- Joined
- Sep 21, 2013
- Location
- currently in US
Because I think many players would interpret the behavior of changing gameplay with stakes as deceptive or as a manipulative attempt to make it difficult for them to win. A player who doesn't get the experience they were expecting will likely be unhappy, even if their actual odds of winning haven't changed too much. It's already difficult enough to convince people that slots (from reputable providers) aren't rigged against them, or constructed in a way that makes it impossible to come back once they start losing. If a player starts off losing at small bets and increases their stake to try to get back, they'd probably curse the provider and never play the slot again if they knew the feature chance was decreased and some of the big wins were converted to several smaller wins that wouldn't get them back to even.
That's what I mean when I say the reward doesn't seem worth the risk. The perception that a slot is unfair can have a much greater affect on players preferences than a small change in the math.
And if it's a big change in the math/variance, well then you can make somewhat of a stronger argument that the slot really is deceptive. You get a rough feel for a slot's variance over a few thousand spins, and if that changes significantly with the stakes, all of a sudden you're making bets based on a false impression of the game you're playing. I wouldn't be happy with that either.
Well, I've heard complaints about some of those as well, particularly the "pick me" bonuses not actually mattering what you pick, or presenting misleading win chances. For example, if you can pick from three prizes and receive a 10x, 25x, or 200x win - it's misleading if they are shown as equally possible but you nearly always get one of the smaller two prizes.
I don't think every single aspect can or even should be policed, but I wouldn't be surprised if we do see a pushback against some elements of slot design that could be considered deceptive, manipulative, or lacking in transparency in the future.
As an example, on 243 way slots you might start to notice things like which big symbols appear next to a wild, since that can lead to a double pay on that big symbol. Just a lot of small things like that can be picked up if you play a slot enough. So a change may be noticed, but it may not.
I have no idea if its true or not but I was once told that the reason the stake profile change was used was to "protect" against advantage play, as although games are random, the probabilities should remain constant and in theory if a player knew the feature hit rate they could keep raising stake after so many games, so that when they hit the feature they will have been at a much higher stake than chasing on min.
So if the feature hit rate changes as stake goes up it could stop this potential advantage play in its tracks.
Of course its random and could still be risky for the player to do this without adding that, in the same way the martingale system on roulette isnt a sure thing, but I guess it could be a valid reason why it was / is used on some games.
A simpler example is if we played a game of throwing a die at 50p a throw if its 1-5 i keep your 50p if its a 6 i will give you 5.76x your stake. ( yes my game has a RTP of 96% coincidentally)
If a 6 has not shown after 10 plays you telling me you wouldnt want to increase your bets until it comes? even tho its random and is no more likely to come next throw?
Keep upping bet till comes and if you advantage played correctly you would be in profit, you would be technically taking advantage of the fact its random and static probabilities are in play??
As you said yourself, that sounds similar to the martingale system, which is very, very much not an advantage play, but a good way to go broke. A slot provider would be very unwise if they thought they needed to design their slots in a way to protect themselves from that (if anything, casino game providers try to encourage behavior like this - that's why many baccarat games have history boards, so people will bet based on gambling fallacies). The house always has the advantage no matter what order, system, or progression of bets you use:
You do not have permission to view link
Log in or register now.
You do not have permission to view link
Log in or register now.
Edit - Just happened to stumble into this, seemed appropriate to add if anyone wanted a casinomeister source: Betting Systems: Why They Don’t Work - Casinomeister
I might raise my bet in your dice game if I was impatient to try to get back to even, but on average a bigger bet just means I would be losing faster.
Last edited:
