Scattered Odds

[vinylweatherman]

What are the odds of getting 5 Rams on Thunderstruck (that's 10 Rams, in 5 pairs, for the pedantic )


Just curious......

 

[Simmo!]

30 symbols on each reel, one Ram, 3 positions in view, 1 in 10 chance per reel, 1 in 10n5, 1 in 100,000

 

[aka23]

30 symbols on each reel, one Ram, 3 positions in view, 1 in 10 chance per reel, 1 in 10n5, 1 in 100,000

I thought the first 4 reels had 30, and the final had 44?

This makes it 3/30 * 3/30 *3/30 * 3/30 * 3/44 = ~1 in 150,000

 

[KasinoKing]

I thought the first 4 reels had 30, and the final had 44?

This makes it 3/30 * 3/30 *3/30 * 3/30 * 3/44 = ~1 in 150,000

This is correct: Data from cjb, verified by Professor Zoozie:-
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/probabilities.10822/?highlight=Probabilities

Interestingly, even though Tomb Raider has different numbers of symbols per reel to Thunderstruck, the odds of 5 scatters is roughly the same at 150,440/1.
Data analysed & verified by Doctor King:-
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/probabilities.10822/?highlight=Probabilities

 

[Zoozie]

I thought the first 4 reels had 30, and the final had 44?

This makes it 3/30 * 3/30 *3/30 * 3/30 * 3/44 = ~1 in 150,000

Yes, correct.

The reels was found both by me and also by another member independant of each other. And this is why I am so certain that we have the reels correct for Thunderstruck.

Some other 5-reel slots can have more than 1 scatter/reel. I think Isis has
2 scatters on the first reel etc.

Zoozie

 

[vinylweatherman]

Why

The reason I asked this was because only a short while into the Casino Action tournament this happened:-

 

[tennis_balls]

The reason I asked this was because only a short while into the Casino Action tournament this happened:-

18 pence per spin???


grow a pair, weatherman!

 

[vinylweatherman]

18 pence per spin???


grow a pair, weatherman!

Best way to play these.

200 for 5 natural hammers, and prize fund of 1000.

Despite spinning at 18p, I won 200 on the session.


I suppose this rarety was the highlight though, even if only 90.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Rare

This rarety is getting commonplace now!


That's 3 times in 8 days, only TWO actually spent spinning Thunderstruck at Casino Action.

 

[me_and_ed]

Do the odds change when you are on the bonus spins? I have hit 5 scatters a few times on regular spins, but only once on the bonus.

 

[Slotster!]

I'VE NEVER HIT THEM!!!!!! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!

That's amazing VW, now how about you share some around eh?

 

[tennis_balls]

polli hits them twice a week

 

[Simmo!]

Do the odds change when you are on the bonus spins? I have hit 5 scatters a few times on regular spins, but only once on the bonus.

Jeez. I must have played well over 1 million spins on Tstruck, probably closer to 5 mil and only ever hit 5 scatters once, right in teh first month of playing. You guys are making me jealous

 

[me_and_ed]

Jeez. I must have played well over 1 million spins on Tstruck, probably closer to 5 mil and only ever hit 5 scatters once, right in teh first month of playing. You guys are making me jealous

Hey Simmo,
I would be glad to trade you all my 5 scatters for just a few of your posted screenies.

 

[AussieDave]

I got the 5 scatters in Spring Break twice in one session, thought that was pretty impressive.

Got the things a week ago, though, as per usual just dropped bet to $2.25 spin...Nice win all the same.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Clear

Clearly They are more likely to come when the bet size is low. I have played Thunderstruck for three years without the 5 Rams, and then when I am betting REALLY low (after the 5 hammers for $200 as well as the tourney prizes), I get them twice one week at the same casino, and again the following week at another.

This must surely be proof that MG slots are rigged to look better at low wager amounts, I find generally that the top win to stake ratio is far higher when betting small than when betting big
There are of course exceptions to this general rule, such as my hit of 8000 with 4 Thors in the bonus round while spinning at 11.25, and a freaky 5 scatters at Spring Break to start the spins again at 11.25. This is actually a bug in the software when betting 11.25, because it is an uneven amount the software is fooled into seeing it as 11p per spin

 

[lojo]

In jest, right? Have they changed their program? I'm not buying it. If they don't spin exactly the same at one fenig one line as they do at max bet, they are a crooked slot.

