Question Why would a 'random style' slot be compensated?

[jasonuk]

Talking of bookies you've just reminded me of that Mega Pots Bar X Gold game

It was a 'random' game but each of the 5 reels had progressive pot values above it, and out of curiousity I pondered 'does that mean Reel 1 has to pay out by £100, Reel 2 by £200, Reel 3 by £300, Reel 4 by £400 and Reel 5 by £500' and it turned out that was exactly how it worked!

How was that classed as a 'random' game when the pot values HAD to pay by their limit? (granted they could obviously pay quite early below their limit but I believe there was still a minimum amount it had to build to)

I've touched on this topic a few times both here and on DIF, but live jackpots are a law unto themselves. The

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(see 5.12 of Category C or 5.9 of Category B2 or B3/B4), but the rules are surprisingly flexible:

• The jackpot value must be displayed at all times
• The jackpot can be triggered in two ways - by a random outcome in the game, or by reaching a pre-determined trigger limit (which must not be "predictable" to the player)
• The live jackpot cannot increase faster than the staked amounts.
• The value of the live jackpot "shall not influence the chance of achieving a win within the game" (outside the live jackpot, otherwise it's conflicting with the pre-determined trigger clause).
• Crucially, for category C only, there is a clause "The chance of randomly winning the pot must not be changed in relation to its value" - but this is missing from B2 and B3/B4.

As you can see, it doesn't actually regulate much - and as with any stored value mechanic, both sides can play the game for their benefit. Providers make their jackpots increasingly deceptive, players learn how they work and formulate ways to take the value out.

<edit>While reading DIF, I remembered that I put together a nasty "random" maths model using jackpots a couple of years ago - see

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</edit>

It was never in the help file about when the pots had to come out by or when they could come out.

Of course for those in the know these were great money makers. But the poor fuckers who genuinely believed they had a chance at getting the pots out at any time in reality never had a chance as the programming wouldn’t allow it.

Disgraceful really. Another example of how random really isn’t random unless it is explained clearly.

Yup, and this is where things get messy because people's natural instinct is to assume everything is true random. In the modern era, I doubt there are many machines that true random - because old school slot design is considered "boring".

The chance of someone winning the jackpot early won't be zero because the technical standards mandate that, but how close to zero is the golden question!

(cont)

 

[jasonuk]

whereas the third one along, Ripoff Shit Twilight Bloke Vampire Whose Name I've Forgotten, we'll call him Gerald, was quite a flat and more protracted affair.

Everyone forgets Michael, even Stormcraft did when they re-released the Microgaming OST for Immortal Romance with 9 of the 10 tracks.

However that pales into comparison to what we have now, games that are pitched as random, and somehow meet the legal definition of it (or at least, the regulatory definition), but in actual fact 'build up' their RTP over time depending on funds invested.

This was always a problem with compensated games which were inherently designed to 'store value' and were vulnerable to all sorts of fuckery, or even simple malfunctions like the battery backed RAM failing (or unscrupulous operators deliberately resetting it), so to introduce that kind of nonsense into the world of random games gets two thumbs down from me.

It's a substantial double-edged sword, stored value mechanics can provide for much more exciting games - but has a big caveat that people need to understand what they are getting into.

The problem is there's very little regulation about it, so while game mechanics are explained in the game rules - players often don't realise the implication of it:

• Frequently lowered RTP in the early spins - which is not factored into TRTP calculations.
• The inducement to keep playing because of the stored value - Kingmaker and Monopoly Megaways were evil for this.
• Some features are either inaccessible (locked behind progress markers) or virtually impossible to win (e.g. "random" jackpots).

To give you a real world example of the fuckery that can happen, a multiplayer game - now discontinued - had a jackpot feature that was copied from another operator but configured differently. This jackpot would trigger on average once per day, however the game rules would indicate this would increase over time until won.

The two pieces of information that most players didn't realise however was:

• how piss-poor the probability curve was in the first 20 hours (it was documented but in an obscure place).
• that the jackpot must be won within 24 hours, rather than on average 24 hours - a crucial detail.

This room operated for a few hours per day, so you can start to see the potential problems here, and sure enough, the probability curve didn't take into account the availability of the room - and thus when it opened the next day the jackpot jumped from "40%" (of progress on the meter, the actual odds are obviously much lower) to 100%... and promptly dropped on the first game...

... and again... and again... and again... for more than three months. Then it had a natural win and shook off the curse for a bit, only to gravitate back towards the same problem a couple of months later.

So your headline jackpot was basically unwinnable (e.g. 1 in 200 for the entire session) once it had been won on that first game. No wonder it shut down a year later ?

 

[PMKFRUITPRO]

I've touched on this topic a few times both here and on DIF, but live jackpots are a law unto themselves. The

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

(see 5.12 of Category C or 5.9 of Category B3/B4), but the rules are surprisingly flexible:

• The jackpot value must be displayed at all times
• The jackpot can be triggered in two ways - by a random outcome in the game, or by reaching a pre-determined trigger limit (which must not be "predictable" to the player)
• The live jackpot cannot increase faster than the staked amounts.
• The value of the live jackpot "shall not influence the chance of achieving a win within the game" (outside the live jackpot, otherwise it's conflicting with the pre-determined trigger clause).

