Landbased slots versus online

[garycm]

Hi Meister,
I know that apparently all slot machines are totally random in their payouts but it is quite obvious that at a landbased casino if you watch someone put in say $500- $800 dollars (or myself) in a specific slot machine and not cash out with any wins and then leaving, the next person to try the machine will be more likely to get a good win without having to deposit too much money(my observations). My question is, do you know how online slots work if say I gambled $500 in one night at a specific site and slot game and then quit and went to bed and then continued to log back in and play at the same site and game the next day? Does it remember my losses from the previous night and want to "pay me back" a bit or did someone else that was logged on the site probably benefit from my losses. Another way of putting it is does all the money being played at a site get "pooled" together and it's anyones guess as to who will maybe get a good sized payout or does the software and server keep track of how much each person has deposited, played, won or lost and pay out accordingly to each persons gameplay? I hope you know what I mean. Thanks for having a great honest site- gary m

 

[Casinomeister]

Hi Meister,
I know that apparently all slot machines are totally random in their payouts but it is quite obvious that at a landbased casino if you watch someone put in say $500- $800 dollars (or myself) in a specific slot machine and not cash out with any wins and then leaving, the next person to try the machine will be more likely to get a good win without having to deposit too much money(my observations). My question is, do you know how online slots work if say I gambled $500 in one night at a specific site and slot game and then quit and went to bed and then continued to log back in and play at the same site and game the next day? Does it remember my losses from the previous night and want to "pay me back" a bit or did someone else that was logged on the site probably benefit from my losses. Another way of putting it is does all the money being played at a site get "pooled" together and it's anyones guess as to who will maybe get a good sized payout or does the software and server keep track of how much each person has deposited, played, won or lost and pay out accordingly to each persons gameplay? I hope you know what I mean. Thanks for having a great honest site- gary m

I'm moving this here because I know some of our math/software wiz's may want to chime in on this.

Slot machines - if they are random - don't remember the last bet made. If they did keep track of your losses, then of course they wouldn't be random. There have been a couple of pretty decent discussions on this. Give me a few and I'll see if I can dig up the links

 

[Rusty]

That is an excellent question but not one that you will get a defintive answer to.
I personally do not believe that online slots are entirely random, certainly not RTG and probably not MG or others.
I have mountains of statistical evidence that RTG is not random (Analysis of over a million playlogs) but even without that a simple observation in the change of frequency of wins,features and scatter/wild symbols appearing after a good win should be enough to convince you that the payout percentage of these slots is dynamic and the weighting (which certainly exists) of each symbol is adjusted accordingly.>You can go a 100 spins without seeing a scatter symbol appear anywhere on the first reel after a good run of features and this statistical anomaly will occur far too often to be random event.
As for MG my opinion is simply based on observation and I have no reason to believe the software operates in a wholey different way to RTG.
This does not mean that I believe it is impossible to win online or that the slots have no random element but they are much more AWP than completely random with a set payout percentage than we are led to believe.
So to answer your question(finaly ) IMO the slots you play online are personal to you and your account does have memory so a long losing streak with no, or very few, features will be followed by a run of features and wins.Conversely a good winning streak will be followed by a derth of features and wins with payout usualy dropping very low for a sustained period.
At least this is the case with RTG.
There will be those that say this is the natural ups and downs of playing random slots but don't listen to them.
When you can predict the general outcome(win/lose) of a random event then the chances are it was not a random event in the first place.
All that said though I would never advise anyone to chase their losses online or off.Just stick to your starting stake and cash in any decent wins immediately.
Best of luck to you.

 

[solarrocker]

I can't go to much detail how the RNG works at the place I work but I can say the following. (I will not say where I work or have worked, I'm not here to promote)

The RNG give you the change to win on every spin as it is random, others might say not true but it is. It is just human nature to find a pattern in play even if this logic seems true to them when looking from the sidelines it is flawed.

You have the change to play $500 and hit nothing but bonus rounds, or have the chance to hit nothing but pure high hits, you also have the change to win totally nothing. That is the random factor, one night you can have tons of free spins, bonus rounds and feel like the stars are singing for you.

From what I know of RNG at land based casinos they are set up in such a way that the house advantage is huge compare to online. What I mean by this? easy you put $500 in a land casino for 1 year every day and you will walk out with less money then if you do the same online (walk out once you do the security checks, send in 5 forms of ID, DNA sample, past life experiences and 1 reading by a gypsy. I find sometimes casinos do go a bit far with security even though I do understand why they get done).

Basically the RNG is to ensure that the games are not "fixed". To make sure you the player are being given a fair game, and not being hustled. Even though many players claim they are due to them believing in some voodoo bad luck or the casino watching their every single move and hitting the auto cheat button when we think you win to much (Auto cheat button is a myth at least at the places I worked.)

I trust most casinos out there to be fair, some I rather do not even try. But I do know most respectable casinos have a RNG that works good and deals fairly with players as do the casinos. It is a bit of love hate relationship as in a real casino you can yell at the machine, yell at the casino workers, yell at the police guard dog that is attacking your leg and then yell at the police car while it drives you away. While in online play anything around you is in danger and yelling at customer support never seems to feel all that satisfying, plus your dog is not trained to attack and police only shows up if family in immediate danger. In short Land based gives you that special feeling that needed when loosing, online casinos give you it as well but it different.


Back on track here, the RNG do not count if you loose or win, basically each spin on its own is a random draw from a possible winning combination. Didn't win that draw ok lets go through them all again and see if that will create a winning one. This is how most if not all RNG in there most simplest form work. I know personally of no casino that keeps track on loosing or winning for their game play, promotions maybe but not for the games itself.

Anyway that my 2 cents no deposit promotion worth.

 

[Casinomeister]

Here's the thread I was looking for. It starts off as a complaint against Lady Dream Casino, but it spins into a very interesting read on how slots work

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/ladydream-com-how-slots-work.10587/

It's a long thread, but here are two good posts that explain a lot:

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/ladydream-com-how-slots-work.10587/?highlight=wager21
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/ladydream-com-how-slots-work.10587/?highlight=wager21

 

[Max Bet]

So if I read this right...

Online slot games continually renew their cycle each time a player logs on.

I understand how slots work (been in the slots industry for a long while). Even with the RNG randomly selecting a combination from the cycle and displaying the result, slots have a defininte cycle which at some point completes itself as players play one after the other.

Online slots however, and similarly with server based downloadable in landbased, players log on to a system. How does this change in the nature of play affect the game cycle?

 

[SlotsWizard]

So if I read this right...

Online slot games continually renew their cycle each time a player logs on.

I understand how slots work (been in the slots industry for a long while). Even with the RNG randomly selecting a combination from the cycle and displaying the result, slots have a defininte cycle which at some point completes itself as players play one after the other.

Online slots however, and similarly with server based downloadable in landbased, players log on to a system. How does this change in the nature of play affect the game cycle?

Are you saying that land-based slots have an actual "cycle" ? I didn't think they did, unless you are calling a "cycle" enough spins so that the top-paying combination appears with a certain frequency similar to the actual expected frequency.

As far as online slots, I think it's best to compare them to blackjack: in land-based blackjack, the "cycle" is the dealing of cards throughout a shoe, which they often won't shuffle until 1/2 or 2/3 through it. With online blackjack, this "shoe" is re-shuffled at the start of each hand, so that no previously dealt cards affect the chances of being dealt anything in particular on the next hand. Online slots work the same way. Every spin offers a fresh chance at everything (or, in most cases, absolutely nothing ).

 

[tim5ny]

I don't know what the truth is, but from experience on "Video Slots" , the land-based counterpart are nothing but a joke as far as payouts are concerned in my opinion. Do you think you could hit $1,170.00 on a .50 cent bet in a land based casino on their Video Slots? I think not!... and I'm not referring to a progressive win either. Bonus rounds in land based are even a bigger joke, often paying 20X wager or less pretty routinely.. and the players consider 20X a good win. Pffft!!

 

[KasinoKing]

I see a lot of this type of post particularly from players who are used to UK (or other countries) fruit machines.
They are right that these type of physical machines are totally not random and programed to try to give you an entertaining game while still making their pre-set percentage. With these machines you can literally force them to pay out by just keeping on putting money in but never accepting any wins.
I have done this a fair bit myself with UK 25 & 35 jackpot fruities.

But the results are very mixed; I've stuck something like 50-60 into a machine & forced the 35 jackpot, but when it did not repeat I was out of pocket. There is then no point carrying on as you know the 'cycle' has been reset & you'd have to start from scratch.
But sometimes, like last weekend for example, I forced 2 machines in a local pub, made 30 from the first & 20 from the second.
The big problem of course is unless you sit & watch the machine for ages first, you don't know what the last player(s) have done. The person before you could have just forced a triple jackpot from it, and the next person to play might just as well go & shove their cash down the drain!

However, I personally believe that most online slots really are random and have no sort of 'memory'.
What a lot of 'physical slots' players don't seem to grasp is that the slots can be 100% random and still guarantee the house a set %. They do not need to be rigged to achieve this any more than Blackjack, Roulette, or any other casino game. All these games work for the casino due to mathematics - they simply do not need to cheat.

