Probabilities

[Slotmachine]

Hi All,

Inspired by the recent discussion of slot machine workings, I thought I'd start a thread in which we could discuss some of the probabilities concerning the games we play every day. I'm not a math head (so bear with me), and although I've checked a lot of websites about probability, I've found it hard to just find a few simple explanations and formulas - they tend to try and get you to actually understand the math, which always puts me off so I need some help here.

First of all, am I right in my calculations that if I play 200,000 hands of Jacks or Better, my chances of hitting a Royal are:

1-(1-1/44,000)^200,000 = 98.9%

Inversely, my chances of not hitting a Royal would be 1.1%

So, playing 20,000 hands would gimme a 36.5% chance of hitting a Royal?

To slots:

I believe Simmo! estimated the number of symbols per Thunderstruck reel at 32.

So, am I right in saying that, for five reels, this would give us 32^5=33,554,432 different possible reel combinations?

Now how many combinations of 5 Thors in a winning line are there? If there were just 1 Thor per each reel, there would be 9 possible jackpot combinations. That would make the jackpot probability about 1/4,000,000. However, there seem to be more Thors than that. Anybody know exactly how many? Simmo!?

Now, if we know how many Thors there are, we should be able to calculate the probability of hitting the 5-Thor win, and the probability of hitting that win given a certain # of spins. How would you calculate it if there were, say, 2 Thors per reel? I'm not sure about this.

I haven't had any time at all for gambling lately...work taking up >12hr a day, 7 days a week...luckily work allows for Casinomeister and Coffee breaks You can tell I'm losing it, huh Gotta make a small deposit at 32Red tonight...just to get those synapses back in order..

Anyway I'd sure appreciate any advice and comment from the more knowledgeable people here, and pointers to related websites that I could actually comprehend, such as "ProbabilityForIdiots.Com"

Cheers,
SM

 

[Simmo!]

Hi All,
I believe Simmo! estimated the number of symbols per Thunderstruck reel at 32.

Estimated = Counted
32 = 30



I'll be back to this thread later.

 

[cheekymonkey]

does anyone know if there are there any sites that show the full reels in order?

i.e. the position of each symbol on each reel for all viper slots?

 

[Slotmachine]

Estimated = Counted
32 = 30



I'll be back to this thread later.

OK, thanks for the correction. Then it's only 24,300,000 combinations
That would make it 1:2,700,000 odds for 5 Thors (if just one Thor per reel. I played last night, but as usual my bankroll went to zero so fast I didn't have time to make any scientific observations...)

Somebody check my math- am I doing this right?
And I'm assuming the slot is NOT weighted.

For the 5 Sheep, provided just one per reel, would I be right in calculating that the possible combinations of 5 Rams = 3^5=243. That would make the odds exactly 1:100,000 for hitting those 5 Rams. Worse than a Royal!

..the number of possible combinations for 3 rams would be 8*3^3*30^2=194,400 -making the odds of hitting the free spins 1:125

...but my math could be wrong

Simmo! we need your hard data on the reels what's the order of symbols, how many Farmers and Sheep on those reels? If we have the whole set of data, someone can calculate the expected return for the slot. That would be a first for an MG slot, let's do it!

Cheers,
SM

 

[Slotster!]

How do you count the symbols!?! Madness!

Simmo, you're a legend!

Considering I hit the five scatters on Tally Ho once, I'd love to think it was a one in a few million chance

 

[tim5ny]

How do you count the symbols!?! Madness!

Simmo, you're a legend!

Considering I hit the five scatters on Tally Ho once, I'd love to think it was a one in a few million chance

I think it is Slotster! I've been after them 5-scatters ever since I saw how much it paid you. 1000X total bet! Biggest pay for the scatters that I've seen anywhere on MG.

 

[Slotster!]

I think it is Slotster! I've been after them 5-scatters ever since I saw how much it paid you. 1000X total bet! Biggest pay for the scatters that I've seen anywhere on MG.

Not sure it was that much Tim from memory?

