Random my ****

[snorky510238]

And whilst games such as Bonanza do technically use proper reels, the sheer length of them, along with the way it can swap them around as and when it wants to, arguably makes it just as bad, if perhaps not worse, than the scratchcard style games, because the player is given no clue that the 'rules of the game' as it were are literally changing right under their feet.

But, but, but.

 

[jasonuk]

But, but, but.

No, that was that Twerk by Endorphina.

From what I recall, BTG tended to be in the traditional reels camp (e.g. Megaways involved a lot of Odd-Even tricks) however they would have multiple reel sets for different scenarios - so when you think the symbols have "vanished" on DHV Gates, that's because they have!

It's slightly unintuitive, but at least it's verifiable in that case.

 

[goatwack]

Ok - so we have supposed reel strips that may be readable yet subject to change, with symbols that may/ may not appear at any time within math models that are interchangeable when it suits, to go with various RTP-nerfing and software updates, not to mention somewhat suspect gameplay.

How could anyone think designers aren't honest after all that?

 

[Schind]

And whilst games such as Bonanza do technically use proper reels,

Bonanza doesn't use proper reels unless they're programmed not to appear together (which means it isn't random). If it did the max win just in the base game would be 102,400x due to the amount of diamonds you can get. BTG state max win as 26,000x

I think the most diamonds you can get on each reel are 2,3,3,3,3,4 which is 648 ways, add in wilds or diamonds on the top reel and you get 2,048 ways at 50x each.

 

[snorky510238]

So, if it’s random (laughs todger off, as typing such crap), with real reel strips, how can you guarantee to see tease after tease? A tease would be only as likely as actually hitting the win.

 

[jasonuk]

Bonanza doesn't use proper reels unless they're programmed not to appear together (which means it isn't random). If it did the max win just in the base game would be 102,400x due to the amount of diamonds you can get. BTG state max win as 26,000x

The megaways engine has always been a curiosity in that sense, because while the reels themselves will be bound by fairness principles, the megaways element doesn't have a real world counterpart and thus can have whatever probability curve it wants.

This would also include variance management, for example:

• high multiplier in the bonus - the game can swap to a different bonus reel set, or cap the number of megaways.
• lots of diamonds, feature tease or similar - the game could reduce the number of megaways on later reels

At that point, the game would still abide by random principles - but would be weighted random (because of megaways or engine behaviour) rather than true random. Some people understandably wouldn't be happy with that - but true random slots are a dying breed now-a-days.

 

[dunover]

Bonanza doesn't use proper reels unless they're programmed not to appear together (which means it isn't random). If it did the max win just in the base game would be 102,400x due to the amount of diamonds you can get. BTG state max win as 26,000x

I think the most diamonds you can get on each reel are 2,3,3,3,3,4 which is 648 ways, add in wilds or diamonds on the top reel and you get 2,048 ways at 50x each.

It's possible to land 3 diamonds on reel 1. A double, then a win or two and another can drop down. And that doesn't count wilds above the centre reels. But on an initial spin, you're probably right.

 

[snorky510238]

It's possible to land 3 diamonds on reel 1. A double, then a win or two and another can drop down. And that doesn't count wilds above the centre reels. But on an initial spin, you're probably right.

And there’s the thing. After millions of spins we’ve never seen anything close to the max ways of diamonds. Not even 200 ways, let alone 2,000 as I recall.

The game has been bastardised to the extent that is unrecognisable from the original and anyone who says different is talking through their lower orifice.

P.S. I might even have a screenshot with 4 diamonds on reel 1, I am fairly sure I’ve seen 4 on reel 5 without the scroll, too.

 

[Reelsoffun]

And there’s the thing. After millions of spins we’ve never seen anything close to the max ways of diamonds. Not even 200 ways, let alone 2,000 as I recall.

To be fair that's because the chance of each reel landing in a position and reel height needed to deliver said ways of diamonds could be billions or trillions to 1 so its not unreasonable for it to

a) not happened yet
b) not going to happen in our lifetimes
c) not happened to someone that's actually a member here
d) happened but wasn't caught on camera, or by anyone here
e) the list goes on

Just saying

Its like the pic i posted on here months ago of the sim of the game i coded ( bonanza ish clone ) on here where it hit a massive win, 6 months later of me running millions of spins its still not hit anything close.

I might let a few members here have a copy of it if they want to play around with it, anyone can PM me if interested.

You really do not seem to grasp just how rare some events are going to be on these types of games.

 

[snorky510238]

To be fair that's because the chance of each reel landing in a position and reel height needed to deliver said ways of diamonds could be billions or trillions to 1 so its not unreasonable for it to

a) not happened yet
b) not going to happen in our lifetimes
c) not happened to someone that's actually a member here
d) happened but wasn't caught on camera, or by anyone here
e) the list goes on

Just saying

Its like the pic i posted on here months ago of the sim of the game i coded ( bonanza ish clone ) on here where it hit a massive win, 6 months later of me running millions of spins its still not hit anything close.

I might let a few members here have a copy of it if they want to play around with it, anyone can PM me if interested.

You really do not seem to grasp just how rare some events are going to be on these types of games.

But by the same token, I have plenty of near misses, where 1 more diamond would have been huge. Is that all coincidence?

 

[pekka55]

But by the same token, I have plenty of near misses, where 1 more diamond would have been huge. Is that all coincidence?

No, it's not coincidence. Those near misses are made to make you play more and longer and thinking that the huge win "is just around the corner". All those frequent near misses on huge payouts are there only to insentivise you to play more. Random shmandom. It's just graphics for us stupid people to look at while they rob us blind.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

No, it's not coincidence. Those near misses are made to make you play more and longer and thinking that the huge win "is just around the corner". All those frequent near misses on huge payouts are there only to insentivise you to play more. Random shmandom. It's just graphics for us stupid people to look at while they rob us blind.

