TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Plays the Slot Machines

called tex Stuff Plays the Slot Machines. As the title suggests, Chris and I sit down to talk about slot machine operation. How did these devices work? From the mechanical devices up to the digital age. I hope you enjoy today. We're going to take a gamble, and yes I made a jokey joke. We're gonna talk about slot machines today. Actually high rolling really doesn't have anything to do with it, but I just I needed something there. So here's a

quick question. Have you ever have you ever played a slot machine, like an actual like a real life, for real z slot machine. Yes, no, you have not know. I have played a video game slot machines on my computer and my portable devices, but not for money in a casino somewhere. I'm even in a non casino I played. I've played pacinko before, I have played slot machines. Um, it's now grad the slot machines I've played were the

more um, the more modern ones. The slot of your machines, Yeah, the ones that are not dependent upon mechanical operation but on electrical or computerized actually all of the computerized operation. Um. But but we're gonna talk a little bit about all the different kinds of slot machines, not just the not just the computerized ones. So for those of you who have never seen one or don't know what we're talking about,

the slot machine is a gambling machine. And uh, typically a slot machine has, especially the physical ones have three or more reels upon which are pictures. And the pictures could be anything, but you know, the stereotypical one has like lemons and liberty bell cherries, a bar, you know, and when three of those pictures line up, or there's

some interesting configuration of those pictures, you win money. Uh And uh, you know, you might wonder what's the connection between the pictures and the cash, and that gets really interesting, particularly when we talk about the modern slot machines that are in casinos today. But to start, we should probably talk about you know, why do slot machines even exist. Well,

they're really for the casual gamer. It's funny to think about because, uh, you know, our our audience is probably thinking of casual games is something like Bejewel, the match three type games or Marble shooting games. There are several different variations of those versus uh, you know, the the role playing games or the first person shooters. But it replies to two games in real life too. In terms

of casinos. When we're talking about serious gaming, we're talking about the card games that require strategy, um, roulette tables, craps tables, Yeah, anything that has sort of a high barrier really, because they can be very intimidating to a person who's never played before. You walk up and you're like, I don't understand. There's so many things going on with this and so many rules. I'm not sure where to start or what's going on. Yeah, I'll admit, you know,

that's one of the reasons I don't play poker. Uh it's not because not just because I'm a terrible liar, but I can never remember which hand is which. I know you know that there are a certain combo, but I don't remember where they rank in terms of which one is higher than others, and high card pair three of a kind to pair. No, I'm just I'm not going to go through the whole thing. But yeah, I

mean there's there's flush. Yeah, you have to know something about gambling if you want to go to the craps table or if you want to, uh to play high stakes poker, But you really don't have to know that much to play a slot machine. You put you put a coin in the machine, you pull the handle on the reels click into place, and you either win or you don't. And and there are two things that make that game very attractive to people who might otherwise not gamble.

One is that it's easy. Like you said, it's it's there's not much to it. Yeah, it's it's and it's got a nice attractive sort of appeal to it in that when it wins, it's a very visceral experience, right, there's bells going off and coins are falling, and it's a great, you know, way of attracting attention. Well, hey,

you know that's that's one of those things too. I mean when you win, when you really win, and the bells go off, the lights flash everybody around you knows that you won, so everybody turns around to look at you, and there's that thing of hey, awesome. And the second big attraction to it is that it has a very

low betting point for you know, typical machines do. Anyway, you can find machines that have much higher requirements, like a hundred dollars per play, but the vast majority of them tend to be cents, fifty cents, maybe a dollar and uh. And so if when when each individual bet doesn't have to be huge, it attracts the kind of gamers who would be otherwise disinclined to play a game where it's twenty five bucks per play, especially when they

don't fully understand the rules. So they and and they's turned out that these things have become huge money makers for casinos. There was a report. We have a great article on How Stuff Works about how slot machines work. I really do highly recommend this because animals illustrations, it's it's an exhaustive approach to health slot machines work. And uh. In that article, it's revealed that something like six of gaming profits in the United States stem from slot machines.

