Ask me anything (about slots)!

[The Dude]

No one wants the truth mate... they only want confirmation of their beliefs. And I won't be called a liar by anyone. That is not what I can where to do.

Ummm - did I miss something here?

 

[goatwack]

Exsqueeze me? What's been going on?

 

[Jono777]

Hi TM, crossing my fingers I've caught you in a question answering kind of mood

You may not be able to post an answer to this as its based around the company I believe you work for?

Regarding IGT's "Cleopatra" - This was the first game I played way back in 2003 (or thereabouts) - Fantastic game, fair 7/10 great 'feel' excellent maths and design overall

What happened??

Hope I don't upset you or a colleague but the 'update' is beyond awful, that much I've not played it since!

Was this a forced move?
Did the maths model change or just the 'shell'?
Could the original / old version ever make a return?

Cheers

Jon

 

[trancemonkey]

Ummm - did I miss something here?

It was a post by greylady that I took the wrong way...

 

[trancemonkey]

Hi TM, crossing my fingers I've caught you in a question answering kind of mood

You may not be able to post an answer to this as its based around the company I believe you work for?

Regarding IGT's "Cleopatra" - This was the first game I played way back in 2003 (or thereabouts) - Fantastic game, fair 7/10 great 'feel' excellent maths and design overall

What happened??

Hope I don't upset you or a colleague but the 'update' is beyond awful, that much I've not played it since!

Was this a forced move?
Did the maths model change or just the 'shell'?
Could the original / old version ever make a return?

Cheers

Jon

Hey Jon

I asked a colleague of mine in IGT interactive and he assures me it's just visual. What is it you don't like?

I admit I don't play it so I haven't seen what has changed

TM

 

[Jono777]

Hey Jon

I asked a colleague of mine in IGT interactive and he assures me it's just visual. What is it you don't like?

I admit I don't play it so I haven't seen what has changed

TM

It just seems a lot 'clumsier' and very laggy, plus it now has these awful BIG WIN count ups on wins of say 10x or thereabouts. The audio is also out of sync with the game.

Now the original span fast and smooth, as best I recall EVERY session (as best I recall played at Games Xtra (people casino now closed) Kerching casino and Quicksilver (prior to DR Vegas re-branding)
The pace and no "is the 3rd scatter coming teases" probably added to the enjoyment for me but I also feel others (on here) have had this discussion and also preferred the original.

Given the dross released by other providers more recently (in terms of presentation and playability, NOT RTP, paytables etc) I'd confidently say the original Cleo was leaps and bounds above them and given the fact its roughly 15 years old is a pretty big point lol

I'd even go as far to say (although not a heavy IGT player) the original was your best ever release, geez I miss this slot

 

[GC_Konstantin]

Hi Trancemonkey,

If you or anyone can help, I was thinking to ask you about the optimum play on Mega Joker slot from NetEnt !

I suppose, the base bet is clear, it must be spun on max lines. The math issue strike in with the bonus round and rises the following questions:

1) When is better to collect your coins instead of going for the 2,000 coins win ? (I was hitting the collect button every time the supermeter accumulator reached 1,400 or more coins. - Is it optimal ?)
2) It is clear that every time when the accumulator have at least 200 coins, then 200 coins bet must be used (to make full use when the jokers appear).
I think it also clear that every time when we get 40 or 80 coins in the supermeter accumulator we should bet 40 and never touch the 20 spin. But when we get 60 coins, does it matter if we first bet 40 or 20 ?
However, what should we bet when we only have 120 coins ? First spin the 20 bet then if lost, the remainder 100 coin bet or is better to split that 120 coins in 3 bets of 40 coins (or something else) ?

Thanks,
Denis

 

[trancemonkey]

It just seems a lot 'clumsier' and very laggy, plus it now has these awful BIG WIN count ups on wins of say 10x or thereabouts. The audio is also out of sync with the game.

Now the original span fast and smooth, as best I recall EVERY session (as best I recall played at Games Xtra (people casino now closed) Kerching casino and Quicksilver (prior to DR Vegas re-branding)
The pace and no "is the 3rd scatter coming teases" probably added to the enjoyment for me but I also feel others (on here) have had this discussion and also preferred the original.