I think I hit 4500 for a 9 bet - but I might be wrong.. It's a lot of spins ago!!!

Besides, look who's talking Mr Five Sheep Man!!

 

[vinylweatherman]

Not as yet

does anyone know if there are there any sites that show the full reels in order?

i.e. the position of each symbol on each reel for all viper slots?

Not as yet, it's not as easy to do as a UK Fruit Machine, and the data in the program files does not have the reel bands as such, simply one of each symbol static and one of each symbol in motion. The data that specifies the reel bands seems to be encrypted so that they cannot be extracted. I expect this is to save space, full reel bands would increase the size of a Viper Client from the current 330Mbytes a fair bit!

 

[Slotmachine]

Simmo! Where's that reel data...

No one's commented on my math yet?! I need some math lessons. I've just finished a major undertaking for work, maybe now I can find the time to dig into this further, and start learning about calculating probabilities. It's always been my weak point (or rather, one of the many)..but very interesting. It's a quantum world out there..

It's not impossible to figure out the reel setup from just spinning the reels enough times and recording what's on screen.

Anyway, if we know the symbol order for each reel, then we can easily calculate (or someone can..) the expected return % of an unweighted slot, such as I believe (this is where I disagree with Simmo!) Thunderstruck is. I guess in the end it's pretty obvious that it would fall into the standard 93-96% for MG slots, so maybe it's a waste of time, but interesting anyway.

Here's an example of a progressive slot that's been analyzed by just playing and recording what you see, the above mentioned method. The page is in Finnish, but if you scroll down you'll see the symbols, the probabilities of winning combinations, and on the bottom right the "cracked" virtual reel order. Link Removed ( Old/Invalid)

Just learned in fact that paf.fi (the Aland online casino) has a slot where with optimal strategy the payout% is 99.64%. It's a classic fruit slot with a "hold" option. I think that must be the best payout % of a slot machine anywhere! Also their progressive Jackpot machine "Fisherman's Jackpot" is unique, because you win the progressive on any played line, and therefore the odds are "only" about 1:2,400,000. And the machine's expected return is above 100% once the progressive is at 20,000 or more (estimated).

Actually, I think I'll post a review of this casino in a separate thread, it's an interesting concept.

Cheers,
SM

 

[KasinoKing]

Very interesting thread! I would LOVE to know the reel layouts as in SM's linked site.
This data would not make any difference to our results at the slots - but knowing the odds of hitting a certain combination (assuming no weighting) could be useful in deciding which one to play.

Why don't we 'Divide & conquer' - if each interested posted volunteers to analyse just one machine we could bring all our info together and make up a database of the layouts!
I estimate it would take about 1 hour to do one slot.

If anyone else is interested in this idea I will volunteer to do Tomb Raider!

 

[vinylweatherman]

Reel Bands

There might be an easier way!
Set "quick spin" to OFF, and use a video camera to record the spin and then do a frame by frame analysis.The symbols are from the blurred set, but it should still be possible to make them out.

I will have a go at this method when I have a little time on my hands.

It would be interesting to know what the theoretical best slots are, or whether they are all the same.
Non feature slots should be the easiest to work out.

 

[cheekymonkey]

There might be an easier way!
Set "quick spin" to OFF, and use a video camera to record the spin and then do a frame by frame analysis.The symbols are from the blurred set, but it should still be possible to make them out.

I will have a go at this method when I have a little time on my hands.

im pretty sure that the spin is just a graphic, and that the reels are not actually spinning - the outcome has already been decided as soon as the spin button has been pressed

unless you can prove otherwise vinylweatherman

 

[Simmo!]

KK - Sounds like fun. I always wanted to integrate this into a DB hooked up to the Slot Junkies tournies but it seemed like an awful lot of work. Just doing Tstruck took a while, plus you'd want to make it "graphic" which adds time.

Maybe one for a later date - or a slow build - a huuuge project i reckon.

 

[Slotmachine]

C'mon Simmo let us in on the reels

Cheers,
SM

 

[Simmo!]