And when we get to the point where we talk about payback percentages. That amount of money is going to blow your mind. Yeah, and and those things are changing too as as we speak, because there have been recent developments in the slot machine. I know you're you're going really they've changed slot machines. How how changed can they be? They're changing them to where people think that they're going to pay even more in the future. But what we can get into that in a moment, So let's start

about talking about how they work. Will eventually get into things like the odds that are involved with the slot machine, and also the payback percentages, because that's that's the part that the player really is interested in, in the sense of, uh, what, what's the likelihood I'll ever win money using a slot machine. I'll even give you tips on how to pick the right slot machine, Okay, because I'm I'm I'm that kind of guy. Well, I would say there are four basic

types of slot machines. This is this is just me making I didn't take these four from somebody else. So I would say the first one would be the purely mechanical machine. Yes, this is the the old slot machine, the original slot machines that used mechanical gears and levers

to to execute its function. Yeah. Yeah, those showed up in uh in the eighteen eighties, yeah, um or eighteen hundreds anyway, late eighteen hundreds and UM you know that they THENYME evolved into an electrical or electronic slot machines where these mechanical elements are working in tandem with electronics to help control things. And then you have the you know, a digital slot machine where the pictures are now on screens rather than reels. Yeah, you can also have a

digital slot machine that still uses reels. Uh, it's just it's um, the all the workings are behind the scenes digital, but the ones that you know, what you're looking as a physical representation. It looks like an analog system because you've got these physical reels rolling around. But that's you know, that's really just for show. It's really just to show you what the final result of your spin was. And now I think we're moving into the completely computerized version

of UM. But yeah, let's start with the mechanical one because I think, in a way to me, that one is the most fascinating simply because it's got UH gears and and police and brand and there's a block and tackle and there's a little man inside. But yeah, there's a little little bearded man. I need to check my notes. I think I think I think we realized that in a previous podcast that all technology in the nineteenth century was ultimately powered by bearded old men. That was the

mechanical turk. Yeah, that was That was our hoax podcast. So we're gonna talk about the mechanical ones. Yeah, if you were to open up a mechanical slot machine, first of all, don't do it in a casino because I will get you in trouble. Yeah, if you even look like you're han a mess with the slot machines there, well they were, they were watching you when he walked in. Very large people will come and very very firmly but

gently suggests you high tail it out of there. But no, if you were to open up a mechanical slot machine, you would see the reels. Now those are those, the spinning elements that have all the pictures on them, are connected to a metal shaft and it's the central metal cheft supports the reels and allows them to spin. Uh, not that kind of shaft what you talk about. So

um just talking about I can take it. So these the reels are actually connected to some notched disks, and these notched discs are what allow the reels to spin around the the the shaft, the shaft the and it also stops the reels from spinning. And I'll get into

that in a minute. But anyway, it's got notches. Kind of think about how a bicycle wheel when you look at the central part of the wheel, it has those notches where the chain uh connects and pulls the wheel, so it turns the wheel, you know I'm talking about. So it's same sort of thing. Now that main shift shaft has a there's a secondary cheft that has something on it called a kicker. Now, this kicker is an element that that hits these uh, these notched disks and

gets the real suspinning. And the kicker is actually attached to a spring. So when you put a coin into a slot machine, a coin detector first of all realizes that you put a coin in. Hey there's a coin, yeah, because otherwise you could operate the slot machine whether you had put a coin in or not, which would be not profitable at all to the casino. Also, if you want, nothing would come out because people would have been playing

that already. But it releases a break that's on that level, right, So the brake gets released, and once the brake is released, you can pull the lever down. This is these are the old old machine we're talking about, the purely mechanical slot machines. Now that that pulls a hook that pulls back the kicker, and that compresses a spring. So once the hook moves past a certain point, it releases the kicker.

The spring makes the kicker move forward, and the kicker hits those notches that are attached to the reels, that makes the reels begin to spin. Now, also attached to that kicker are three stoppers. And the stoppers are these these uh, these these pieces of material that can go into the notches and stop the reel from spinning. It's like putting a stick through a spoke in a bike tire as it's spinning. It's gonna make the bike tire

stop spinning. It is not, however, unlike the documentary Indiana Jones and Last Crusade going to cause you to flip forward. I was going to say, don't try that at home unless your insurance is paid. Happening and you you don't hold us responsible for whatever happened. There was actually a great episode of MythBusters where they show that that particular stunt would not be possible, that it would not make you flip forward. It would make you crash, but it

wouldn't make you flip. So anyway, Yeah, the stoppers insert into the notches and stop the reels and the old mechanical ones. This was all purely by chance. The way that these stoppers would come in, and uh, the way that you would find out if you want, is that certain notches within that notched disk are deeper than others. All right, So if the first stopper happens to go into one of these deep notches, that deep notch corresponds with a jackpot symbol on the reel, So that real stops.