Given the dross released by other providers more recently (in terms of presentation and playability, NOT RTP, paytables etc) I'd confidently say the original Cleo was leaps and bounds above them and given the fact its roughly 15 years old is a pretty big point lol

I'd even go as far to say (although not a heavy IGT player) the original was your best ever release, geez I miss this slot

View attachment 87054

I'll pass this information on. Thanks Jono

 

[trancemonkey]

Hi Trancemonkey,

If you or anyone can help, I was thinking to ask you about the optimum play on Mega Joker slot from NetEnt !

I suppose, the base bet is clear, it must be spun on max lines. The math issue strike in with the bonus round and rises the following questions:

1) When is better to collect your coins instead of going for the 2,000 coins win ? (I was hitting the collect button every time the supermeter accumulator reached 1,400 or more coins. - Is it optimal ?)
2) It is clear that every time when the accumulator have at least 200 coins, then 200 coins bet must be used (to make full use when the jokers appear).
I think it also clear that every time when we get 40 or 80 coins in the supermeter accumulator we should bet 40 and never touch the 20 spin. But when we get 60 coins, does it matter if we first bet 40 or 20 ?
However, what should we bet when we only have 120 coins ? First spin the 20 bet then if lost, the remainder 100 coin bet or is better to split that 120 coins in 3 bets of 40 coins (or something else) ?

Thanks,
Denis

Hey Dennis... I'm afraid I don't really know this slot so I can't help

Apologies

 

[4048]

Hi Trancemonkey,

If you or anyone can help, I was thinking to ask you about the optimum play on Mega Joker slot from NetEnt !

I suppose, the base bet is clear, it must be spun on max lines. The math issue strike in with the bonus round and rises the following questions:

1) When is better to collect your coins instead of going for the 2,000 coins win ? (I was hitting the collect button every time the supermeter accumulator reached 1,400 or more coins. - Is it optimal ?)
2) It is clear that every time when the accumulator have at least 200 coins, then 200 coins bet must be used (to make full use when the jokers appear).
I think it also clear that every time when we get 40 or 80 coins in the supermeter accumulator we should bet 40 and never touch the 20 spin. But when we get 60 coins, does it matter if we first bet 40 or 20 ?
However, what should we bet when we only have 120 coins ? First spin the 20 bet then if lost, the remainder 100 coin bet or is better to split that 120 coins in 3 bets of 40 coins (or something else) ?

Thanks,
Denis

I can possibly answer this.
This info is from the casino streamer LetsGiveItASpin, who plays this slot once in a while on-stream and claims to play it a lot off-stream. Also off of personal experience.

Best value in supermeter is 200 coins, followed by 20 coins. Playing 40 or 100 is never worth it.
If you have between 12-1300 and 2000 coins you should cash out from supermeter. Hitting 2000 coins and only getting 4-500 of them stings, hard.

In the base game you have a chance at the jackpot, and this chance is the highest (1 in 20k spins-ish) at max bet.
At max bet (10€) and a jackpot of over 2000€ the RTP is over 100.
You can't win the jackpot with supermeter.

 

[GC_Konstantin]

I can possibly answer this.
This info is from the casino streamer LetsGiveItASpin, who plays this slot once in a while on-stream and claims to play it a lot off-stream. Also off of personal experience.

Best value in supermeter is 200 coins, followed by 20 coins. Playing 40 or 100 is never worth it.
If you have between 12-1300 and 2000 coins you should cash out from supermeter. Hitting 2000 coins and only getting 4-500 of them stings, hard.

In the base game you have a chance at the jackpot, and this chance is the highest (1 in 20k spins-ish) at max bet.
At max bet (10€) and a jackpot of over 2000€ the RTP is over 100.
You can't win the jackpot with supermeter.

Hi 4048,

Thank You very much for the interesting points brought up ! But now, after seeing your answer I have more questions than answers, lol:

Where did you find the info that this slot has on average hit the jackpot once in 20,000 spins (at €10 per bet) ?

This would be awesome, but I highly doubt it, because I always seem to remember the jackpot above €5,000 every time I played it and only the seed starts at €2,000 (which would imply that if the game is played perfectly starts at 100% RTP) ! And according to the help file of the game, if the player always play with all lines active (10 coins, even though the total bet can be only €1), the house advantage can never be higher than 1.9% regardless of how skilled or how poorly skilled the player plays in supermeter mode. -- So I am thinking we may miss something here and pretty sure the €2,000 progressive jackpot can not be the break even point to make this slot a 0% house edge under perfect play conditions ? If it helps, I see on JackpotGraphs site that on average Mega Joker progressive jackpot pays out €16,492 every 17 days (at BetSafe at least).