KK

 

[solarrocker]

What a lot of 'physical slots' players don't seem to grasp is that the slots can be 100% random and still guarantee the house a set %. They do not need to be rigged to achieve this any more than Blackjack, Roulette, or any other casino game. All these games work for the casino due to mathematics - they simply do not need to cheat.

KK

Could not have said it better myself.

Yet lot of players rather want to believe they being cheated as then they have something to blame and complain. Usually also are playing with tinfoil hats to make sure our game spy satellites will not affect their luck.

I need to stop taking shots before I go to sleep...

But I completely agree, it's just human nature to find consistency in something that is completely random.

 

[lojo]

MaxBet may have been referring to a complete RNG cycle without a reseed?

Wish I could find the post, maybe AKA23 will happen by this thread, he detailed rng and prng very well in another thread.

I could be wrong, but how I remember it a RNG has a seed, or specific starting point and will go through its cycle... for a landbased slot, that is about 1000 times per second and the entire cyle is billion(s) and last about a year. This can be reseeded at any time or place in the cycle but it isn't necessary.

A Pseudo RNG reseeds (at random?) from events outside of human control; like the weather or the stock market, or increased radiation from solar flares, etc.

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is a good history of the slot machine and an example of random appearing nonrandom

 

[solarrocker]

Thanks for the link lojo, hope it will help others get out some of the confusion.

I do know that most only RNG use an outside source to determine there seed, at least most good ones.

I know this as a company I used to work with back in the day had one of the first hardware determined RNG for their online play. We are talking around 1990 here, this generator got hacked due to the RNG using only 1 CPU to determine the seed, it was found that this seed was hooked to the CPU clock. All the hacker needed to do back then was synchronize to the clock and bam he could determine any out come. After this came out the place almost went under (It eventually did) but they changed it so it used always a minimum of 10 different CPU clocks, this seed can't be hacked unless we get

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into it.

Still I rather trust the online RNG then the ones at land based casinos (again those that are respectable).

RNG are a tricky thing as every software does this different so it is hard to say how they really work without knowing the software. From what I know at any point in online software you are able to hit a big win, a good bonus or nothing at all. And if it is a good RNG then it should and will not remember that huge win you just had 1 spin ago and give you just as much chance to get that spin again (goes also for cards/keno any game where the RNG is being used). And I have seen it happen.

 

[lojo]

Seems I read about that debacle (here?) somewhere

That's a good point you make about the results of the next spin having nothing to do with a win or loss on the last spin. It took me quite awhile to wrap my head around the fact, that on a fair slot, the RNg and the Program are independent.

• The RNG feeds the program a number (most programs retrieve this at spin button being 'pushed')
  
• Program has a mathematical formula based on longterm payout percentage that will, over time, payback 95% if house edge is 5% The 'formula' is that an occurance of 1/x pays (x*houseedge*betsize). In other words if a win category represents half the possible combinations, it pays out _nearly_ 2 times the betsize.
  
  
• Some symbols pay more than others because they are more rare
  
• Low variance games give many small returns to achieve EV
  High variance games give fewer but larger paybacks to achieve the same EV Although better worded as low variance games have wincategories that on average contain more combinations. (and thus because of the previous rules, happen more often but payout less.)
  
• RNG is not concerned with how many lines, how many coins, nor their denominations. It is not interacting at all with the program except to feed a number when called for.
  
• A fair program is not concerned either, it will produce the same screen results when I bet one cent one line or $5 per line on all 15 lines.
  
• The program only uses my bet size and lines wagered to calculate my payback

italics compliments of 3Dice clarifying previous post of mine

These are the things that fair onland and online slot machines have in common. (Though it has been proved to me that some B&M slots have better rtp for dollars than for quarters, etc. but they aren't the norm afaik)

3Dice meets these criteria, we've been assured by Ed Ware of Microgaming that MG meets this criteria (some slots pre-thunderstruck are 'weighted' but don't recall if it's better to bet less or all lines on those... Zoozie knows ) Playtech, at least at xxlclub casino meet the criteris.

Any other casinos wanna chime in?

 

[lojo]

Any other casinos want to chime in?

 

[SlotsWizard]

I don't know what the truth is, but from experience on "Video Slots" , the land-based counterpart are nothing but a joke as far as payouts are concerned in my opinion. Do you think you could hit $1,170.00 on a .50 cent bet in a land based casino on their Video Slots? I think not!... and I'm not referring to a progressive win either. Bonus rounds in land based are even a bigger joke, often paying 20X wager or less pretty routinely.. and the players consider 20X a good win. Pffft!!

I couldn't agree more! B&M slots are horrible! The other day I was walking by someone who was playing a nickel machine, her friend was watching as she got the bonus round, winning 100 coins... the one who was watching got all excited and said "YES! You got the hundred!"

I had to keep my thoughts to myself but I really wanted to shout "It's only FIVE DOLLARS!"

