen by players, so this was a pretty careless one. If players really knew all the shortcuts taken, it would destroy our mind's eye image of the machine we were playing, rendering it merely a random scratchcard type game with a load of largely irrelevant artwork surrounding a fixed and predetermined win or loss. Mathematically, it makes no difference, but knowing a slot was "faked" to front a glorified keno or scratchcard game would put many players off as they would wonder whether some combinations were not possible, or once won no longer available for that cycle.
 
It's worse than pointless, it raises unfounded concerns that the game might be rigged to block certain symbols from landing as often as they should. Why can't they make the animation out of the actual reelstrip, so that sharp eyed players don't notice such oddities and start wondering what is going on.

It is, after all, a visual representation of an actual machine, which used to be made from actual reels in a cabinet. Although merely a visual reproduction, our brains interpret them based on what we understand a real machine might show if it had a big enough cabinet to hold such a reel. We therefore expect that we are seeing a true representation of the reel spinning round, and that what we see at this stage is the same reel we see a segment of when it is stopped. The shortcuts taken by programmers are not meant to be seen by players, so this was a pretty careless one. If players really knew all the shortcuts taken, it would destroy our mind's eye image of the machine we were playing, rendering it merely a random scratchcard type game with a load of largely irrelevant artwork surrounding a fixed and predetermined win or loss. Mathematically, it makes no difference, but knowing a slot was "faked" to front a glorified keno or scratchcard game would put many players off as they would wonder whether some combinations were not possible, or once won no longer available for that cycle.

What "cycle"?
 
but knowing a slot was "faked" to front a glorified keno or scratchcard game would put many players off as they would wonder whether some combinations were not possible, or once won no longer available for that cycle.

Keno isn't like slots since you always have to same chances of hitting your numbers. It's closer to old mechanical slots than video slots are. AFAIK, you cannot change the RTP on a Keno game. Unlike video slots where reels are irrelevant to the result, video keno really individually "draws" 20 numbers every time. Same apply to video poker where they can't legally and ethically change the RTP (ie: on each hand, you have 5 chances out of 52 to get the ace of spades).

On video slots the spinning reels are just an animation (a short video). In this case, the guy that made the video forgot (or didn't know) that there was no bonus symbol that could land on the first reel. It doesn't affect the payout, though, because that symbol cannot land on reel one.
 
What "cycle"?

These cycles exist on some classes of UK machine, such as the "Bar X" variety, a simple game with only nudges and reel wins. Lazy programming like this can break the illusion for players, making them suspicious of what they are playing. Video slots are really just an illusion, but one carefully crafted to make the player imagine a fixed reel is being used, with each stop having the same chance of landing. Where the spin illusion does not match the actual reel being used, players will start to see oddities and "patterns" between the animation and the stops being landed. They will tend to interpret this negatively, imagining the reel to be "rigged" so that a desired symbol always seems to miss the stop, but forever land very close just out of view. Unless they know how it is done, they will believe the animation is of the actual reel spinning past, and if they can make out individual symbols, will believe this is the layout of the reel strip for that position. Showing a symbol that never lands then looks like it is deliberately weighted out of existence. Showing more of a particular symbol than exists on a reel gives the impression that the stops are weighted.

Designers should bear in mind that many players are suspicious, and will often interpret coding anomalies in a negative manner.

In the UK, a "rigged" slot is the norm, with truly random slots being something of a novelty. Even some of the newer £500 jackpot video slots are marked as "compensated", the technical term for "rigged":rolleyes:

We also have scratchcard games here in the UK. Whilst these have a fixed RTP, rather than generating a random chance of winning at the point of sale, the cards are all predetermined, and collectively add up to create the correct RTP. The difference is that once someone has bought the jackpot card and won it, no other player can win it again during that "cycle" of scratchcards. In a random slot, it IS possible for more than one player to hit the jackpot in a short period of time, so that players know that their own chances of winning are unaffected by what other players have already won. If players are playing a "scratchcard based slot", it means that each combination can only occur a fixed number of times in a "cycle", so similar to a "compensated" game, what other players win directly affects their own chances of winning.

If I see a "compensated" fruit machine drop over £140 to a player, I avoid it because I know that this has effectively killed my chances of getting any decent prize until the game has "recovered" that £140 plus a bit on top to account for the house's cut. A naive player may see such a payout as indicating the machine is "hot", and so will fill it up again:D
I have had to alter my thinking for online casinos so that when a player posts a big video slot win, I don't start thinking I had better avoid it until it fills up again.
 
In the UK, a "rigged" slot is the norm, with truly random slots being something of a novelty. Even some of the newer £500 jackpot video slots are marked as "compensated", the technical term for "rigged"

Now I'm not familiar with fruit machines in the UK but why are they doing that? You can achieve the same thing on the long run with the "true randomness" of RNG's.

The RNG don't care if you just won the jackpot, and don't care if it hasn't been won for 10 years. You have the exact same chance of winning every time that you press spin, as it should be.