And then you get one of the jackpot symbols. So let's say it's a seven. That's a very common one. So seven stops, yes, awesome, Well, that particular stopper moves a little bit to the left and the second stopper inserts into a notch. Now, if the second stopper inserts into the I can jackpot notch, the second one with the seven, that's again a deeper notch. It moves a little bit to the left, and then you see that a second seven has stopped, and you think, oh gay,

so close, and then the third stopper inserts. Now, if the third stopper inserts into the jackpot slot again, it's a little further in than the other notches. Uh. The the third and final seven shows up and you think, I win. And meanwhile, the stoppers also connected to a little lever system that opens up a trap door where all the coins are, and then the coins fall through the trap door and land in your hot little gambling hands. But we're all over the floor. We're all over the floor.

So if however, any of those stoppers hit a different notch, they will not go so far in as to allow that that doorway, that trap door to open. And so uh, anything that is not a jackpot would not pay out. And you could have different systems, uh, you know, different levels of complexity for your your standard slot machine. But the old old old slot machines essentially had one payout ability and that was it. And if it didn't land on just that configuration, then it would just keep your

money and you have to keep playing. Yeah, no, Um, we were talking about casual games. These how these being casual games. The very first slot machines actually used the symbols for playing cards on the three reels UM. The idea of being that it was a system that people understood and probably would feel familiar with. UM. But it was a guy named Charles Faye who who came up with a machine called the Liberty bell and then he added a symbol of the Liberty bell um UM and

that was it was sort of an experiment. Really, He's trying to see if this would catch on, if they could use some boles instead of the traditional playing cards. And as it turned out, it was very very popular, and that's one of the reasons why they moved to the symbol version of this UM. And they also introduced some other, uh, some other innovations to about the way

it would work UM. But Stephen Mille also added more symbols and UM also worked on making it smaller and uh you know, as time has gone on, they have become easier to put into casinos and other places. UM. Jonathan and I went to uh UM Hotel and and c E s in two thousand and eight, and uh, you know, the hotel was sort of like any other hotel, except of course it had slot machines in the in the waiting area, and I was thinking, wow, you know, they'll put these things anywhere at the airport too, but

they're they're smaller and easier to fit, you know. And then it's sort of like computers. They over time they figured out ways to make them more refined and easy. You're yea, there's a particular slot machine in the Vegas airport and I can't even remember. I just remember every time I go there, I hear the same phrase over

and over because I'm always it. There is wheel of Fortune, which I do hear over and over, but there's another one that it has like a like an old prospector type voice, like that kind of thing, and it just goes over and over and over again. And the problem is that I always get to the airport well in advance of when my plane is leading, so I get to listen to it until I am ready to um to just to screen like a crazy person, which by the way, I do not recommend you do in an airport, uh,

particularly in an airport in Las Vegas. I's gonna say, how how did you find that out? Anyway, moving on, so so anyway, Yeah, that's that's that's the mechanical one. They're literally gears and levers that stop the reels, and those reels do correspond with payolts, and it all has to do with the actual physical um uh components. Now, once you move on a little bit, it gets a

little more complicated. The first electrical systems were not that different from the mechanical ones, right, the but instead of having these physical stoppers go into notches and that determine whether or not a trap door opened, they would detect an electrical connection. So the the notched wheel or the wheel that's connected to the reels, has little electrical contacts on it, and when the contacts line up in a

certain way, they create a circuit. And depending upon the circuit, that tells the machine if it's a payout or not a payout. And this is interesting to me because it reminds me a lot of the Enigma machine because you think about the Enigma machine, which was actually it was a ciphering device, right, And the way the Enigma machine worked is that you would pick a certain letter, you would you would set the reels of the Enigma machine to a very specific setting, which you know the person

receiving the message would also have to do. And you would type in your message and depending upon the way the connectors went, when you pressed say the letter A, then an electrical signal was sent to the first reel, goes in one side of that reel, UH comes out the other corresponding to a different letter, which goes into the second reel, that goes out of the second reel

corresponding to a different letter to the third reel. And so the ultimate letter that you would get from your cipher would be completely different from the letter you typed. And because there were so many combinations, it was really tricky to break that code. Well, the funny thing is is slot machines when they were using these electrical systems were very similar. So an electrical current passes through one side of the reel. Let's say that it's a bar,

and then the second one is also a bar. So the electrical current content us all the way through the first reel. The two contacts between the two reels are are touching one another, so then it continues on to the third reel, which is at a blank, so you have bar bar blank. It hits that third reel, there's

no corresponding contact. The machine detects that it was a failed spin, and you win no money or you win whatever it is that that two bars and and right there might be there might still be an electrical current. But then what would happen is that would be directed to a different sensor on the far side of this system.