A slot can deliver near misses whilst still being random. The obvious example here is Jammin' Jars, we know for a fact that game uses entirely pre-scripted sequences (confirmed by Push Gaming themselves here at CM when all the shit kicked off with streamers hitting identical win sequences on their streams!), and simply works on the 'ball out of a bag' or 'scratchcard' principle.

Therefore in designing the sequences that play out for each of the results, Push Gaming can (and indeed, did) code in loads of scenarios where it looks like massive wins could happen, 'Oh if only that jar moves there', or 'Oh if only that fruit drops down there' or whatever, essentially showing 'potential' all over the place that simply doesn't exist, because that's not how the sequence plays out, and it can only ever play out in one way.

However, the original RNG call to the pool of results can still be fair and random, what happens after that though, is a complete disconnect between what the player sees in their client, and what the backend of the game is actually doing.

I think it's shit, I thought so at the time, and I still do, and it's one of the main reasons I don't like cluster/scratchcard games.

Now if we have traditional looking slots working in the same way, then all the same problems are carried over.

 

[pekka55]

A slot can deliver near misses whilst still being random. The obvious example here is Jammin' Jars, we know for a fact that game uses entirely pre-scripted sequences (confirmed by Push Gaming themselves here at CM when all the shit kicked off with streamers hitting identical win sequences on their streams!), and simply works on the 'ball out of a bag' or 'scratchcard' principle.

Therefore in designing the sequences that play out for each of the results, Push Gaming can (and indeed, did) code in loads of scenarios where it looks like massive wins could happen, 'Oh if only that jar moves there', or 'Oh if only that fruit drops down there' or whatever, essentially showing 'potential' all over the place that simply doesn't exist, because that's not how the sequence plays out, and it can only ever play out in one way.

However, the original RNG call to the pool of results can still be fair and random, what happens after that though, is a complete disconnect between what the player sees in their client, and what the backend of the game is actually doing.

I think it's shit, I thought so at the time, and I still do, and it's one of the main reasons I don't like cluster/scratchcard games.

Now if we have traditional looking slots working in the same way, then all the same problems are carried over.

Point is that whatever the player sees on the screen doesn't really matter. It's either a win or not and everything else is just bullshit made to fool human eyes into thinking "oh that was so close" when in fact it was as close to a win than any other spin.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Point is that whatever the player sees on the screen doesn't really matter. It's either a win or not and everything else is just bullshit made to fool human eyes into thinking "oh that was so close" when in fact it was as close to a win than any other spin.

Yes but with 'real reels' where each spin of the game uses a separate RNG call for each reel (which totally used to be a thing, and could still be a thing if the developers wanted it to be) you as the player can genuinely see what's going on and get an idea of the maths of the slot, and indeed if you're so inclined, pull the reel strips and work out the entire probability set of the game.

As mentioned by @jasonuk above, the original spec sheets for old WMS slots are still out there, they're quite fascinating to look at. One thing I noticed when I reuploaded my Life of Luxury - (an old WMS game from the Jackpot Party days) - video a few weeks ago was how it all uses genuine reels with random stops for each, particularly in the bonus round where you can see the appearance of each of the progressive gems gets rarer and rarer as you move up the progressive values, IIRC the final reel strip is something like 270 symbols long, with only one gem on there, but you can clearly see that as the player, and most spins it misses by a country mile, it doesn't just keep dropping it above and below as a tease.

Developers absolutely could still make games like this if they wanted to, but they choose not to, and that should tell us as the players an awful lot.

(I suspect multiple RTP models has a lot to do with it, much easier to muck about with the result set in the bag of balls, than redesign reel sets and suchlike.)

 

[dunover]

Right, to understand slots online with their millions/billions of possible reel permutations and outcomes, I will try and simplify matters:

The poster above who referred to lower symbol/win frequency after certain events means the game would need some form of compensation to produce such a result, it's not permitted in base game play and only on AWP slots in the UK etc. They asked the question (I will paraphrase) "Does a result disappear from the pool when it's pulled? Absolutely not! That is precisely how compensated games work but not random ones. This is why your AWP machines get 'happy' after so many zero or crap results are taken out, the remaining ones become 'loaded' for more and higher wins/feature triggers until the bloody thing is virtually instructing you to take its streak or jackpot feature (think invincible boards lol!).

Read the rules say on IGT slots where they specify every spin has exactly the same chance of producing any possible result. Imagine a giant lottery machine with millions of tiny balls - your result comes out and is thrown straight back in to tumble again so the machine keeps its pool of results static - you could pull the 1000x result straight out next play but the chances are vanishingly small so incidences of that are never or very seldom recorded.

Regarding the above paragraph, the spread of results and average win frequency decides game volatility. Imagine a level stake of say £1 and you pulled every single possible result out of the tumbler one by one (this time they don't get put back in and the pool isn't static!) then when empty the tumbler would have paid you 96% of the cost. Of course, player A may have only got 28% in his 100 plays, player B 'spawny twat' could well have got 300%.

So we come to features. I am sure many would recognize from reading the above that a simple way to execute this would be to allocate a fixed result value for feature triggers - say 63.5x bet (pre-scripted) for the one you've just landed. The reels will then play out this 63.5x result in different ways (or the same on Jammin' Jars lol) and we all know or suspect this is the case on most games. Break this down a bit and now think of the feature results separately - the base game pool pays 76% and the feature pool 20%. This 20% pool behaves in exactly the same way as the base game pool except all results bar very few pay >0x. You simply get allocated a result from the 20% pool, which over time pays exactly that: 20% of overall RTP.

Now we know feature reels are mostly different from those in the base game and they can in fact be different for every single free game round, let alone the overall round. This of course helps represent the 'scripting' although it is possible you could have random reels in the bonus, much harder work for the programmers. Think Pragmatic's bonus reels which often represent say 14,987x in a single free game but cap the win to 5,000x. This simply means the result you pulled on triggering was one of the maximum 5,000x ones available. It doesn't mean the excess 9987x has 'vanished' from the RTP. It's simply lazy execution and simplified maths, something you don't get for example on BTG's Lil' Devil when it paid over 105,000x, even surprising BTG by exceeding the best testing result in billions of spins according to Nik.