T-struck has never been good to me, but neither have vinyl nor lady's night. I attributed it to bad ho.

 

[AudiManinBoro]

I still believe that slots pay out ONLY when they have money to do so and although i can never prove this im also fairly sure that each coin size you play on has its OWN kind of bank. In other words, if a slots ready to pay out on a 1 p coin size doesnt mean its going to pay out on a 5 p coin size. I have noticed that you can turn a slot from playing badly into a slot that plays well just by changing your coin size. This is what leads me to believe that each slot has various levels of `takeins` and `payouts`

 

[vinylweatherman]

Yes

I still believe that slots pay out ONLY when they have money to do so and although i can never prove this im also fairly sure that each coin size you play on has its OWN kind of bank. In other words, if a slots ready to pay out on a 1 p coin size doesnt mean its going to pay out on a 5 p coin size. I have noticed that you can turn a slot from playing badly into a slot that plays well just by changing your coin size. This is what leads me to believe that each slot has various levels of `takeins` and `payouts`

Sometimes this works, I once turned 50 into 1000 on Munchkins by constantly changing both coin size and coins per line during a session. I bet from around the 1 / 2 level, all the way up to 18 using various combinations. It did seem like I was able to take the payouts from different "pots", just like on a UK Fruit Machine, by this constant changing.
On other occasions though, I find the slot just as dead at any combination. Munchkins does seem to have a signature for this dead spell, which is just a single scatter every few spins, but never a pair. When a bonus round is near, I get scatters as pairs just as often as single. It is as though the games can run either in phase or out of phase, by which I mean that where there are a number of cards or reels to be independently determined, they either cooperate with each other to produce good starting combinations, or they are as different as possible, meaning starting combinations are always poor, which in card games means a long losing streak (VP). In Blackjack, the deck seems to switch from "10 rich" to "10 poor" as though it was in a real casino, despite the fact that the deck is supposed to be shuffled each hand. If a deck is "10 poor", this heavily favours the dealer over the player, and the result will be the dealer winning many hands they really should have lost. In a 10 poor deck, strategies like a double come off badly as low cards are often dealt, while low cards make it easy for the dealer to escape from a bad starting hand, against which you may have doubled down. Where the deck is 10 rich, doubling down often is rewarded with a 10 card, while the dealer will often bust from anything under a 7 up.

I have played VP, where every deal is just a high card, and a high pair if I am lucky, yet on other occasions I am regularly getting dealt 2 pair, 3OK and more, and even if I keep missing the good conversions I do well from the good starts. It can vary from game to game, it is often the case that some games are hitting well, but with hundreds of games it is harder to stumble upon the hot game before the bankroll has gone.
While there is much randomness, I strongly suspect some kind of controlling envelope function is used to convert the RNG output into an artificially streaked session, which can be in either direction. While the mathematics behind this conversion are kept secret, the statement "we use a state of the art RNG" means little if the raw output goes through any kind of algorithm that changes which random number leads to which card, or reel stop, depending on the chosen streak alignment for that game.

The cat is out of the bag, MG have already been rumbled over the doubling game in VP having a predetermined outcome regardless of the card selected by the player, in effect a short cut. Short cuts could exist in other games, perhaps a starting hand in VP is NOT the result of 5 independent RNG associations with 5 cards, but a single RNG against a given 5 card pattern. Such a short cut would seem to explain the uncommon streakiness of the games, as the outcomes have fewer mathematical "degrees of freedom" than the traditional RNG to card/reel stop model would suggest.

 

[lojo]

If you guys are right, there are no fair slots on the net to play. Because if MG would do this without informing players, nothing is sacred.

A machine must not be programmed to to do anything more than increase your return volume when you increase your bet. Anything else is not a fair program, or they are not actually using a RNG, in either case I wouldn't play them.

Tell me it ain't so Microgaming, tell me it ain't so!

And yes, there is a Santa Clause, I saw him on HO-HO-HO he even gave me presents

 

[lojo]

Thumbing back through a couple of threads I see webzcas making the strongest statement, as well as Simmo! and tim5ny relating it 3rd hand from MG, and Zoozie first hand with charting. MG odds are(were) not adjusted/adjustable.

Assuming the 'state of the art RNG' is similar to a vegas machine; it will cycle at least 100 times per second and have a cycle life of 4,000,000,000, meaning it will cycle in less than 500 days.
Put a string of random 1 and 0 together, 4 billion units long, and you will have clumps. There will be random occurances to 'back up' any anecdotal claim you can proffer.