Yes, I know that only main game bets contribute to the progressive jackpot (ie supermeter spins can't trigger the progressive jackpot) and that the higher the bet, the higher the chance to hit the progressive jackpot. The game help file mention these rules. By the way, some casinos allow bets as high as €50 on this game (Sportingbet if I recall correctly because I can't log in into that site anymore) and NoBonus Casino for example allows bets to €20 (I checked this right now).

So how well the player plays in the supermeter mode, shall improve his RTP odds with a maximum 0.9% !

And yes, I agree that 200 coin bet in the supermeter is the best bet. (About the 100 coins one, I am not sure, probably it is indeed a poor bet, maybe the worst ?) But again, I seriously doubt that playing 20 coins per bet in the supermeter instead of playing 40 coins per bet would be the wiser option ! And this, I believe is actually simple to explain why: if you look at the payout table you'll see that everything is halved (which is OK) except -- plums symbol paying 200 coins instead of 500 (not OK) and sevens symbol paying 800 instead of 2000 (again not OK) ! So how could betting 20 coins instead of 40 coins in the supermeter feature be better ?

Thanks,
Denis

 

[4048]

Hi 4048,

Thank You very much for the interesting points brought up ! But now, after seeing your answer I have more questions than answers, lol:

Where did you find the info that this slot has on average hit the jackpot once in 20,000 spins (at €10 per bet) ?

This would be awesome, but I highly doubt it, because I always seem to remember the jackpot above €5,000 every time I played it and only the seed starts at €2,000 (which would imply that if the game is played perfectly starts at 100% RTP) ! And according to the help file of the game, if the player always play with all lines active (10 coins, even though the total bet can be only €1), the house advantage can never be higher than 1.9% regardless of how skilled or how poorly skilled the player plays in supermeter mode. -- So I am thinking we may miss something here and pretty sure the €2,000 progressive jackpot can not be the break even point to make this slot a 0% house edge under perfect play conditions ? If it helps, I see on JackpotGraphs site that on average Mega Joker progressive jackpot pays out €16,492 every 17 days (at BetSafe at least).

Yes, I know that only main game bets contribute to the progressive jackpot (ie supermeter spins can't trigger the progressive jackpot) and that the higher the bet, the higher the chance to hit the progressive jackpot. The game help file mention these rules. By the way, some casinos allow bets as high as €50 on this game (Sportingbet if I recall correctly because I can't log in into that site anymore) and NoBonus Casino for example allows bets to €20 (I checked this right now).

So how well the player plays in the supermeter mode, shall improve his RTP odds with a maximum 0.9% !

And yes, I agree that 200 coin bet in the supermeter is the best bet. (About the 100 coins one, I am not sure, probably it is indeed a poor bet, maybe the worst ?) But again, I seriously doubt that playing 20 coins per bet in the supermeter instead of playing 40 coins per bet would be the wiser option ! And this, I believe is actually simple to explain why: if you look at the payout table you'll see that everything is halved (which is OK) except -- plums symbol paying 200 coins instead of 500 (not OK) and sevens symbol paying 800 instead of 2000 (again not OK) ! So how could betting 20 coins instead of 40 coins in the supermeter feature be better ?

Thanks,
Denis

I clearly misremember the 2k€ for 100% RTP is that's the seed, I'm gonna guess it might be 10k or maybe even 20k required for the RTP to surpass 100%.

The reason 20 in supermeter is better than 40 would to me seem to be because you have a lower chance of hitting higher than 2000 coins, which you don't want to do as the game is capped at 2k. Might also be just because you'll get more spins, which means more chances to get enough coins to bet 200.

I asked TranceMonkey about the hit rate of jackpots, and a 50€ bet would have the same chance to hit as 5x 10€ spins would is the answer I got.

Again, most of these are observations from playing the game and watching LetsGiveItASpin's stream, so take it with a grain of salt.

Quick edit: the 1 in 20,000 spins rate I got from the streamer.

 

[GC_Konstantin]

I clearly misremember the 2k€ for 100% RTP is that's the seed, I'm gonna guess it might be 10k or maybe even 20k required for the RTP to surpass 100%.