The final issue is 'deviation' from specified RTP. The developers are limited in some ways when they produce 'exciting high potential slots' because those results would mean it was possible for players to take hundreds of thousands of spins and be say 20% or more adrift of the 96% which the auditor would likely regard as unacceptable even for ultra HV games that have built in prizes of say 100,000x or more. So the base game has to be a little more generous with to sustain play better but accordingly the huge positive feature results will be very hard to land.

Naturally, to ensure these prizes are seen, they calculate in bonus buys to offer up chances of wins that would be astronomically rare in 'normal' play but quite common in buys. So your 96% prize pool is now solely bonus outcomes with no 76% for the base game, hence the RTP is slightly different for buys. Say hello to streamers and headline wins to promote the developers' games!

there ya all go...

EDIT:

RE progressives - these are decided on a lottery basis. Imagine a 20-coin 20c minimum bet spin gives you 20 instant picks from a pool of millions of results, the huge majority of which are blank, one is the Mega, a few the Major, tens are the Minor and hundreds are the Mini. Your odds are better the higher you bet. Imagine a bet a maximum stake say of 20.00 then you get two thousand picks in the pool. So a hundred times more likely to land any given prize, Far more likely to land the big one. This is totally fair; bigger spenders contribute pro-rata far more to the increasing jackpot amounts.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Right, to understand slots online with their millions/billions of possible reel permutations and outcomes, I will try and simplify matters:

The poster above who referred to lower symbol/win frequency after certain events means the game would need some form of compensation to produce such a result, it's not permitted in base game play and only on AWP slots in the UK etc. They asked the question (I will paraphrase) "Does a result disappear from the pool when it's pulled? Absolutely not! That is precisely how compensated games work but not random ones. This is why your AWP machines get 'happy' after so many zero or crap results are taken out, the remaining ones become 'loaded' for more and higher wins/feature triggers until the bloody thing is virtually instructing you to take its streak or jackpot feature (think invincible boards lol!).

Read the rules say on IGT slots where they specify every spin has exactly the same chance of producing any possible result. Imagine a giant lottery machine with millions of tiny balls - your result comes out and is thrown straight back in to tumble again so the machine keeps its pool of results static - you could pull the 1000x result straight out next play but the chances are vanishingly small so incidences of that are never or very seldom recorded.

Regarding the above paragraph, the spread of results and average win frequency decides game volatility. Imagine a level stake of say £1 and you pulled every single possible result out of the tumbler one by one (this time they don't get put back in and the pool isn't static!) then when empty the tumbler would have paid you 96% of the cost. Of course, player A may have only got 28% in his 100 plays, player B 'spawny twat' could well have got 300%.

So we come to features. I am sure many would recognize from reading the above that a simple way to execute this would be to allocate a fixed result value for feature triggers - say 63.5x bet (pre-scripted) for the one you've just landed. The reels will then play out this 63.5x result in different ways (or the same on Jammin' Jars lol) and we all know or suspect this is the case on most games. Break this down a bit and now think of the feature results separately - the base game pool pays 76% and the feature pool 20%. This 20% pool behaves in exactly the same way as the base game pool except all results bar very few pay >0x. You simply get allocated a result from the 20% pool, which over time pays exactly that: 20% of overall RTP.

Now we know feature reels are mostly different from those in the base game and they can in fact be different for every single free game round, let alone the overall round. This of course helps represent the 'scripting' although it is possible you could have random reels in the bonus, much harder work for the programmers. Think Pragmatic's bonus reels which often represent say 14,987x in a single free game but cap the win to 5,000x. This simply means the result you pulled on triggering was one of the maximum 5,000x ones available. It doesn't mean the excess 9987x has 'vanished' from the RTP. It's simply lazy execution and simplified maths, something you don't get for example on BTG's Lil' Devil when it paid over 105,000x, even surprising BTG by exceeding the best testing result in billions of spins according to Nik.

The final issue is 'deviation' from specified RTP. The developers are limited in some ways when they produce 'exciting high potential slots' because those results would mean it was possible for players to take hundreds of thousands of spins and be say 20% or more adrift of the 96% which the auditor would likely regard as unacceptable even for ultra HV games that have built in prizes of say 100,000x or more. So the base game has to be a little more generous with to sustain play better but accordingly the huge positive feature results will be very hard to land.

Naturally, to ensure these prizes are seen, they calculate in bonus buys to offer up chances of wins that would be astronomically rare in 'normal' play but quite common in buys. So your 96% prize pool is now solely bonus outcomes with no 76% for the base game, hence the RTP is slightly different for buys. Say hello to streamers and headline wins to promote the developers' games!

there ya all go...

You can ruin any good conspiracy with well-reasoned explanations based on a solid foundation of knowledge.

Don't be turning into one of those experts dunover, or that nice Mr Gove will be having words.

 

[snorky510238]

That might be how they are supposed to work in essence but they obviously don’t.

Hypothetically, your playing Bonanza so theoretically millions of outcomes in the pool, What are the chances of landing the “max ways” back to back? Millions to one, yet I have achieved at least 5 times and 3 times in 4 spins, once. I have also achieved back to back bonus rounds on several occasions. Not since they nerfed the shit out of it though. Nowadays it seems impossible to hit two that are less than 1,000 spins apart,

This theory of how they supposedly play is all to comfort the player. I even remember trancemonkey once saying, that if we knew exactly how slots work, we wouldn’t play them.

 

[jasonuk]

As mentioned by @jasonuk above, the original spec sheets for old WMS slots are still out there, they're quite fascinating to look at. One thing I noticed when I reuploaded my Life of Luxury - (an old WMS game from the Jackpot Party days) - video a few weeks ago was how it all uses genuine reels with random stops for each, particularly in the bonus round where you can see the appearance of each of the progressive gems gets rarer and rarer as you move up the progressive values, IIRC the final reel strip is something like 270 symbols long, with only one gem on there, but you can clearly see that as the player, and most spins it misses by a country mile, it doesn't just keep dropping it above and below as a tease.