But if MG doesn't categorically state that they do not, and operators cannot adjust the odds we will be left with our own conclusions.

If they don't come out and explain why the software updates started getting funky lately, we will imagine all kinds of things about them.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Funkified

Talking of funky updates, I have updated a few casinos with this months releases, and I noticed again the trend for each game, old and new, updating again. What was different this time is that in many cases this was NOT just downloading and verifying a checksum, I noticed that the old games really were fully updating, noted by the continual packet exchange through my modem. When just checking, there is a brief flicker while the checksum downloads, followed by a pause while it is checked - this time, the checks triggered the full download of a number of new games.

To my earlier point about the streak envelope. An example might be the 5 cards for the starting hand at any Video Poker. If only one ramdom number is used, it could be equated to, say, 52% just a high card, 48% a pair or better. The result would determine the class of hand drawn, and an algorithm would just make up that structure from appropriate cards for display. Simplifying the draw would probably not be an option, as the mathematics would only behave if the discards were replaced by independently drawn cards. This would give interesting behaviour, while you would forever get bad starting hands over good, the draw will occasionally come good by pure chance, giving the isolated big hit which is quickly swallowed up over the next few hands.
Another possibility is that the first card is selected ramdomly, but the other four are selected through a weighting envelope such that the cards will either favour working with, or against, the previously drawn cards - streak enhancement. The envelope will be designed to replicate a fair proportion of weightings such that the overall return on the game is exactly as it should be. This would benefit the business, as it would provide for winning streaks that players will remember, and they will have many of these streaks to remember! To compensate, there will be long losing streaks to balance the return.
This would also work on slots, and would explain certain "patterns" that seem to repeat, such as on 5 reel drive, there is a very marked run of some 30 or so spins without a single win on any of the 9 lines, but a scatter win or two hits around the middle of the run. Much of the rest of the time, the slot hits something small on nearly every other spin, and occasionally something big.
On the Thunderstruck slots, it seems that you either hit lots of scatters, or lots of wins, mostly small. This leads to many bonus rounds being void of any wins except for a couple of hits on two scatters. Very occasionally, a bonus round hits at the changeover, and leads to many hits and a big total - just seems everything comes together. There is also the possibility of a big total from just one very big hit in one of the free spins, which will pretty much be the entire contribution. Bonus rounds starting from 4 scatters seem poorer yielding than those started by three.
There is also the question of why the previous hand is saved, and why a bad run thus continues even the next day when you log in and play on from that last hand the previous day. This last hand COULD be used to continue the streak weighting, although there is no proof it has such a use. The last hand is stored on the server, and is not just localy stored as the last state - indeed the server subjects play to a delay for "refreshing state" just so that it can recover and display the last spent hand, yet, MG claim they took a short cut with the doubling game because they said players did not welcome a delay while a second transaction resolved the players choice of card - why is one unnecessary delay OK, but another needs a short cut work around?

 

[vinylweatherman]

Five

Guess what

 

[Slotster!]

Unbelievable!

I'm really starting to wonder about the randomness... and if you'd have made the same hits at 9 per spin etc...

 

[vinylweatherman]

Unbelievable!

I'm really starting to wonder about the randomness... and if you'd have made the same hits at 9 per spin etc...

Very odd, I am having nowhere near 150,000 spins between hits, more like 15,000!

All these have been betting ONE COIN, as is the case for the older video slots (5 Reel Drive). Seems the Rams are hitting as often as the 5 Cop Cars do on that game.
It would not matter if I was spinning at 9, for despite the Rams, I am down on the session this tournament. I also had a set of wild hammers in a bonus round, which pays pretty much the same as a 5 Ram start.

KK bets low, and claims to make a long term profit on MG slots - there certainly does seem to be an advantage in microbetting. If the outcome was independent of bet amount, it should return the same at higher bets, however for a bet of 1-80 instead of 18p I would need 10x the bankroll. The variance at 18p seems to be around the 200 range, so it would take a deposit of 2000 to run this at 1-80, and risking 20,000 to run the slot at 18. Such risks are being reserved for the Grand Privvy $50,000 tournament first prize in May - I do NOT want to end up broke before that starts!
Apart from the gargantuan first prize, it has a live scoreboard, and is firmly in my sights. I will probably go for the runner up $4,000 prizes unless the situation in the US leaves the field clear for us rest of worlders