The reason 20 in supermeter is better than 40 would to me seem to be because you have a lower chance of hitting higher than 2000 coins, which you don't want to do as the game is capped at 2k. Might also be just because you'll get more spins, which means more chances to get enough coins to bet 200.

I asked TranceMonkey about the hit rate of jackpots, and a 50€ bet would have the same chance to hit as 5x 10€ spins would is the answer I got.

Again, most of these are observations from playing the game and watching LetsGiveItASpin's stream, so take it with a grain of salt.

Quick edit: the 1 in 20,000 spins rate I got from the streamer.

I see. Now that you explained why you see it that way, makes some more sense to me why 20 coins bet would be better than 40 one in the supermeter feature (but I am still not 100% convinced that that is indeed the optimal play).

I agree that a €50 bet shall increase 5x times the chances to hit the jackpot (this goes 100% in accordance with the game help file). But pretty sure LetsGiveItASpin is way off on the 1 in 20,000 quote give JackpotGraph website's data.
Given the historic record at JackpotGraph's website, I tend to think that the break even point for 100% RTP is somewhere around €20,000 in progressive jackpot. And the average hit would be around 1 in 65K-70,000 spins at €10 per spin.
(What we know from the game info file is that 3% of each bet goes to feed the progressive jackpot. And what we know from JackpotGraphs is that the progressive jackpot is hit on averge once in 17 days for the amount of €16,500.)

Thanks,
Denis

 

[trancemonkey]

... Helpful stuff...

Thanks for the input 4048

 

[4048]

Thanks for the input 4048

Any time

 

[Steviedoo]

Hi TM,

I was wondering if your working in the industry makes you a better gambler? Your knowledge of the games and maths involved....do you think it helps?

 

[trancemonkey]

Hi TM,

I was wondering if your working in the industry makes you a better gambler? Your knowledge of the games and maths involved....do you think it helps?

Not really... I can probably work out slightly faster the intricacies of the Maths - where they have put the RTP for example, what I expect the feature average to be, how likely things are to happen, etc. But players will find this out over time anyway - I’m probably just faster and slightly more accurate.

But I still lose just like everyone - I don’t have an advantage. Much to many people’s disbelief they are (unless it’s illegal or black market casinos) random.

 

[trancemonkey]

For those that use SlotTracker...

Old / Expired Link

 

[interlog]

For those that use SlotTracker...

Old / Expired Link

Congratulations to the developers of the app who in turn I am sure will be grateful for all of the free testing members of this forum did to aid the product where it needed to be.

 

[4048]

Congratulations to the developers of the app who in turn I am sure will be grateful for all of the free testing members of this forum did to aid the product where it needed to be.

I thought we paid for testing it?

...though I only used it a month I got for free, and it worked great so can't complain.

 

[interlog]

I thought we paid for testing it?

...though I only used it a month I got for free, and it worked great so can't complain.

I think a lot were involved before it got released.

"We charge a fair fee so we can develop the app further" I think was quoted after the release. It wouldn't have been bought if there was no money in it.

As said well done to the developers but I am glad I didn't get suckered into it.

 

[SlotGrinder]

Casinos are hypocrites imo because they tell you it's all random (which I believe btw) yet they put little "HOT" stickers on slot thumbnails as if a slot can be in a hot state where it will pay out more than usual ! I mean they perpetuate the illusion that by clever picking of slots and choosing the right bets etc then you can somehow win through skill ...

Streamers also talk responsible gambling and how it's all random yet every single one of them talks nonsense like "I can't leave this slot whilst it's this hot" or " wow this slot is so cold but it really owes me a bonus " or some other gambler's fallacy when all they are actually doing is pressing the spin button repeatedly I swear some of them think the more you play slots the better you become at playing them .

Knowledge is not power in slots . It doesn't matter how much you know about a slot or it's payouts , it will still pay you randomly . Makes me think that slottracker will cause more problems than it solves because some players are going to look at their rtp of 75% on Rhino and believe that they are "due" a hot run on it . They believed that before of course but now they have the statistics to back it up . A lot of people don't understand probability so if they have a lifetime rtp of 75% on a slot with trtp of 95% they now think they will surely win at 120% rtp until their lifetime rtp reaches 95%...