As mentioned in the

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on this a few weeks back, they extend the final reel in the base game to 10x its natural length so they can fit a Life of Luxury symbol on at natural odds (1 in 675 strip length equals 1 in 225 frequency).

While I couldn't find the reel strips for the Life of Luxury progressive bonus (although I guess they're still out there somewhere), I could find the coin frequencies which we can reverse engineer to potential reel strips. To flip the previous DIF discussion slightly, at maximum bet a bonus will occur every 54,000 coins on average, remembering that:

• the bonus rounds have 10 spins, so we're taking one-tenth of the probability per spin
• each symbol can trigger on 3 reel stops - so 1 symbol on a reel strip of length 10 is 30% chance
• at maximum bet, the progressive is guaranteed (1 in 8 at minimum bet)
• the suggested reel lengths are the earliest to 1 in 10,000 tolerance (i.e. rounding errors)

Opal (51,222 coins)	1.054 triggers per bonus	0.10542 triggers per spin = 1 symbol in 28.46	[e.g. 11 symbols in 313]
Ruby (128,055)	0.4217 per bonus (1 in 2.37 bonuses)	0.04217 per spin = 1 symbol in 71.14	[e.g. 7 in 498]
Emerald (614664)	0.08785 per bonus (1 in 11.38 bonuses)	0.008785 per spin = 1 symbol in 341.48	[e.g. 2 in 683]
Sapphire (1331773)	0.04055 per bonus (1 in 24.66 bonuses)	0.004055 per spin = 1 symbol in 739.87	[e.g. 5 in 3700]
Diamond (4866092)	0.01110 per bonus (1 in 90.11 bonuses)	0.001110 per spin = 1 symbol in 2703.38	[e.g. 2 in 5407]
Calculation	54000 / coins = freqB	freqB / 10 = freqSp (3 / freqSp) = freqSy

 

[dunover]

That might be how they are supposed to work in essence but they obviously don’t.

Hypothetically, your playing Bonanza so theoretically millions of outcomes in the pool, What are the chances of landing the “max ways” back to back? Millions to one, yet I have achieved at least 5 times and 3 times in 4 spins, once. I have also achieved back to back bonus rounds on several occasions. Not since they nerfed the shit out of it though. Nowadays it seems impossible to hit two that are less than 1,000 spins apart,

This theory of how they supposedly play is all to comfort the player. I even remember trancemonkey once saying, that if we knew exactly how slots work, we wouldn’t play them.

That's just it - they do!

So let's say the max megaways spins occurs once ever 300 spins. Once you've had it, it's a 1/300 chance you'll land it again so the result is only 300/1 next spin. Like you, I have had it on consecutive spins and funnily enough 3 times in 5 spins once. Same with consecutive features, only a 460-1 chance of it happening, should occur once after ever 460 features you land.

That's how those events are calculated. So in the event of max megaways, assuming no history and we are starting afresh, then you land it once 300/1 and then next spin again at 300/1 then that's an event which occurs every 90,000 spins. Think of what you have said many times - "I've played hundreds of thousands, millions of spins on Bonanza..." so naturally the odds state you should have had consecutive max mw numerous times. Which you have. Nothing to see there.

The feature odds are 211,600/1 for consecutive triggers on any given two consecutive spins. Again, by what you said about the spins you've played over the years, you would expect to have seen this 5+ times - which you indeed have! I've had is 8 times IIRC which would equate to playing about 1.9m spins on average, I've played it 7 years now and even at a relative lowly 4k spins a week I must have played at least 1.5m spins on the bastard. So should have had it at least 7 times statistically. I indeed have.

So really, your post has just endorsed my points above.

 

[snorky510238]

The only thing is that hitting the max Megaways isn’t 300-1. I worked it out once and iirc, it’s 22,000 (or around there) -1. That changes the odds just a little bit, More like 400,000,000-1 (+)

 

[dunover]

The only thing is that hitting the max Megaways isn’t 300-1. I worked it out once and iirc, it’s 22,000 (or around there) -1. That changes the odds just a little bit, More like 400,000,000-1 (+)

Where on earth did you get that 22,000 figure from? An average session of mine for example lasts 500-1000 spins and on average I see it just under twice in a session. Sometimes I will see it 4-5 times in an hour, sometimes won't see it for two consecutive sessions at all. I am not saying my 300x guess is precise, but over 7 years I can safely say I would be confident I'm +/-25% there.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

That's just it - they do!

So let's say the max megaways spins occurs once ever 300 spins. Once you've had it, it's a 1/300 chance you'll land it again so the result is only 300/1 next spin. Like you, I have had it on consecutive spins and funnily enough 3 times in 5 spins once. Same with consecutive features, only a 460-1 chance of it happening, should occur once after ever 460 features you land.

That's how those events are calculated. So in the event of max megaways, assuming no history and we are starting afresh, then you land it once 300/1 and then next spin again at 300/1 then that's an event which occurs every 90,000 spins. Think of what you have said many times - "I've played hundreds of thousands, millions of spins on Bonanza..." so naturally the odds state you should have had consecutive max mw numerous times. Which you have. Nothing to see there.

The feature odds are 211,600/1 for consecutive triggers on any given two consecutive spins. Again, by what you said about the spins you've played over the years, you would expect to have seen this 5+ times - which you indeed have! I've had is 8 times IIRC which would equate to playing about 1.9m spins on average, I've played it 7 years now and even at a relative lowly 4k spins a week I must have played at least 1.5m spins on the bastard. So should have had it at least 7 times statistically. I indeed have.

So really, your post has just endorsed my points above.

It's easy to understand why humans naturally have a problem with probability, especially when you get to very large numbers, as it's not something we're instinctively good at. (Famously of course, when we were finding these tribes deep in the jungles who'd been cut off from civilisation, they'd have words for zero, one, two, three, four and so on, up to maybe ten or so, and after that there was just one word that meant 'many', because that was all they needed, human brains aren't naturally wired to deal well with very large numbers.)