I don't know if it's the coin thing that confuses people and they can't figure out how little they are actually winning or what.

 

[Spirit In Black]

Each time a game is played, it is a independent event. What happens on the next spin does not depend on what has happened previously - unless you are playing the Fruit style games - they're rigged.

You will find this is consistent with both B&M slots and online slots. The fact that people can have really good runs or pretty ordinary runs depends solely on chance and luck. For me....my luck is always bad!!!

Remember - there's millions of unique results for any slot, we only normally see a very small window of these results when we are playing.

 

[tim5ny]

I couldn't agree more! B&M slots are horrible! The other day I was walking by someone who was playing a nickel machine, her friend was watching as she got the bonus round, winning 100 coins... the one who was watching got all excited and said "YES! You got the hundred!"

I had to keep my thoughts to myself but I really wanted to shout "It's only FIVE DOLLARS!"

I don't know if it's the coin thing that confuses people and they can't figure out how little they are actually winning or what.

Exactly SlotsWizard! It's what they're conditioned to expect I guess.

 

[paul02085]

Exactly SlotsWizard! It's what they're conditioned to expect I guess.

No doubt. BM Video Slots are terrible compared to online.

 

[garycm]

Each time a game is played, it is a independent event. What happens on the next spin does not depend on what has happened previously - unless you are playing the Fruit style games - they're rigged.

You will find this is consistent with both B&M slots and online slots. The fact that people can have really good runs or pretty ordinary runs depends solely on chance and luck. For me....my luck is always bad!!!

Remember - there's millions of unique results for any slot, we only normally see a very small window of these results when we are playing.

Where is the definitve proof to your statement? The industry wants to have us think that "trust us, it's all just random". I've read lots of slots facts also but after years of personal experience I'm doubting the truth to it all. Why is it that some of you guys are agreeing that "fruit slots are rigged" but yet the other slots out there are truly random? Maybe the program these other slots use are a bit more clever at hiding their "rigged" payouts. Why is it that when a person plays (for example) the 10x's slot where you can play $1,$2,or$3 per play and depending on how many coins you play you "qualify" for the payout only if you bet max (3 coins) and when you play 1 or 2 coins the 10X's reel lines up quite often ( for no pay out of course) leaving the person to beleive "if only I had bet max! (if it's random then it should still play the same but it doesn't)but of course when you play max the 10x real never lines up all day or at another casino I play at (different town) a flaming 7 machine has a bonus feature that if you play max (2 coins on this one) and you get the "dollar" symbols appearing anywhere on the screen (doesn't even have to line up) you get a bonus of either $25,$75 or $5000 depending on if 1,2 or 3 symbols show and when I play 1 or 2 coins I get all three dollar symbols coming up also quite frequently (maybe 15 to 20 minutes) of continued gameplay. Did I just lose out on $5000 by not playing max? Oh yeah, more like $15,000 because it came up 3 times in an hour when I only played 1 or 2 coins. It's a business and I find it hard to believe that a person spending say a million dollars opening up a casino online (or where ever) just crosses his fingers and hopes that some lucky guy doesn't hit the 2 million progressive in his first week of opening and wipe him out. I've got more to say but (like after complaing to an online casino of not getting any big enough wins to cash out for a few month's and having them deposit $20 free into my account and saying "try now" and walking away with over $3000 in 1 hour, hmmm, they have control over more than we think.) it's getting late (more like early in the moring) and I have to work in a few hours so I'l yap a bit more on my observations later. -gary

 

[GrandMaster]

It's a business and I find it hard to believe that a person spending say a million dollars opening up a casino online (or where ever) just crosses his fingers and hopes that some lucky guy doesn't hit the 2 million progressive in his first week of opening and wipe him out.

Progressives are not a problem, they only pay out money that has been collected from players, apart from the initial seed. Large non-progressive wins or a high-roller going on a lucky streak could cause a problem (see Pirate of Caribbean 21), but the chance of this happening are tiny for a well-run and adequately capitalised casino. For others, there is always Start your own casino software. The most common reason why casinos get into trouble is ill-conceived promotions, for which they then blame the players ("bonus abuse").

 

[SlotsWizard]

Why is it that ... when you play 1 or 2 coins the 10X's reel lines up quite often (for no pay out of course) leaving the person to beleive "if only I had bet max! (if it's random then it should still play the same but it doesn't) but of course when you play max the 10x real never lines up all day

I have seen B&M slots do this very frequently as well, mostly because I will bet less-than-max when I don't have enough left in the machine to make the max bet (for example if you pop a $20 into a quarter machine and the max bet is 75, eventually you end up with 50 left).

This is one of several reasons that B&M slots suck when compared to online slots.