 

[4048]

Casinos are hypocrites imo because they tell you it's all random (which I believe btw) yet they put little "HOT" stickers on slot thumbnails as if a slot can be in a hot state where it will pay out more than usual ! I mean they perpetuate the illusion that by clever picking of slots and choosing the right bets etc then you can somehow win through skill ...

Streamers also talk responsible gambling and how it's all random yet every single one of them talks nonsense like "I can't leave this slot whilst it's this hot" or " wow this slot is so cold but it really owes me a bonus " or some other gambler's fallacy when all they are actually doing is pressing the spin button repeatedly I swear some of them think the more you play slots the better you become at playing them .

Knowledge is not power in slots . It doesn't matter how much you know about a slot or it's payouts , it will still pay you randomly . Makes me think that slottracker will cause more problems than it solves because some players are going to look at their rtp of 75% on Rhino and believe that they are "due" a hot run on it . They believed that before of course but now they have the statistics to back it up . A lot of people don't understand probability so if they have a lifetime rtp of 75% on a slot with trtp of 95% they now think they will surely win at 120% rtp until their lifetime rtp reaches 95%...

Streamers just speak their mind though, goes for all kinds not just casino streamers. I don't have any issues with the randomness of slots, but I still keep going at the same slot after 3-4 rapid bonuses because I'm hoping the fifth will be just as quick.

The "Hot!" stickers are chosen by the casino and has nothing to do with the actual popularity of the slot. For example a brand new slot that literally have 0 plays can still be hot according to the casino.

 

[interlog]

Slot tracker is meaningless. The RTP is the RTP and mine is going to be different from the next player. As said in the post above, the programme can cause all sorts including "proof" the slot is rigged cause my RTP is 0.001% less than advertised.

 

[brianmon]

@trancemonkey

Something which was mentioned in the 'NetEnt shares' thread, got me thinking...

If all the less than stake 'wins' were removed from games, how much of an impact would this have on the TRTP?

Obviously it'll probably be different for each game. But on average, how much of the TRTP is made up from these 'wins'? ( or should I say consolation prizes)

 

[trancemonkey]

@trancemonkey

Something which was mentioned in the 'NetEnt shares' thread, got me thinking...

If all the less than stake 'wins' were removed from games, how much of an impact would this have on the TRTP?

Obviously it'll probably be different for each game. But on average, how much of the TRTP is made up from these 'wins'? ( or should I say consolation prizes)

It won't have an impact on TRTP - you can make any game hit any RTP...
But what it will have an impact on is hit rate and volatility...

Now, you can still have a relatively low volatility game with a low hit frequency, but if you remove wins < bet, you will never be able to have a win frequency better than probably 1 in 5. I would even argue you should be at around the 1 in 6 mark at that point.

I absolutely agree that wins < stake should be minimized, but i think that this will happen organically rather than through enforcement (although the UKGC did recently say they were concerned at "losses disguised as wins".

A simple (but maybe not effective) way is just to not show the word WIN when the value is < stake - just say AWARDED for example.

Now in some markets, people don't care too much about small wins - but in others it seems to be becoming a big problem.

In my games i try and keep the wins < bet to a minimum. For example, in my latest game, you can actually get an award of 5 credits for a 50 credit bet (1/10th of bet) BUT we've designed the game and the maths in such a way that wins < bet are very rare - only 1.89% of all money won comes from wins less than bet. But this has a hit frequency of 1 in 6

 

[goatwack]

The 'Win' counter will never be abolished because it ties in with the most fundamental aspect of addictive, repetitive slot psychology. So good luck with that

 

[brianmon]

It won't have an impact on TRTP - you can make any game hit any RTP...
But what it will have an impact on is hit rate and volatility...

Now, you can still have a relatively low volatility game with a low hit frequency, but if you remove wins < bet, you will never be able to have a win frequency better than probably 1 in 5. I would even argue you should be at around the 1 in 6 mark at that point.

I absolutely agree that wins < stake should be minimized, but i think that this will happen organically rather than through enforcement (although the UKGC did recently say they were concerned at "losses disguised as wins".

A simple (but maybe not effective) way is just to not show the word WIN when the value is < stake - just say AWARDED for example.

Now in some markets, people don't care too much about small wins - but in others it seems to be becoming a big problem.