I had the fruit machine emulator knocking around in autoplay the other week to get a club machine fattened up to be jackpot ready, and I had the 'insert coin' event set to 10% on the probability of occurring each autoplay cycle, right in front of me it put a coin in on six consecutive cycles, that's literally (and exactly!) a one in a million shot.

Statistically I would expect to see that once in a million autoplay cycles, and it happened right in front of me when I happened to have my eye on it. It'd be easy for my brain to think it's not that unusual, because if it was super rare, it wouldn't have happened right in front of me, surely? But in reality, I could have that autoplay running for another year and it'd be entirely reasonable for it not to happen again at all, much less when I was there to witness it.

'Something happened more often in the past so now it must be cheating' is a terrible way to try and parse probabilities, especially for very rare events.

 

[jasonuk]

Right, to understand slots online with their millions/billions of possible reel permutations and outcomes, I will try and simplify matters:

The poster above who referred to lower symbol/win frequency after certain events means the game would need some form of compensation to produce such a result, it's not permitted in base game play and only on AWP slots in the UK etc.

The key being those events happening between paid spins - the game can (and will) modify within the same paid spin as long as - stored value aside - the behaviour reverts to the exact same starting point at the beginning of the next spin.

Naturally, to ensure these prizes are seen, they calculate in bonus buys to offer up chances of wins that would be astronomically rare in 'normal' play but quite common in buys. So your 96% prize pool is now solely bonus outcomes with no 76% for the base game, hence the RTP is slightly different for buys. Say hello to streamers and headline wins to promote the developers' games!

there ya all go...

When people think about the "cost" of the bonus buy - another way to think of it would be at average luck you would spend 460x, you would get 350x in base wins (the 76%) and be left with 110x and one bonus.

The calculation then needs to refund the house edge for the 459 spins you haven't done (e.g. 15x), and include a new house edge for the bonus buy product - and you get to the 100x figure stated.

 

[snorky510238]

I worked it out mathematically, that’s how I got it. The min ways is 2x3x3x3x3x2 = 324. Then you have every permutation in between, up to the 117.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Where on earth did you get that 22,000 figure from? An average session of mine for example lasts 500-1000 spins and on average I see it just under twice in a session. Sometimes I will see it 4-5 times in an hour, sometimes won't see it for two consecutive sessions at all. I am not saying my 300x guess is precise, but over 7 years I can safely say I would be confident I'm +/-25% there.

For sure, I'm not exactly a seasoned Bonanza player and I've seen it more times than I can remember, indeed I specifically recall getting irritated with it last year when I was doing my stats-play (documented in the thread here at CM!), at how good it was at mugging me off with the max-Megaways spins!

No way is it 1-22,000, 1-300 sounds entirely reasonable to me.

 

[jasonuk]

I worked it out mathematically, that’s how I got it. The min ways is 2x3x3x3x3x2 = 324. Then you have every permutation in between, up to the 117.

They wouldn't have equal probability though - so even if there are 22,000 permutations, the odds of any one of them happening isn't necessarily 1 in 22,000...

 

[snorky510238]

They wouldn't have equal probability though - so even if there are 22,000 permutations, the odds of any one of them happening isn't necessarily 1 in 22,000...

Perhaps not but how else can you state the frequency? The only thing you can base it on, is the maths you are given.

That is partly my point. The Max Megaways occurs way more often, than it statistically should. If slots work the way you guys are advocating. You can’t have it both ways.

You’re saying well they work like this, apart from when they don’t work like this but it’s all okay.

 

[snorky510238]

They wouldn't have equal probability though - so even if there are 22,000 permutations, the odds of any one of them happening isn't necessarily 1 in 22,000...

Why?

 

[TheAddict]

I know each spin is supposed to be independent. But something has been bugging me for a while. I played a lot of 1line, where its easy to noice the 1 away type of big misses, since they stand out on the 1 line.
With BOD, for example, while you're enjoying a win rate of 1 in 650, it feels as though in order to keep you entertained (in 2024, aka pissed off), when its one big paying symbol or 2 big paying symbols missing from 50ak, it has this amazing ability to produce the 2 symbols (big paying symbols, so symbols that should be more rare) exactly where you hoped they'd land previously, but on the following spin.
It began to feel that situations like that were way to common not to be programmed in. It ceartinly does i way more often than I'd ever have beleieved. I began to laugh and expect it after a while.

I know each spin is independent, but after bashing 1 line for a long while, can/do some do that?
I mean, some code like 'if previous spin was a big 5oak symbol tease, lolol, & current spin is destined as a lose, lolol, produce symbols that missed on previous spin on currnt already gash destined spin, lolol.'

Or have I just blazed toooo much weed?

 

[jasonuk]

Why?

Because not all mechanics have to be true random - the regulations focus on mechanisms that have a real-world equivalent, for example a slot reel, a roulette wheel or a pie gamble. The odds of that, unless otherwise stated, should be representative.

Although in recent years it is clear that regulators have lost touch with this given we have magnetic roulette, pre-determined "picks" that reveal a fake result, and disconnected pie gambles. Similarly a significant percentage of slots don't use real mechanics at all - such as "drops" - which means they can pretty much what they want.

So while we talk about the reels being genuine, that doesn't prevent other parts from being weighted random or controlled within the game rules - including the number of megaways and which reelset is being used.

As an example, Twin Spin used to restrict which reel could be expanded if you had 4 or 5 connected - so it was impossible to get a full screen of the top symbols. If I recall correctly, 3-4-5 could give you 3 diamonds (for the maximum 27 ways), but 2-3-4-5 could not.

If in doubt (and this applies to @TheAddict too), starting making a note of the statistics - it's very easy for humans to see patterns where they don't exist (and gambling companies certainly pray on apophenia, as well as the positive-negative emotional bias we exhibit).

 

[trancemonkey]

Okay, for those of you that haven’t come across me before on this forum. I am the one that keeps banging the drum regarding Providers/slots being rigged, bent, paying out less than advertised rtp, etc. You name it, I’ve said it. Not just lately but from day 1.