As you can see, it doesn't actually regulate much - and as with any stored value mechanic, both sides can play the game for their benefit. Providers make their jackpots increasingly deceptive, players learn how they work and formulate ways to take the value out.




Yup, and this is where things get messy because people's natural instinct is to assume everything is true random. In the modern era, I doubt there are many machines that true random - because old school slot design is considered "boring".

The chance of someone winning the jackpot early won't be zero because the technical standards mandate that, but how close to zero is the golden question!

(cont)

I’m not sure if you’re saying I’m wrong in suggesting that certain pots could not come out early but I can assure you that this WAS the case.

You had zero chance of getting a pot out that wasn’t between the parameters clearly set in the code.

Pot 5 on the original chip could only come out between £400 and £500. And £490-£500 on the later chip.

On any release people had NO chance of it coming out before £400.

Have you seen or played the game in question?

This is why an army of players who knew this info were running around checking pots 24/7.

 

[jasonuk]

I’m not sure if you’re saying I’m wrong in suggesting that certain pots could not come out early but I can assure you that this WAS the case.

You had zero chance of getting a pot out that wasn’t between the parameters clearly set in the code.

I am, and I'm not. I'm saying it cannot be literally zero because that would break 5.9 of the technical standards - but 1 in a million also isn't zero.

So in your case, they would set the trigger limit between £400/£490 and £500 (to make it "unpredictable"), and then the genuinely random chance would be so astronomically small you might have seen it happen once in the lifespan of the game - if you're lucky.

Same argument that a SWP machine must be winnable in every game round by a suitably skilled player - you just need to find the one person that has superhuman powers!

 

[PMKFRUITPRO]

Well that maybe the rules. But it didn’t apply to this game.

Of course the obv response would be just because you didn’t see it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Or I’m sure that’s what the providers would say.

People knew how these games worked. It couldn’t happen.

 

[jasonuk]

I don't think we're disagreeing here although my last statement in hindsight is a bit clumsy.

I know there's plenty of corruption and/or alleged corruption going on, but that would be a really weird hill for a provider to die on when they can set it to some astronomically small number and get the same effect but legally. It's entirely plausible (and probably likely) that anecdotally nobody has observed it in the wild.


As one final comment on this theme, I did go back through my notes from the old jackpot mentioned earlier - given it's unusual to see jackpot odds quoted anywhere.

For the initial level (i.e. immediately after triggering a jackpot), the odds were around ten billion to one for a modest amount of money - the euromillions jackpot is 70 times more likely than that!

 

[k6kaysix]

Ah yes I forgot about the sneaky software update that made sure you weren't going to get a sneaky early drop any more, although the game was pretty much dead by that point anyway

Someone did tell me that despite those in the know making pretty much risk free thousands out of the game overall it still made the bookies a profit which is probably why it lasted on the terminals as long as it did

 

[k6kaysix]

Dodgy pie gamble odds at work here! (Watch from around 6:40 onwards)

Saves £300, gambles £62 to £124 no problems so far

Then look at the odds for the 25 Free Spins wheel coming in vs the £200 cash gamble, the lose segment is far greater on the spins side despite the fact you can win no more than £200 from them due to the £500 cap!

 

[jasonuk]

Dodgy pie gamble odds at work here! (Watch from around 6:40 onwards)

This is one of those where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

I've noticed with some online slots that the game server only responds with win or lose, the elaboration of that result is left to the game client (and naturally just misses at every opportunity). So I'd expect the (heavily tested) game server to be accurate, even if the graphical interface is once again making mistakes.

 

[moff95]

I have noticed on several games lately that, for example Inspired, have the most crooked gamble going. Light and Wonder are a close 2nd. It is clear the outcome of the win isn’t the same likelihood as what is being displayed on the screen. For example a 66.67% chance of landing in the win section is more often than not, landing in the red. Meaning the odds are different to what’s been displayed on the screen.
Dodgy

 

[moff95]

This is one of those where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

I've noticed with some online slots that the game server only responds with win or lose, the elaboration of that result is left to the game client (and naturally just misses at every opportunity). So I'd expect the (heavily tested) game server to be accurate, even if the graphical interface is once again making mistakes.

I have a video of the £100 horsey fortune, where I have a gamble on the left dial for £54 to £81 which landed… then in my haste I gambled the £81 for the £100 but I noticed the size of the dial never changed accordingly, and the gamble somewhat unsurprisingly landed in the red.. so the odds of the gamble winning would’ve meant the gamble being around £108. Inspired in my opinion will do anything to be dodgy… there has been talk of manipulation on those gambles so wouldn’t surprise me if there was a deeper meaning..