In my games i try and keep the wins < bet to a minimum. For example, in my latest game, you can actually get an award of 5 credits for a 50 credit bet (1/10th of bet) BUT we've designed the game and the maths in such a way that wins < bet are very rare - only 1.89% of all money won comes from wins less than bet. But this has a hit frequency of 1 in 6

I wasn't necessarily meaning if the games were redesigned, or designed that way specifically. I was more asking what would happen to the TRTP, if those <stake 'wins' were just removed, without changing any of the maths.
In other words, on average, how much of the TRTP is made up of these 'wins'?

 

[trancemonkey]

I wasn't necessarily meaning if the games were redesigned, or designed that way specifically. I was more asking what would happen to the TRTP, if those <stake 'wins' were just removed, without changing any of the maths.
In other words, on average, how much of the TRTP is made up of these 'wins'?

It's very much game dependent... but i reckon on NetEnt games they probably have around 12% of wins < stake... i'm totally guessing there, but that's my gut feeling.

 

[09237653]

Not sure if this has been asked yet but are games ever 'tuned' after going live?

 

[trancemonkey]

Not sure if this has been asked yet but are games ever 'tuned' after going live?

Sure... if either they are not doing well or there is a fault in the maths. Although in the first instance that rarely makes games better as people make their minds up very quickly..

 

[CasinoNinja]

But then they have to get approval before submitting the changes right? So it needs to do the millions spins simulations etc again?

 

[trancemonkey]

But then they have to get approval before submitting the changes right? So it needs to do the millions spins simulations etc again?

Any maths change, or code change in fact, has to be resubmitted and re-certified. Some things if just cosmetic are very simple - and also as long as the code does not touch the game logic (i.e the maths part) if can be a relatively quick homologation process. However, if you change the maths even slightly it's a full retest.

 

[Spikie]

In the old days at bricks and mortar casinos i read the stories about cheats, but then the casino engineer or gaming board used to pull the eprom to chech the code hadn’t been tampered with..

Nowadays with online platforms provided by lots of different companies, how do the licensing authorities keep a check on things ? I know you have said that if essential code has been changed then that had to be checked, but what if the provider / server site has been hacked and some bad code has been substituted ?

If big companies such as Sony and Experian have been hacked for months without anyone knowing , how do providers or gaming authorities keep check on the software that is being served to the casino or client ?

Surely there must be times where unauthorised data packets or software has been unknowingly served ?

And maybe we haven’t been told .. ?

 

[Spikie]

I also mean with server side gaming in land casinos , not just online. If massive corporations routinely get hacked , why are gaming companies any different ?

Do they spend more on cyber analysis/ defense ?

 

[trancemonkey]

In the old days at bricks and mortar casinos i read the stories about cheats, but then the casino engineer or gaming board used to pull the eprom to chech the code hadn’t been tampered with..

Nowadays with online platforms provided by lots of different companies, how do the licensing authorities keep a check on things ? I know you have said that if essential code has been changed then that had to be checked, but what if the provider / server site has been hacked and some bad code has been substituted ?

If big companies such as Sony and Experian have been hacked for months without anyone knowing , how do providers or gaming authorities keep check on the software that is being served to the casino or client ?

Surely there must be times where unauthorised data packets or software has been unknowingly served ?

And maybe we haven’t been told .. ?

This is a very good question that I don't honestly have all the information to give you a reasonable answer. Let me try and find out for You..

Captain Risk might be better placed to answer something like this as I don't deal with casino side architecture or RNG security so i don't know how secure or insecure it is although to get through the approval process it would have to be pretty damn secure...

Leave it with me..

 

[Tanne]

Hey, 2 questions:

1. Is free spins predetermined when you trigger it? For example when you get 3 scatters and close the game and come back the next day and start the spins will the outcome be the same if I did the spins right away?

2. Got any experience with Jackpot games? Similar question as above: "chance of jackpot rounds". Net ent. slots, mega fortune, hall of gods etc. Playtech JP games, where you need to pick different JP symbols and 3 identical symbols will give you respective JP. Can those be predetermined? Doesn't matter where you click the outcome will still be the same?

 

[trancemonkey]

Hey, 2 questions:

1. Is free spins predetermined when you trigger it? For example when you get 3 scatters and close the game and come back the next day and start the spins will the outcome be the same if I did the spins right away?

2. Got any experience with Jackpot games? Similar question as above: "chance of jackpot rounds". Net ent. slots, mega fortune, hall of gods etc. Playtech JP games, where you need to pick different JP symbols and 3 identical symbols will give you respective JP. Can those be predetermined? Doesn't matter where you click the outcome will still be the same?

Hey Tanne

This is something i've answered previously, but as it's a long thread i'm happy to answer again...
Some manufacturers predetermine all the Free Spins at the point that they are won - this is done for a number of reasons, but the main one is to do with game recovery. It means that if something goes wrong during the free spins, and it becomes an unrecoverable error, the server knows what you should have won. QuickSpin is one example of a provider that I believe does this.

Other manufacturers determine the free spins as they would base game spins - at the point the spin starts. If you have ever been playing a game which has paused because of connection issues during the Free Spins (NetEnt for example) then you know it's likely working the second way - i.e not predetermined.

Both systems are still random and it makes no difference to the maths / legality / morality of the game.

With regards to features where you are picking icons / symbols on the screen - these are nearly always predetermined. They can only be "true picks" where by doing so you would reach the required feature average, and as the average of these features is almost never the mathematical "true pick" average, they are nearly always predetermined.

In Nevada (and most land-based casino jurisdictions) the best way to tell is if the other outcomes are shown at the end. If the other outcomes are shown (i.e the ones you COULD have picked) then the pick was true and fair. This is NOT the case for online.

Hope that answers your questions

 

[Jono777]

Hi TM

Firstly before the "Q" a disclaimer, NO rigged accusations, NO foil hats and NO paranoia

Possibly been asked before but is it possible for a piece of coding or part of a games software to malfunction - something which was not programmed by purpose or mistake which suddenly after 'x' time of running problem free suddenly starts acting strangely, gremlins in the works etc...

Sure this can work both ways in terms of possibly affecting the RTP but (geez this is hard to put in to text talk lol) just random strange events or the game starts acting 'weird' doing 'never seen before' things?

Cheers

JM

 

[Tanne]

Hi TM

Firstly before the "Q" a disclaimer, NO rigged accusations, NO foil hats and NO paranoia

Possibly been asked before but is it possible for a piece of coding or part of a games software to malfunction - something which was not programmed by purpose or mistake which suddenly after 'x' time of running problem free suddenly starts acting strangely, gremlins in the works etc...

Sure this can work both ways in terms of possibly affecting the RTP but (geez this is hard to put in to text talk lol) just random strange events or the game starts acting 'weird' doing 'never seen before' things?

Cheers

JM

Haha reading this reminded me a story:

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DAMN, think what you feel after they tell you that you didn't actually win :'(

 

[trancemonkey]

Hi TM

Firstly before the "Q" a disclaimer, NO rigged accusations, NO foil hats and NO paranoia

Possibly been asked before but is it possible for a piece of coding or part of a games software to malfunction - something which was not programmed by purpose or mistake which suddenly after 'x' time of running problem free suddenly starts acting strangely, gremlins in the works etc...

Sure this can work both ways in terms of possibly affecting the RTP but (geez this is hard to put in to text talk lol) just random strange events or the game starts acting 'weird' doing 'never seen before' things?

Cheers

JM

To answer your question, the answer is "kind of"...
Let me explain:

Code can't permanently change - once it's compiled, it's set...

However, what can happen are things called "memory leaks" which can cause unexpected behavior. In simple terms, a computer has some memory which is written to by the program to store variables (bits of information) which are used when running the program, and where the executable code is stored. In some cases, memory leaks can cause bits of memory to be written to unexpectedly - for example, when you write to a position in an array that doesn't exist. Most modern compilers / languages have checks for this kind of thing, so it's somewhat harder to do now.

When you overwrite memory in this way, you can cause all kinds of unexpected behavior from crashes, to just really odd stuff happening. And sometimes memory leaks can take a long time to show any problem - depends on the size of the memory leak and what is causing it.

There have also been cases where some games have used a single instance of some data table instead of multiple instances, and this has caused issues that have been very hard to notice and have taken a long time to track down.

Don't know if that helps answer your question?

Dave

 

[Jono777]

It does indeed, bang on Dave, cheers

 

[CasinoNinja]

Hey Trancemonkey, sorry back to the picking bonus where as you say most of the time it has no real meaning if they all pay the same etc.

But, if I am correct in Las Vegas or some states there is a law that says if the other results are displayed (the ones you didnt pick) you needed to have genuine chance of picking them, so how does the math work for these slots then?