Of course, I am always met with, tinfoiler, deluded, imagining things, seeing patterns that aren’t there, etc, etc.

I am always confronted with where’s the proof and so on. I honestly wish that I had recorded everything I’ve ever done in relation to online gambling but to backtrack 7 year with as much play as I have done is impossible. (At least in my lifetime).

So, I decided in mid December to play a game at a Casino where my stats would be there for me to check, in black and white. (Well, colour actually but you get my drift).

I decided to pick a game at random, that I had never played, ever before. Christmas Carol Megaways came up first so went for that.

My heart sank when I saw it was by Pragmatic because I have never won anything decent on their games but had seeen others had so decided perhaps I hadn’t give them a decent shot. BIG MISTAKE!

I started playing 40p spins and quickly noticed that if I increased to 50p I would increase the chance of landing a bonus. Must do that then, mustn’t we.

The game is 94 odd% and here is the absolute filth that this slot has served up at @Mr Vegas.

I have done 9,235 spins and landed 44 bonuses. From memory, three were 5 scatter triggers and 1 was a six scatter trigger that went for an amazing x28…..Yeah x28!

On all but about 5 occasions, I took the 10 spins option with a starting multiplier of x5.

The results are as follows;

X16
X41
X42
X2
X41
X2
X10
X67
X6
X18
X38
X15
X44
X35
X62
X21
X13
X20
X27
X59
X26
X24
X14
X9
X43
X10
X58
X26
X18
X31
X39
X28
X28
X29
X57
X47
X33
X72
X11
X17
X62
X38
X62
X12

Biggest bonus x72
Biggest base hit x82

Yep, over £4,500 wagered through (and the base game is shite) and not a single win over x100 and an rtp around 20% less than expected.

Now, I know you can have bad runs, etc, etc but these stats are disgusting and I don’t think it would matter which game I had chosen because providers are all getting away with murder, right now. Even @ChopleyIOM will struggle to brush this under the carpet, although I am sure he’ll try his best.

View attachment 193475View attachment 193476

Just because a game is shit (which this is) doesn't make it rigged..

 

[slotmaster]

oh snap, trancemonkey sighting!

 

[snorky510238]

Just because a game is shit (which this is) doesn't make it rigged..

It’s not ethically or morally in keeping with fair standards though, is it?

My mistake, I forgot, there aren’t any.

 

[rtesone1]

'Megaways' games to me are super fun, and I've had decent wins on this slot. I haven't done a study to prove it, but I've noticed that it may be 'seasonal.' At this time before the end of the month the slot may need to meet profit 'quotas' and be tighter. I read in a forum, probably Reddit, that a slot programmer described what RTP was, and he said in a convoluted way, that it is always random, but the range of the RTP can be chosen. Meaning that the slot can chosen to pay at this time between 50% and 60% (this is the randomness), and not the advertised 96.4% in a billion spins.

 

[jasonuk]

'Megaways' games to me are super fun, and I've had decent wins on this slot. I haven't done a study to prove it, but I've noticed that it may be 'seasonal.' At this time before the end of the month the slot may need to meet profit 'quotas' and be tighter. I read in a forum, probably Reddit, that a slot programmer described what RTP was, and he said in a convoluted way, that it is always random, but the range of the RTP can be chosen. Meaning that the slot can chosen to pay at this time between 50% and 60% (this is the randomness), and not the advertised 96.4% in a billion spins.

That isn't what they mean at all - with the exception of scheduled jackpots (e.g. daily drops), time of day is irrelevant in almost all gambling activities.

What they mean is that a game will have multiple math models available (designed with different reel strips, win frequency etc), and the casino can choose which one they want to deploy - e.g. 96%, 94% or 92%. Each spin should be independent and random, and for a large enough number of spins it will trend towards the theoretical RTP - any deviation in the short term would be referred to as variance (i.e. the volatility of random numbers).

If the casino wants to change that model, they have to go through a defined process - and in some jurisdictions (such as the UK) they are required to inform customers that the game has changed. Additionally for markets that require RTP disclosure, that RTP change will be displayed in the help file.

 

[dunover]

Why?

Reel sizes are weighted - you've made the mistake of thinking that reel height of the six reels is randomly decided, per reel, per spin. The result is simply eye candy, you can get a zero result on the game and any number of ways to represent it from 324 to 117649. Same with a 32x win. The number of ways displayed is almost irrelevant, the win result including any tumbles is already selected. Look how many spins on max ways 'fail' to tumble after any initial win, yet you get these stoooopid spins of say 1440 ways whereby you get about 5 or 6 winning tumbles because the single symbols necessary are all conveniently lined up for you both on the top scroll and tumbles above visible reel columns.

 

[snorky510238]

Well all I can make of it now, is that it is a complete load of bollox, just as I have said all along.

 

[clogs]

Slots are not random.. they give you nice hits a few times now and then to keep you hooked but will make sure to give you long dead spells to send you on tilt where there's a good chance you will keep depositing and go broke

Letting someone get there balance up 10% over 30 mins and hundreds of spins, to suddenly lose all your balance in 5 mins is how they get you to deposit 5-10x your balance which they will take in an hour.

 

[jasonuk]

Just because a game is shit (which this is) doesn't make it rigged..

Seems like this statement is going to get a lot of mileage in this thread ?

Slots are not random.. they give you nice hits a few times now and then to keep you hooked but will make sure to give you long dead spells to send you on tilt where there's a good chance you will keep depositing and go broke

Letting someone get there balance up 10% over 30 mins and hundreds of spins, to suddenly lose all your balance in 5 mins is how they get you to deposit 5-10x your balance which they will take in an hour.

Or, as happens a lot now-a-days, people don't understand the profile of the slots they are playing.

A lot of the streamer dross being published now-a-days is intended to get you to spend faster (bonus buys), and focus on big wins rather than playtime. It's not uncommon to be running sub-50% over 1000 spins, something that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Even at the lowest stakes your balance will take a beating playing these games.