C'mon Simmo let us in on the reels

Cheers,
SM

LOL. I would if i could, but it was in a spreadsheet on my PC that died back in December Sorry.

 

[Zoozie]

If the reels have 30 symbols and with 5 reels, there would be 24.3M combinations. This would certainly be possible for a computer program to
analyse within reasonable time (probably some hours).

I would be able to program it in Java if I have the time for it. I guess it could be done in 10-30 hours including testing. Nothing fancy with applets or any graphics. Someone just need to post the reels for various slots.

Zoozie

 

[Slotmachine]

If the reels have 30 symbols and with 5 reels, there would be 24.3M combinations. This would certainly be possible for a computer program to
analyse within reasonable time (probably some hours).

I would be able to program it in Java if I have the time for it. I guess it could be done in 10-30 hours including testing. Nothing fancy with applets or any graphics. Someone just need to post the reels for various slots.

Zoozie

Yey! I got my math right on that one That's encouraging. Great zoozie, now we need someone with time on their hands to analyse the reels. I'd volunteer but first I need a vacation... no chance right now. Anyone? Just try and analyse the first reel for starters. It shouldn't take that long actually. Just make a note of the 3 symbols after each spin and eventually the pattern will emerge.

Time, that's the problem. Everybody's so busy. I haven't even had time to play at all. I'm compensating by reading the forum frequently and posting, that only takes 5 minutes at a time, easy to do while working and a nice distraction

Cheers,
SM

 

[cjb]

I have time to do this if someone tells me how so it can be useful. I play the slots anyway and could write down each spin

 

[Slotmachine]

Great! I don't know any special techniques, but I guess what you've got to do is just write down the 3 symbols that you get on the reel with each spin. There are only 30 possible positions for each reel so it shouldn't take too long to see the pattern from your notes. I'm assuming there's only 1 Thor and 1 Ram per reel - that should help decipher it. (I'm not absolutely sure about this though)

Or, if you don't feel like analyzing your results, you could just post your notes here in this thread (e.g. TAK, HKJ, 9TA, RHL, CQS, AK1) etc, where T=Thor, H=Hammer, R=Ram, C=Castle, S=Staff, A=Ace, etc.) and once we get enough groups of 3 symbols, anyone can do it from the data posted on the forum. Remember to mention which reel is in question.

In fact, let me just invite everyone to make a note of say 50 spins and post the results here for each reel, and pretty soon we'll have enough data here to do the analysis. This way we can divide the workload.

Cheers,
SM

 

[Zoozie]

I have time to do this if someone tells me how so it can be useful. I play the slots anyway and could write down each spin

You could also just use 'Playcheck'.

 

[KasinoKing]

You could also just use 'Playcheck'.

Great idea!

OK - I'm just about to play a poker tourney - so I'll start doing Tomb Raider while waiting for my go.
(Advantage of having 2 PC's!)

 

[cjb]

good idea

Maybe playcheck would work..I could do that also. I did thunderstruck for 50 spins and put it on a spread sheet. Want it posted here? I hit 3 rams once for $74.25 so I did come out ahead

 

[KasinoKing]

This is harder than I expected!
Got a bit stuck on reel 1 - nearly there though!
Reel 2: Think I cracked it! Got chain of 28 symbols that link end to end!
Reel 3: Made my head explode! There seems to be 4 Tigers which makes it very confusing. Have got 34 symbols so far, but I think I've gone wrong as I have 2 chains & the ends don't match!
That's 3 hours already I'm taking a break!

 

[casinomike]

staff? I always called it "Thor's cock"

 

[GrandMaster]

This is harder than I expected!
Got a bit stuck on reel 1 - nearly there though!
Reel 2: Think I cracked it! Got chain of 28 symbols that link end to end!
Reel 3: Made my head explode! There seems to be 4 Tigers which makes it very confusing. Have got 34 symbols so far, but I think I've gone wrong as I have 2 chains & the ends don't match!
That's 3 hours already I'm taking a break!

I would expect the length of the reel to be a power of 2, either 64 or 128.