So that way, uh, you know, there might be one sensor that, when it's lit up, says this dude just made himself a pretty penny, and there might be another center sensor that says this dude just made some decent money, and there might be one. So this dude needs to go and has some drinks at the bar because he has not one a darn scent. And U Yeah, that's

the essentially the electrical one. But other other than that, other than the the electrical component where it's trying to make that circuit, it was very similar to the mechanical one. Now eventually you got to once that would use an electric motor to spin the reels as opposed to the the the gears or the spring really I should say,

because the kicker was spring loaded. Um, there was something else that that we didn't talk about as far as the basic functionality of slot machines in general, Um, the wheels spin all the same time when you begin the game. However, they don't stop at the same time. If you've never seen a slot machine, you'll see the reels stop in order. So, uh, real, number one will stop and the other two are still spinning, and we all number two will stop, and so you

have an idea. You know, you may have thought if you hadn't seen one of these when Jonathan was talking about the sevens popping up one after the other, Um, well you know, aren't they all stopping at the same time. No, they're not. So wheels one and two have stopped, but re is still spinning. What will it be? Yeah? It helps helps build suspense and it and it encourages people to keep playing. Yeah. You you might think that there

was a mechanical reason for this. It's not. It's completely psychological. Yeah, it's it's so that it will convince people to keep playing. For one thing, near missus can make a person determined to play longer. Right, So, something that looks like it you almost hit it, like you hit uh, you know, you almost hit three bars. You actually hit three blanks.

But it's the three blanks directly above three bars, and you think, if I close, I just I gotta keep playing, And so yeah, it does keep people playing longer, which and we'll get into more about the psychological elements later. I thought near Mrs meant your wife was standing next to you. Your wife's over at the Nichols slots. So the next you have the photo electric cells version of UM of a slot machine. Now this is similar to the electrical detection systems, but in seven electrical circuit what

happens is the little um notched wheels. Instead of being notched wheels, they have uh these discs have little holes in them and a light source shines from one side of the slot machine inside the slot machine. You can't see it from the outside, but shines through, And if the reels are lined up properly, then a sensor on the other side of the slot machine detects it and that's what lets the slot machine know whether or not

to give a payout. So of course, if the discs are not aligned quite right, then no light is going to be passing through and that ends up being a miss and so or it could be a hit. I mean, if you had it where all the different positions had light except the one winning position. You could have that be the hit. It all depends on, you know, the

actual manufacturer. But the the vast majority of slot machines you will run into today, assuming you're not going through like some sort of museum or curiosity type thing, are computerized slot machines. And these are absolutely fascinating to me because ultimately, the mechanical elements of this device, all the motors, the reels, the spinning, have nothing to do with whether

or not you win or lose. In other words, the old mechanical one, the notches, corresponded with those those pictures that you saw in the reels, and so in a way, you could say, the way that the pictures line up determine whether or not you won. But the computerized ones, the the whether you won or lost is determined the moment you press a button or pull lever. And and here's why. Well, yeah, I mean it's really the pictures

are just for the people. Yeah, the pictures really just tell you kind of the The pictures are just a physical representation of what the result was of when you press the button or pulled the lever. Well, guys, I hate to break in here in the middle of a podcast, but we all know the house always wins, so let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. The secret is random number generators, and we've talked about random number generators and how they're not. Yeah, we did a full

episode on random number generators. It turns out it's really hard to build a true random number generator because computers depend upon algorithms, and algorithms have set rules, and when you have set rules, it's really hard to create something that's random. You can create something that is complex, and you might have a very long, long, long string of results that appear to be non repeating, but if you were to go long enough, you might start picking up patterns.