As discussed last month, Bonus Buy Parody (NLC's 9to5) pays the top win 16,000 times more frequently than a "spicy" 243-way slot from Microgaming 10 years prior called Avalon 2. When so much RTP is going into those big wins, the unlucky ones are going straight down to zero - it can't be any other way.

A lot of work goes into checking games are random - whether they are true random (as discussed earlier in the thread) is a fairer question and in many cases the answer is no, because they use scripted game rounds (akin to a scratchcard) or a "player decision" is decided by an RNG call in advance. That doesn't stop them being random, but it does cause a disconnect between the player's understanding of random and the behaviour used - because when a casual player talks about random, they inevitably mean "true random" (rather than weighted random).

 

[snorky510238]

Or, as happens a lot now-a-days, people don't understand the profile of the slots they are playing.

No shit, Sherlock.

How could anyone know exactly how a slot is working unless they programmed the bloody thing?

What is obvious, is they don’t play as you’re trying to make out. Not a chance!

There is absolutely some form of compensation or whatever you want to call it.

I have sessions where I can do 500 spins and not one of them pays over x10. Happens over and over. Then you get the session where it’s ready to pay and bingo. More features in one session than you’ve seen in a week and several hits over x100.

Play it the next day and it will shaft the living daylights out of you. The reason players see patterns is because they’ve impossible to miss, you’d have to be blind.

 

[johnnymcc1966]

No shit, Sherlock.

How could anyone know exactly how a slot is working unless they programmed the bloody thing?

What is obvious, is they don’t play as you’re trying to make out. Not a chance!

There is absolutely some form of compensation or whatever you want to call it.

I have sessions where I can do 500 spins and not one of them pays over x10. Happens over and over. Then you get the session where it’s ready to pay and bingo. More features in one session than you’ve seen in a week and several hits over x100.

Play it the next day and it will shaft the living daylights out of you. The reason players see patterns is because they’ve impossible to miss, you’d have to be blind.

I suggest you play this for a better chance of randomness nowadays.

 

[snorky510238]

I suggest you play this for a better chance of randomness nowadays.

Well, with all the changing reels for this, changing symbols for that, you can’t blame the player for not fully understanding things.

And there’s another thing. To audit a game properly, you would need a whizz of a programmer who has access to the all the data. Can’t see that happening!

Seriously, even if these slots are tested over billions of spins, what’s to stop providers changing things on the fly afterwards?

 

[jasonuk]

No shit, Sherlock.

How could anyone know exactly how a slot is working unless they programmed the bloody thing?

What is obvious, is they don’t play as you’re trying to make out. Not a chance!

Agreed, there are an increasing number of slots now that are impossible to verify as a player. Once the shackles of "real world equivalent" came off, providers absolutely started taking the piss.

If the game is scripted + single RNG call (the "balls in the bag" scenario), how do you verify the contents of the bag? How do you know that a jackpot ball hasn't been removed? The RTP is the only clue that this has happened.

Well, with all the changing reels for this, changing symbols for that, you can’t blame the player for not fully understanding things.

And there’s another thing. To audit a game properly, you would need a whizz of a programmer who has access to the all the data. Can’t see that happening!

Seriously, even if these slots are tested over billions of spins, what’s to stop providers changing things on the fly afterwards?

There will be procedures in place (split responsibility, audit trails etc) to protect things being changed on the fly - although a dishonest provider could do that (and would then have to cover it up during an audit, e.g. what we've seen with some of the financial scandals where the company was bent and the auditor turned a blind eye before everything blew up). A lot of it comes back to trust - there are providers out there who have demonstrated that trust over years and decades, similarly there are those who you should run a mile from.

In a way, scratchcard slots share a similarity with "hacked" slots of yesteryear - you as the player have an understanding of how the game is supposed to function, but the actual operation has little to no relation to that understanding.

It's a mess for sure - plenty of players don't care that they are being lied to (fake streamers, scripted slots etc) until they realise they never win anymore (the position we're now getting to), the industry has an interest in hiding the details as slots become increasingly underhanded in how they operate (high volatility, lower RTP, stored value traps etc), and don't expect the fake money streamers to help on that front - all they care about is max wins and potential (and you losing your money to their revshare affiliate link).

If only the regulators would step up to the plate... they didn't for Scammin Jars, so I doubt they'll be doing so now.

 

[Kroffe]

Seems like this statement is going to get a lot of mileage in this thread ?


Or, as happens a lot now-a-days, people don't understand the profile of the slots they are playing.

A lot of the streamer dross being published now-a-days is intended to get you to spend faster (bonus buys), and focus on big wins rather than playtime. It's not uncommon to be running sub-50% over 1000 spins, something that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Even at the lowest stakes your balance will take a beating playing these games.

As discussed last month, Bonus Buy Parody (NLC's 9to5) pays the top win 16,000 times more frequently than a "spicy" 243-way slot from Microgaming 10 years prior called Avalon 2. When so much RTP is going into those big wins, the unlucky ones are going straight down to zero - it can't be any other way.

A lot of work goes into checking games are random - whether they are true random (as discussed earlier in the thread) is a fairer question and in many cases the answer is no, because they use scripted game rounds (akin to a scratchcard) or a "player decision" is decided by an RNG call in advance. That doesn't stop them being random, but it does cause a disconnect between the player's understanding of random and the behaviour used - because when a casual player talks about random, they inevitably mean "true random" (rather than weighted random).

Allegedly a lot of work goes into making sure a game is random, but we all know that games slipping thru the testing stage with significant errors is not exactly an uncommon thing.

Sure, we hear once in a blue moon about cases where this works in the players favor, but games being taken down only to re-appear a couple weeks later without any word of why is much more common.
And since there is no changelog a player can look at there is really no way of knowing what or if something has been changed.

I can kind of believe that there is a somewhat proper testing done in the early stages, but i highly doubt there is any rigorous testing being performed once a slot has been given the 'all-clear' from a testing house.
And once again that is not something you as a player can check, you cant 'download' a slot and simulate the billions of game rounds needed.