 

[trancemonkey]

Hey Trancemonkey, sorry back to the picking bonus where as you say most of the time it has no real meaning if they all pay the same etc.

But, if I am correct in Las Vegas or some states there is a law that says if the other results are displayed (the ones you didnt pick) you needed to have genuine chance of picking them, so how does the math work for these slots then?

It's pretty simple actually... we would know what the averages from all the possible picks were. And then you know the chance of each one is 1 in x (for 5 outcomes, it would be 1 in 5 of course)...

So, if you have 5 possible outcomes:
10x, 30x, 50x, 100x and 250x

Then you know that the mathematical average is (10 + 30 + 50 + 100 + 250) / 5 = 88x

So a true pick would cost us 88x stake

 

[CasinoNinja]

It's pretty simple actually... we would know what the averages from all the possible picks were. And then you know the chance of each one is 1 in x (for 5 outcomes, it would be 1 in 5 of course)...

So, if you have 5 possible outcomes:
10x, 30x, 50x, 100x and 250x

Then you know that the mathematical average is (10 + 30 + 50 + 100 + 250) / 5 = 88x

So a true pick would cost us 88x stake

So, in a previous thread you said this

So in your example, lets say the average of the "worst" ones is 50x, and the average of the best one is 500x right? If you make it an even pick then the average value is:

((50 * 4)+500) / 5 = 140x

If you were happy to accept 140x as the average win for the feature, then you could make the pick random.

However, that is a HUGE average win, so the feature would have to be pretty rare - if it accounted for 10% of the total RTP, then it would happen every 1400 games. Would you wait 1400 games for a feature which, 4 out of 5 times, averaged 50x? I'd be pretty disappointed...

So, what we would probably do is maybe have a 4% chance of getting the best one, and then a (96/4)% chance [24%] of getting one of the worse ones.

This gives you an average of 68x, which is much better in terms of balancing a game. BUT because the pick is now not truly random, we can't show the other outcomes. So you can now bring the feature in every 680 games if you want 10% RTP on the feature. That's a big difference.

It can of course "work" mathematically, but it is only an option if the outcome is worth it from a game design / player experience / maths point of view. And everyone has a different opinion of what is "right" and "wrong" in terms of game design and maths - and i don't just mean people on here.. i'm talking players, producers, maths guys, etc...

Why would it work in Vegas, but not online for features as much then, or am I missing the point?

 

[trancemonkey]

So, in a previous thread you said this

Why would it work in Vegas, but not online for features as much then, or am I missing the point?

Not sure what you mean - it makes no difference where you do it, the maths is still the same.

All i'm saying about Vegas (and some other jurisdictions - and this doesn't include the UK) is that you can't show people the other possible outcomes unless those outcomes were really there to be picked.

 

[CasinoNinja]

What I mean is, why is there not more True picking online then if you can do it in Vegas. Are you saying based on your previous answer that you would have to wait a whole lot longer, say bonus 1 in 500 instead of 1 in 200 if you had true picking? So, is that the case in Vegas then, they have less bonuses because of True picking instead of getting lower than average features?

 

[trancemonkey]

What I mean is, why is there not more True picking online then if you can do it in Vegas. Are you saying based on your previous answer that you would have to wait a whole lot longer, say bonus 1 in 500 instead of 1 in 200 if you had true picking? So, is that the case in Vegas then, they have less bonuses because of True picking instead of getting lower than average features?

No... most providers just don't do true picks anywhere. It's very rare.

 

[Spikie]

Very interesting reply regarding memory leaks .

I have read stories in the last year or 2 about the Novomatic gaminator RNG reverse engineering in land based casinos by obviously genius engineers, also was it IGT that was affected previously on video poker with a major cheat ? Think someone was selling counterfeit cabinets around the world.

Knowing that there are some supremely clever people crawling all over your software trying to find a weak spot , how can game companies combat the threat ?

Do they have something similar to a bug bounty program, where if you can prove an exploit you get paid ?

Although this could be seen as blackmail if they don’t pay ...

From what I read , in the past the game providers wouldn’t admit any faults but would be too expensive to replace all the machines in b&m casinos...

Think Aristocrat had the biggest problem ?

 

[trancemonkey]

Correct - it was older Aristocrat machines and also some Novo games were hit too. They said they could hit IGT machines, but i have no idea if they were or not... i wasn't at IGT then...