There are random number generator systems that depend very much on outside systems that we do not control. Therefore they feel more random. For example, there are random number generators that generate numbers based upon weather conditions. So depending upon the barometric pressure and the temperature and things of that nature, a number will be generated. And because we don't necessarily have control over that, it's a very chaotic system and

the numbers are It sounds weird, but more random than others. Well, and you wouldn't necessarily know it in the in the bowels of a casino because they don't have any windows, right, very most of them. It's very important, no windows, no clocks. The so the the the way these systems work is they generate a random number through some means, and the number tends to be huge, like within the billions in

most cases. So your odds are not exactly stellar. Well, it has nothing that doesn't really have a whole lot to do with it, and I'll explain why. But you you've got this random number which is generated the moment you press the button or pull the lever. So you put a coin into this machine, you push the button, you have either one or loss already, the reels that are spinning. That's just for show because you the machine already knows if you want or lost, because what happens

is it's constantly generating these random numbers. And the lever is also just for show. These days, you don't need a lever, no, that's why they all they have buttons. Most people I see like this, the quote unquote serious gamblers just press the button like they'll they'll just load up the the slot machine with credits and then you

just start pressing the button to stop things. But the way it works is that it has this big random number and then it divides that random number by some other number, and it all depends on what the machine is, who the manufacturer is, what the number is. Tends to be some sort of factor of of like sixteen six four something like that, and uh, you end up dividing the number by that. You know that you divide the random number by the non random number. It's always you're

always dividing by that. You take the remainder and then you apply that remainder to a virtual reel. So it's it's like the physical reels in that it has a certain number of slots if you will, but it doesn't there's no physical representation of it. This virtual reel is mapped to the payouts. And so let's say that it lands on on real number UM fourteen, and then through connecting all that uh through the system, it could say, all right, well, when it's on fourteen, that is a

payout of five to one. So if you put a dollar in, you won five dollars. Uh. That's essentially how it works. Now that virtual real could be pretty large and could be mapped to the physical reels in um in a very kind of convoluted way, and ultimately you're going to be able to assign more of those notches in the virtual reel to misses in the the what what looks like misses in the physical reels. So in other words, uh, you know, if you've got sixty four

actually little we'll say thirty two. Let's say you've got thirty two slots in this virtual reel, you could make sure that uh, twenty of them go to missus outright, So then you have the twelve that are going to go to some sort of hit. And then out of those twelve, six of those go to really low payouts, all right, and then the six remaining three of those go to medium payouts. And now the three remaining two

of those go to larger payouts, and one goes to Jackpott. So, in other words, you've got a lot more geared toward the geared toward the misses than the hits. And that's a very simplified way of saying it. Because the virtual reel actually adds way more options for the casino because you you would have a virtual reel for each physical reel.

Then you you suddenly made that much more complicated. In fact, the odds of of hitting the jackpot can be in the hundreds of thousands, like around two almost like two d fifty thousand to one, Like you would have to play, you know, a quarter of a million times before you would necessarily not necessarily hit it. But I mean that's just your odds. Like your odds are two times out of two thousand you will not hit the jackpot, right, So, uh, it's a good thing to good way to think about

it if you're going in and playing these games. And that's just one version of it. I mean, it all depends on how many slots this virtual reel has. That determines what and how many of those are geared towards uh losses. That's what determines the odds. So the funny thing is that means that all those reels that are spinning. This also applies for video slot machines. By the way, all those reels that are spinning is just for show. Has nothing to do with whether or not you won

are lost. Uh so uh there there. That's really again that psychological element that draws people into play. What depends what what determines it is the random number. And there's because it's random, and because it's generating millions of numbers over the course of a second, there's no way to know when to press the button or pull the lever because there's no way to predict when that random number is going to hit the right number for you to

get a payoff. On top of that, every single spin is random, Like every every single second that goes by, you've got all these random numbers being generated. So hitting a jackpot on a machine doesn't mean that that machine is not going to pay out for another you know, month or three months or year, whatever. That has nothing to do with it, just like losing and a spin doesn't mean that your next spin is more likely to win. It's random, so you have just as equal a chance

to win or not win on each subsequent spin. It also means that if you were to ever hit this and it does that thing where the payout line we didn't even talk about payoutlines. A payoutline is a line that goes a physical line, usually, although on video it's a it's represented by a graphic, but it's a line that goes across the slot machine indicating this is where the symbol needs to be in order for you to win.

All right, So on one of these computerized machines, when the real stop and the bar bar bar is just above the payout line, that has nothing to do with anything like it looks like you were close, but that it's meaningless. Uh, it's only if they were all three on the payout line. That would just indicate that that random number it was in your face, eiver from that particular play. So in other words, you have that psychological

kick to keep playing because you were so close. But when you're talking about random numbers, close doesn't mean anything. So uh, that's that's the basic way that these things work. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't odds and there aren't ways to improve your odds. Um. So for example, uh, if if you're if you're real, virtual real is one is sixty slots long. Here's the actual number I find

