How does RNG work in 3/5/10 play?

[cddenver]

Do I assume
Deck #1 was stacked A, A, A, ?, ?, A, 8...
Deck #2 was stacked A, A, A, ?, ?, A, 4....
Deck #3 was stacked A, A, A, ?, ?, 10, 4...

And so if I had been playing all five hands versus three would I have hit additional 4 Aces and maybe 4 AWAK? Or 3 Aces and we don't know be cause we don't know the stack!

 
Only one deck is used for the deal, on the bottom line.  On the draw, a fresh deck is used for each line with the dealt cards removed from the deck, and the deck then shuffled.  So the drawn cards on each line are completely independent of the drawn cards on every other line.
 
If you had been on 5-play you would have had the same 3 dealt Aces on the fourth and fifth lines, giving you two more lines with shots at a fourth Ace.  Your chances for getting that fourth Ace on those lines would have been no better or worse than on any of the other lines.
 

[luigi1]

Wow, that was one lucky draw(s). Larry is indeed Lucky. Maybe I will change my name to Lucky Luigi and see if that helps

[shadowman]

Larry, if you had waited to take a picture you would have had different results. The draw cards are NOT determined until you actually press the draw key. Logically you can think of it as 3 separate 47 card decks being continuously shuffled until you hit the draw key.
 
This really shows just how fantastic your timing of hitting the draw key was in this instance. Great job!

[hilljerry2269]

According to IGT the RNG can have up to over 16 quintillion possibilities.  Not sure how but OK.  And from there once the bet is made the deck is prederemined off the top just like a live hand of poker.  So it stacks the deck and then deals 5 cards.  And then deals your replacements from the top of that same deck. 

This seems to be a different process than the one Shadow describes.  Is all this from IGT or only the first sentence?

[cddenver]

This seems to be a different process than the one Shadow describes.  Is all this from IGT or only the first sentence?
 
If I understand the question I'd say that both statements are true.  Well, I don't know if 16 quintillion is the number of possible values from the RNG.  The RNG is being accessed continuously, with the values from it simply being discarded until a "Deal" or "Draw" is done.

[shadowman]

[QUOTE=spxChrome]
According to IGT the RNG can have up to over 16 quintillion possibilities.  Not sure how but OK.  And from there once the bet is made the deck is prederemined off the top just like a live hand of poker.  So it stacks the deck and then deals 5 cards.  And then deals your replacements from the top of that same deck. 

This seems to be a different process than the one Shadow describes.  Is all this from IGT or only the first sentence?

[/QUOTE]
 
For the last 10 years or so the IGT mechanism has been to continue running the RNG (continue shuffling) between deal and draw. Before that it worked as spxChrome described. That is, the deck was frozen once deal was pressed or a coin inserted. There are still a few machines out there more than 10 years old so it is possible to run into both situations in a casino. The change came with the advent of the Game King line of machines and all those that have followed.
 
How do I know? IGT representatives have mentioned this many times in response to questions from the media.

[shadowman]

OK, maybe we should go down another level of detail. The way a RNG works is to manipulate a fixed size field. Usually through bit shifting and logical operations. If that field is 32 bits long then you have about 4.3 billion possible combinations of unique bit patterns (2^32). However, the RNG algorithm I looked at did not use the first bit which limited it to around 2 billion (2^31).
 
How the RNG is used to create VP hands can vary (and probably does by manufacturer). One way is to grab 5 values from the RNG subroutine when deal is pressed and simply convert this field into a value that represents one of the 52 cards. Then let the the RNG continue to run while the cards are displayed.
 
There are 2,598,960 possible combinations of 5 cards from a 52 card deck. There are 120 way to arrange 5 cards. This means there are around 312 million possible arrangements of 52 cards and the 2 billion possible RNG values complete covers all combinations of cards. However, this number divides in 2^31 around 13.8 times which means some combinations can appears ever so slightly more often. Not enough to effect the practical randomness. It's also possible the RNG stops exactly at 13x and eliminates even this small discrepancy.
 
By going to 64 bit technology this slight anomaly is reduced even more. Though, that is probably not the reason. More likely, the hardware platform in newer machines is now 64 bits and trying to limit the RNG to 32 bits would slow it down.
 
Don't know if this helps or just confuses. If anyone is interested I can post the code for the RNG I downloaded.

[cddenver]

For the last 10 years or so the IGT mechanism has been to continue running the RNG (continue shuffling) between deal and draw. Before that it worked as spxChrome described. That is, the deck was frozen once deal was pressed or a coin inserted. There are still a few machines out there more than 10 years old so it is possible to run into both situations in a casino. The change came with the advent of the Game King line of machines and all those that have followed.
 
I think you've pointed out that they're now required by law to run continuously, even when no one's on the machine.  That's here in CO, anyway, and I think NV is the same.  There are grandfather clauses to cover older technology that's in place when regs change.

[Lucky Larry]

Larry, if you had waited to take a picture you would have had different results. The draw cards are NOT determined until you actually press the draw key. Logically you can think of it as 3 separate 47 card decks being continuously shuffled until you hit the draw key.
 
This really shows just how fantastic your timing of hitting the draw key was in this instance. Great job!

Thanks, wish my timing had been better later when it twice dealt me 4 to RF on 5 hands. Didn't hit on any of the ten hands.   Must have been too slow or too fast. Slow is my guess since I'm feeling older....

[Lucky Larry]

If you had been on 5-play you would have had the same 3 dealt Aces on the fourth and fifth lines, giving you two more lines with shots at a fourth Ace.  Your chances for getting that fourth Ace on those lines would have been no better or worse than on any of the other lines.
 [/QUOTE]

cddenver,
Sure wish I had been playing those five hands and had the same draws as the first three. That would have been a more incredible hit. No wait then a G-statement would have occurred. LOL   But, I will take the three knowing my chances could have been just 3 Aces on all the hands.