You're right with the players misconception with video slots. How many times I've walked into a casino and heard people say stuff like "that slot hasn't paid in a long time so something is about to happen" or "some guy just won the jackpot on that one, you should avoid it". There's a huge psychological aspect to it.
 
If I see a "compensated" fruit machine drop over £140 to a player, I avoid it because I know that this has effectively killed my chances of getting any decent prize until the game has "recovered" that £140 plus a bit on top to account for the house's cut. A naive player may see such a payout as indicating the machine is "hot", and so will fill it up again:D

That's not necessarily true, there's a whole family of Electrocoin AWPs that save in the background for a long time for a £140 mega streak, the machine drops this as and when it's ready, it can't be forced out.

However, that £140 is a free win as it's already been paid for upfront. Therefore it's entirely possible to win that £140 (or watch someone else do it), and then take another couple of hundred quid out of the machine with the true skill features (this family of machines has two true skill features).

Here's a £70 Electrocoin AWP going for £390, the free wins here (the invincible three red icons boards) added up to £180, then the player got three lots of £70 off the skill features.

Point being, the machine paid £180 first, but it still had another £210 in it, as the £180 was basically 'free' and didn't affect the compensation.

VOLUME ALERT! There's some horrible karaoke going on!

 
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You could briefly see a naked picture of Nifty29 and it would never land.
It could land - which one of these guys is Nifty?

Thunder.JPG


I first noticed this anomaly of wrong symbols on reels way back in the early 2000's on Cryptologic's "Love Bugs", where you can quite clearly see the wild "Lady Bug" spin past on one (or more?) of the centre 3 reels, when in fact she only ever lands on reel 1.

I think a couple of other Crypto slot have the same "sloppy programming", but I can't think where I've seen this on any other softwares.
Which software is "Goddess of Love" at Bet365 - anyone know?

KK
 
The Gems Of Isis slot (Galewind Software at Pinnacle Casino) had this problem, in that it showed the expanding wild symbol on reel 1 in free spins, but it could only land on 2-3-4-5.

This was pointed out to Chris (binary128) who was pretty mortified by the error. He immediately had an emergency fix issued to the slot, and personally thanked the CM member who pointed it out to him.

Even though it didn't make any difference to the payout (it was purely cosmetic), he certainly considered it an important enough error to have it classed as a number one priority for his software guys.
 
That's not necessarily true, there's a whole family of Electrocoin AWPs that save in the background for a long time for a £140 mega streak, the machine drops this as and when it's ready, it can't be forced out.

However, that £140 is a free win as it's already been paid for upfront. Therefore it's entirely possible to win that £140 (or watch someone else do it), and then take another couple of hundred quid out of the machine with the true skill features (this family of machines has two true skill features).

Here's a £70 Electrocoin AWP going for £390, the free wins here (the invincible three red icons boards) added up to £180, then the player got three lots of £70 off the skill features.

Point being, the machine paid £180 first, but it still had another £210 in it, as the £180 was basically 'free' and didn't affect the compensation.

VOLUME ALERT! There's some horrible karaoke going on!



I remember the old ACE machines doing this, where you could have the streak, in those days £20 to £30, but then get just as much again by knowing how to play the number features, a secondary set of wins based on the reel stops.

This may be true where machines have a streak that can't be forced out, but where the streak can be forced, getting it can kill the machine stone dead. An obvious example was the first "Pie Factory", where doing the force and manipulator for JP + Red Board, would guarantee no-one else would see more than a couple of quid for some while. Vamp it up was more like the Electrocoin, where the top feature could go for between £25 and £50, but then further large wins and Jackpots could be had from the features, some of which needed a bit of skill.

Operators have always preferred compensated machines over random ones. It has allowed them to introduce these streaks into an otherwise boring game limited by regulation to small jackpots compared to stake. When 20p was brought out, we had a £4.80 limit on the jackpot. Manufacturers got around this by upping the variance by introducing the "streak pot" into the compensation arrangements. Compensation also allowed for true skill based features that would adapt to the skill levels of the player by reading the running RTP, and making the features harder to achieve when RTP was too high, and very easy when loads of novice players messed up the skill features.

It could be quite profitable finding a machine where unskilled players had forced the features to adjust to "novice mode". It meant a skilled player could repeatedly complete the skill features, taking a fair chunk of change from the tubes, before the machine started adjusting the features to compensate. I got chucked out of a few places for doing this to the old "skill climb for £2 repeater" machines:D BFM were the dog's bollocks when it came to these, originally 10p a go, and reworked for 20p/£4.80 Barcrest had a few, and Cash Counter could be quite profitable, even though the feature was harder than on BFM games.

What REALLY pissed me off in those days was blown bulbs in the climb lights, which engineers hardly ever bothered to replace. I even wrote a letter of complaint to Welcome Break on the dreadful state of the machines, where skill features were next to impossible because so many bulbs had blown and never been replaced. They wrote back with a grovelling apology, and asked me to name and shame the offending services (It was Fleet on the M3, and I couldn't "do" the Jackpoteers because of blown bulbs:mad:)
 
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