finally found it. Two. Your odds of winning the jack putterre one and two, assuming that jackpot is assigned only one entry in those virtual reels. Uh, that's that's not great. But each slot machine has something called a payback percentage. Payback percentage tells you how much money a machine gene is going to pay back to the player over the course of the machines lifetime, So you might think, well,

what's the percentage? Because a lot of the games in in Vegas and in Atlantic City and other places where gambling is legal are notoriously weighted towards the house as they as they have to be, because otherwise the house wouldn't exist. There wouldn't be a business if it weren't profitable. So a lot of the games you'll you'll play in a casino are weighted so that the house wins more

frequently than it loses, so it makes money. Well. Slot machines the payback percentage usually there's a legal threshold that they must meet, which could be anything around seventy for example, so it says that seventy five percent the money that you pay into a machine will be paid out over

its lifetime. Um most machines in in gambling institutions, especially places like in Vegas, are much higher than that, like or higher, meaning nine of the money paid into them gets paid out over the course of that machine's life. It sounds like great odds, right, and why you would think why is that even? Why would you even have

it that high. Well, if you if you lowered those payback percentages, if you had machines that had lower percentages, then people would realize that your machines don't pay out is frequently. That's called tight. Machine is playing tight if it doesn't do a lot of payouts. Well, if Bob's casino down the street has loose slots, meaning that they pay out more frequently, you're gonna go down to Bob's.

You're not gonna waste time at this other casino where all the slot machines are tight, right, I mean, why would you so? In order to be competitive, these casinos tend to have payout percentages that are at nine or higher. Now, I need to stress this. That does not mean that you will win nine of the time you play. What that means is a over the course of its life, of the money it it takes in will be put

back out to players. That could mean that you walk up to a slot machine dollar slot machine, let's say, and you play that dollar slot machine ninety times and you don't win anything, and you walk off, and someone else comes up and plays that dollar slot machine ten times, and on the tenth one they win ninety dollars. Well, they just that's so that nine could be paid out in small payoffs, small wins or big jackpots. And uh it's and it's again it's like an average over the

lifetime of a machine. So on any given day a machine might be playing a little tight or a little loose, because again it's depending upon random numbers. Uh. And the way you adjust those percentages is again those virtual reels I was talking about. If more of the virtual reels correspond to winning combinations, then the machine will be looser than a machine that had as fewer winning combinations. Well, you can't tell that as a person just standing there

looking at a machine. Uh, there's no way of knowing whether or not the virtual reels within this machine are favoring you or not. So so that's that's the real trick. But there are little hints I can give you to help increase your chances of winning if if you want to, if you want to hear them, sure, However, keep in mind that your mileage may vary. Yes, these are all generalities, nothing specific, and you need to keep in mind that there.

First of all, there is no system that will let you win at a particular slot machine because it's dependent upon random numbers, and when you have a random number, generator systems do not apply. So if you've ever heard about a surefire system, no fail system for winning at a slot machine, it's uh, it's a it's probably it's safety. Bullpucky is a good phrase to use to describe that. Um. However, there are approaches you can take to playing slot machines

that will increase your odds of winning. First of all, in general, and all again, all of these are generalities, not rules, so there are exceptions. In general, the higher the amount of money to play the slot machine, the higher the payback percentages. So a nickel slot machine might have a nine payout and a quarter slops. She might have ninety two, and a fifty cent might have four, and a dollar might be five, dollar might be ninety seven.

You can actually find machines with payoff percentages of up to so here's the other thing. Though, Once you get over five dollars, then the percentage jumps are smaller. So in other words, the jump from a nickel to twenty five cents might be fairly significant, but by the time you to five dollars, the jump from five dollars to

say a hundred dollars would not be as significant. So uh, it's still better than the lower priced slot machines, and that the payback percentage is higher, but it's not so much higher that you should just immediately go to the hundred dollar slots. Chris and I have a bit more to say about slot machines. We're gonna push our luck in just a minute, but first let's take another quick

break to thank our sponsor. So rule number one and again this is again rule in the sense of just general guideline, is to look for the slot machines that are going to be priced at a level that you feel comfortable with based upon the bank roll you bring in with you to play, but are the at the highest level of that that comfortable scale. So, in other words, if you just want to play all day, the nickel slots are fine, you're just not gonna get a lot

of payback on that. Um, If you have a bankroll that's a sizeable nature and you want to play five dollar slots, you are more likely to see a payback from those machines. It's not a guarantee. Second, UH, machines tend to be looser in places where it's going to inspire other people to play. So, for example, in high traffic areas, uh, that's a good place to go because they are their places where people are are walking by