And really, if everything is above board why are such tools not available to us plebs to play around with?
The lack of transparency is imo the biggest factor that makes people think there might be something amiss, when you are told to blindly trust casinos that time and time again gets caught doing things they are not allowed to (just check the list of fines for any given market, it will be a mile long) its not weird that people have doubts.

You could of course report to the governing body in you country if you think something is wrong, but i think we all know where such a report would end up.

 

[jasonuk]

Allegedly a lot of work goes into making sure a game is random, but we all know that games slipping thru the testing stage with significant errors is not exactly an uncommon thing.

Agreed, I would say there are three main categories of errors:

• Visual annoyances - they don't interfere with the gameplay but players will pick up on the sloppiness of the development and testing
• Visual errors - the UI disagrees with the game engine, for example with The Final Countdown. This doesn't impact the RTP, but causes a lot of headaches because what the player sees isn't what happened. I believe these are more likely because most of the testing goes into the engine, rather than engine + visuals.
• Engine errors - the engine disagrees with the game rules or makes a false assumption, for example with Street Fighter 2. This can impact the RTP (both upwards and downwards) and is a significant failure of the test house. In many cases this information isn't published, and refunds that should be forthcoming often aren't - which is a significant breach of the trust cycle.

Beyond that, we get into foul play - e.g. a game abusing the RNG and selecting results - so the scenario where the RNG is certified, but the game isn't using the RNG as intended.

As the saying goes - "trust, but verify". The problem is the latter is becoming increasing difficult to action.

 

[interlog]

And really, if everything is above board why are such tools not available to us plebs to play around with?

I am guessing some of it has to do with the intellectual property of the slot design. If you for example take the megaways engine that was designed by BTG, why would they make the math model behind it available for all to use, when it can easily be marketed and sold?

 

[Reelsoffun]

I see where snorks is coming from on the 22,000 chance etc as looking at it logically its

6*5*5*5*5*6 = 22,500 but that's the chance if there is no weighting or another random event that just triggers a max board for example a 1 in 500 on top of the other odds.

The megaways game I did does both these things, a natural max ways that is weighted differently so each reel does not have equal chance of being 2,3,4,5,6,7 high, but then there is also a random event that can trigger or "force if that's what you want to call it" a max ways separately eg a 1 in 500 event. In the case of max ways a different reel set to a normal spin is used. Does this mean its not random? NO.

The overall dynamic of mine is different as it does not cascade, easy to see why in the bonus, but in principle is uses the same methods.

My game also awards an extra spin and increases multiplier by one every win in the bonus so do expect a good few dead spins, but even low wins will start to make the bonus exciting as they effectively give you the spin back and increase your multi.

However the nice twist is that at least one max ways is guaranteed so if you not had it yet and your multi is on the move it can get quite exciting. As we all know a lot of max ways are blank or close to it but there are some great ones and snag one on a late multi and your looking at a monster. Like most HV games your just after the mother load spin

Until recently I had no way to replay a game round, its only a SIM after all but now its added so I will replay and vid any fun ones if anyone interested LOL probably not!

 

[snorky510238]

I see where snorks is coming from on the 22,000 chance etc as looking at it logically its

6*5*5*5*5*6 = 22,500 but that's the chance if there is no weighting or another random event that just triggers a max board for example a 1 in 500 on top of the other odds.

The megaways game I did does both these things, a natural max ways that is weighted differently so each reel does not have equal chance of being 2,3,4,5,6,7 high, but then there is also a random event that can trigger or "force if that's what you want to call it" a max ways separately eg a 1 in 500 event. In the case of max ways a different reel set to a normal spin is used. Does this mean its not random? NO.

The overall dynamic of mine is different as it does not cascade, easy to see why in the bonus, but in principle is uses the same methods.

My game also awards an extra spin and increases multiplier by one every win in the bonus so do expect a good few dead spins, but even low wins will start to make the bonus exciting as they effectively give you the spin back and increase your multi.

However the nice twist is that at least one max ways is guaranteed so if you not had it yet and your multi is on the move it can get quite exciting. As we all know a lot of max ways are blank or close to it but there are some great ones and snag one on a late multi and your looking at a monster. Like most HV games your just after the mother load spin

Until recently I had no way to replay a game round, its only a SIM after all but now its added so I will replay and vid any fun ones if anyone interested LOL probably not!

For god sake get the game out there and save us from the absolute filth that BTG/Evolution are murdering players with. Change the symbols to different types of slugs! Anything would be better than the filth providers are throwing out there.

The problem you will have, is if your game genuinely pays 96%, Casinos won’t entertain it when all their other slots are being run illegally on rtp’s well below advertised.

Playing online slots has the same predictable outcome as tying a live white mouse to your todger and sitting two feet away from a coiled rattle snake and wondering what might happen.

 

[goatwack]

For god sake get the game out there and save us from the absolute filth that BTG/Evolution are murdering players with. Change the symbols to different types of slugs! Anything would be better than the filth providers are throwing out there.

The problem you will have, is if your game genuinely pays 96%, Casinos won’t entertain it when all their other slots are being run illegally on rtp’s well below advertised.

Playing online slots has the same predictable outcome as tying a live white mouse to your todger and sitting two feet away from a coiled rattle snake and wondering what might happen.

It'll probably randomly miss both

 

[Reelsoffun]

For god sake get the game out there and save us from the absolute filth that BTG/Evolution are murdering players with. Change the symbols to different types of slugs! Anything would be better than the filth providers are throwing out there.

The problem you will have, is if your game genuinely pays 96%, Casinos won’t entertain it when all their other slots are being run illegally on rtp’s well below advertised.

Playing online slots has the same predictable outcome as tying a live white mouse to your todger and sitting two feet away from a coiled rattle snake and wondering what might happen.

Well just did a bonus buy for £750 and it paid £28.95 so you might not want to play it after all LOL I didn't say it wasn't brutal at times because it is!

TRTP is 96.03%
Current = 91.63%

Think bonanza had a baby with a hacksaw

Edit: Just hit a base hit on a max