frequently and it draws a lot of attention. If you see slot machines that are on like a raised uh diets like, like there's a little platform, there's like five or six slot machines up there that look at Yeah, those also tend to be a little more loose than the ones that are in the middle of the casino. You want to find places that like our our near

say a coffee bar or or just a bar. In general, those tend to be pretty good too, because again, people who are taking a break start hearing that and they want to start playing. So those tend to be a little looser than the ones in the rest of the casino. Places that are generally tighter include entrance ways because if the machines over toward the entrance are playing loose, people never really gravitate away. They never leave that entrance, so they're also likely to leave once they get to a

certain point. So casinos don't want people to leave, so you need to you know, they're usually a little further in, but there in further in towards high traffic areas also restrooms. Not necessarily the best slot machines near restrooms, because uh, what happens there is that you might be with a group of people someone used to go to the bathroom. So you think, oh, well, i'll learn the bathroom. I'll

just play the slot machine a few times. Well, if you have, you know, if you're gonna be there playing anyway, then you can make that slot machine play a little tighter because you know that people are gonna be playing it anyway, because it happens to be near the restrooms. Um.

Also anything that's close to other games. So if it's slot machines that are close to say blackjack tables or roulette or craps, or it's slot machines that are close to say a sports betting area, probably not geared to win as frequently because the casinos don't necessarily want attention

pulled away from those games. So you want to find slot machines that are not close to other games, they're not close to restrooms, they are in high traffic areas, possibly near a coffee bar or just a bar, and uh and try those, and try the higher denominations the ones that are you're still comfortable with, but are higher denominations than saying nickel slots or quarter slots. The other rule is that, and again not really rule. The other guideline is that not all the machines in that area

are going to play loose. So a good idea is to start playing a machine for a little while, and if it just feels like that machine is not playing loose at all, you may want to switch to a machine that's close by, because some machines in that area are going to be playing more loosely than others because they the casinos want people to win because it inspires

more people to play. And keep in mind, even though you might walk away a huge winner, like even if somehow you beat those odds and you win one of those crazy jackpots, over the course of the life of that machine, the casino is going to keep Or even if it's just two percent of the money that's put in there, that's money that's put in there by people like you. It's not money that the casino has put

in there. So the casino, the casino is making money no matter what, right, So so don't feel badly for them when you win a big jackpot because the casino. The casino always wins in the end, always wins. And it's because we're the ones pouring the money into the casinos, not the casinos themselves. So those are the general rules. Um. And again, you could even follow all these rules and you could be playing the smartest possible play and still

not come back with anything. You could you know, lose your entire bank roll because it's again ultimately dependent upon those random number generators. These are just the ways to give you a little bit of an edge when you are playing slot machines. So there is no such thing as a no fail system. Uh. And uh, your mileage may vary. As Chris did say earlier, right right now, of course, going back to uh what Jonathan said about not feeling bad, slot machines pull in about a billion

dollars a day in American casinos. So even when you're doing these big payoffs over the long run, because these slot machines are making casinos major bank Now, when I was talking about the computerized slots, um, this is something I didn't know about. Now there's a major company that makes slot machines. Uh. They're based in Nevada. Believe it or not. UM. It's called International Game Technology and they're they're pretty much considered, if not the leader, one of

the very top leaders and making slot machines UM. And we were talking about loose and type machines. Well, in the past, if you wanted to change the way a machine played, you had to actually get into it. You have to get a slot machine technician to come in. Yeah. Now you know electronic machines, you couldn't automatically control whether it was tight or loose. You had to go change the electronics in the guts of the machine. And if

they started getting dated. Well, that's that's sort of an older one we were We were just talking a minute ago, sort of inadvertently about how they have themed machines, which is pretty common. Properties, entertainment properties and different groups have sponsored machines. And you know, there are themes that your people are familiar with pretty much pretty much like any major UM property you can think of, there's probably a

slot machine that that is tied to that property. And and for some people, the entertainment factor of the slot machine is enough to keep them playing even though even if they're not necessarily winning. Yeah, they might pick a machine that goes along with a TV show that they've watched for years or something like that. Um, you know it's comfortable. But I was reading an article in the Huffington Post by Ron Dicker who was talking about something that I g T is working on, and they are

offering server based slot machines. So basically, the machines themselves are generic, and the casino would be able to control those machines and change the designs on the reels. For example, the virtual reels to a different kind of property, so they wouldn't have to replace the entire machine if you wanted to change from say a Wheel of Fortune machine

to a Transformers machine. I should add also the virtual reels that Chris is talking about are the ones that you see as a player, But virtual slot machines also have the other kind of virtual reels that I was talking about, the ones that even the slot machines that have the physical reels they also have the video slots also have virtual reels that correspond to that random number.

This is important because when virtual slot machines first appeared on the scene, people were suspicious that perhaps these slot machines were fixed in some way, like there was a specific number of plays you would have to play before there was a payout, but that's not the case. They're based on random number generators, just like the machines that have the physical reels are um so there's no difference

in the way they operate on that end. The only real difference is that you've got a screen showing you the symbols as opposed to physical reels, but the whether you win or lose is still based on that random number generator. And this makes sense when you think about it, because if a casino were to introduce is a game that was fixed one you might be able to figure out the system right, so then you could game the system, and two people would not play those games because I mean,

why would you play a game that's fixed. So so it doesn't not it does not make sense for a casino to employ a system that has uh you know that that's that's fixed in its favor beyond just the way the odds work. Yeah. Well, it sort of reminds me in a way of the arcade machines that had

difficulty settings. I've gone to UH to play a game in a convenience store that I played in a pizza partlor parlor and I found it one played way easier than another, and it's simply because the difficulty settings are are you know, changed in that case, and it's it's very much like the tightening or loosening of a slab machine. They're not going to manipulate that on a game by

game basis because there's there's no benefit in doing that. However, these new server machines will let them change the themes of of the machines, and they can also change things like the payouts, So they might change the clientele. For example, older people might play in the mornings, um, you know, because they go to bed earlier, and they might change uh to late night. They might change the casino machines

to higher dollar amounts because a more mature theme. Right whenever, whenever the casino is going to be really busy, I would imagine that's when they would want to get to some of the higher payouts because it would mean that if you have someone hit that perfect random number, that the the the big celebration would be so overwhelming and it would get the attention of a lot more people,

thus inspiring more people to play that. You know, you don't want someone hitting the mega jackpot when the casino is practically deserted, because then there's that advertising aspect is not part of it. Um. Also, there are games that are linked to one another where there's a shared jackpot, a progressive jackpot, in other words, the jackpot itself grows

as more and more people play. Now, from what I understand, UH, the player who wants to try and increase their odds as best as possible probably should just go to the fixed jackpot machines. Um. And also if there is the option that most machines have this where you can play multiple credits at once, So in other words, instead of playing one dollar, you're playing three dollars on a spin, which would increase your jackpot. That's also a smart move.

And while you could play uh, there are some games that allow you to have multiple pay lines, like that pay line is that that horizontal line that we talked about that goes across the machine. You can see when it lines up that you are getting credit for that particular real right. There are other machines that will allow

you to play multiple play lines for multiple credits. So, in other words, there might be diagonals, it might be even more convoluted than that with some of the video machines that I've seen, but in general that means that your payolts tend to be lower. So a lot of the advice I saw was multiple credits are good, multiple pay lines not so good if you're looking for significant payouts. And again keeping in mind, no guarantees. You could walk into a casino, follow all the guidelines and still walk

out penniless. So yeah, they say that, um, these these new machines with the server in the in the back end of the machines basically will increase the take from what you call them customers see no goers gamblers, um. But they also there are also people who are afraid that the gambling addiction that it may cause will also increase UM. So keep in mind that these these games

are very addictive. UM. And you know, if you're the kind of person that that the that might fall for something like this and fall in love with playing it, you know, keep that in mind because, uh, the odds are that you will not end up a winner over time, especially if you find yourself on a warm summer's evening on a trainbound to nowhere. That's one of my favorite songs of all time, and I am not ashamed to

admit it. Alright, So anyway, guys, all right, so that's that's slot machines, the general rules of how they work. And yeah, I feel like there were a lot of things that we didn't even we didn't even get to this fascinating. It's really cool. I mean, you know, again, it's all about the long play. Casinos are all about

the long play. In fact, it's interesting to me when you look at businesses today, how many businesses are very much focused on the short term gain and how that can hurt a business sometimes if they focus on short term gain and they sacrifice long term consequences. And that

wraps up another classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and if you have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, send me an email the addresses text Stuff at how stuff works dot com or hop on over to our website that's tech Stuff podcast dot com. That's where you're gonna find an archive of all of our episodes, including these classics, as well as links to our presence on social media and to our online store. And I'll talk to you again. Releasing text Stuff is

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