50 machines versus 10 machines

[jm002546]

  And you programmed a few just to your liking and you know where they areand that's how you got 3 royals in a week or whatever! Your friends do not know where they are.

[pokeherguy]

Okay some good info given here from almost everyone. While I am not completely ignorant to the workings of the RNG I don't pretend to know it all. In truth I don't really think about it much. I do however wonder why I have been able to see positive returns from negative payback machines. In this area there is no such thing as 100% return VP and until I found this site all of the paybacks and stats were of no use to me. Still these numbers are nothing more than something to look over and compare where I stand at times when I have nothing better to do. I still to this day walk into the casino hop from VP machine to VP machine drink my diet coke, play my game of preference and come out ahead despite what the payback % may be. I play $2 denomination Double Double Bonus Poker with a little Triple Bonus in the mix always at max play. I've played millions and millions of hands and I can't remember how many times I've seen on this site when someone has said you should be thankfull for how well you have done because it will beat you in the long run. Even with the bad run at the one casino I will finish well ahead again once this year thanks to the best year ever at the other casino I attend. At the one casino where my returns on certain jackpot hands were lagging behind I filled up the gap with royal flushes. A total of 6 royals at $8K a pop goes a long way, saturday night more than made my year, $13K. This post was started because I was looking for a reason as to why I was not hitting Aces, 2's,3's,4's w/kicker, and some of the smaller payouts at the expected rate at the one casino. I know I used the term expected rate and nothing can be expected as far as the RNG goes. Had I hit those missing from the big picture it would have been a unbelieveable year. I spent the last ten years playing at one casino and became used to fact that certain things were going to happen, they did, and to this day play continues to be the same. With this year spent playing a lot at the new casino though I did see a big difference in the type of hands I was getting. We looked at the paytables and everything else concerning the VP machines and the only difference that was clearly noticeable was the huge difference in not only the amount of players but the amount of money the players that were there were spending. In comparison between the two casinos the casino "A" was like a Dollar General store while casino "B" was like a super Walmart. Why have I done better at casino "B" every year for ten years running than that of casino "A"?  Was it just luck or was it possible that some other factor was contributing this?    

[Eduardo]

Oops, you already responded while i was writing that.
 
Thanks for spelling it out, pokeherguy!
 

You know the answer to the sandwich question and you know what that means for the other questions in this thread.
 
There is no personal advantage to playing alone, with a small group, or in the middle of a stadium that is lined with VP machines, as long as the paytables are the same and your play isn't affected by the environment.
 
But I'm glad you asked because I know other people might be confused on this subject too!
 

 
It does sound like you have had some interesting experiences, and I think we all will. But all in all with everyone combined, I think that combines for one big boring experience of "the average." I'm glad the parts are more exciting than the whole.
 
I look forward to hearing more as you keep playing to see if your good fortune holds up and also if you notice any changes in your success at those two casinos next year!

[oej719]

I think he must have some special plays and knows how to spot a machine in a cool or cold cycle.

I would like to order the clam chowder please, here is my slot card.

[jm002546]

 I have heard very knowledgeable guys refer to the RNG as generating non-random randomness.  Which means some cyclical tendencies.  Like Poke I also tend to change machines a lot because machines I play seem to hold to a bad  pattern more often than I think they should. It's easy to disagree with that, but not easy to disprove. I'm not sure it's smart to accept absolutely all the stated charachteristics of these suckers. As Shadow said, there is a program involved. Can that program produce exactly what it intends? Poke says intuitiveness improves his results.

[Benford's Law]

@Shadowman - Yes, I am "Psychophysical" on that other VP message board.   BTW, thanks for the Minnesota OEJ strategy we talked about earlier. @Pokerherguy - It sounds to me that you've had some incredibly good luck at the machines overall.  I played almost 500,000 hands over a two-year period on slightly negative machines without a royal.  During that time frame I probably played HUNDREDS of different machines to no avail since I like changing machines a lot, too.  (This awful streak was finally broken a few months ago, but no royals since then, either....)  In an earlier thread, I "gently" approached the idea that there may be a biological influence playing a role as to why some VP players are "luckier" than others since they seem to hit the DEAL button at a better time more frequently.....but, alas, I received no major insights in this area except that grouping large numbers of VP players together  and adding up all their play results would closely mirror the expected percentage payback of the game itself.  This would be diluted by the average playing skills of the group which would lower the *actual payback* percentage somewhat since almost no one plays perfectly and many people play terribly!  I'm still open to the possibility of human biological influences playing a role in good luck in VP, since the timing of DEAL button presses is such a sensitive thing and is so paramount to short-term success.~Benford's LawPS.  Maybe if I drink more JD single-barrel whiskey like this enigmatic "man on the motorcycle" I could press this DEAL button at a profitable time more frequently. 

[MikeA]

There really are only 3 options I can discern resulting from speculation as to the non-randomness of VP. The machines are truly random and it doesn't matter what machine you play as long as there is no disparity with the pay tables.  If you believe the machine manufacturers value their reputations and that they produce non-gimmicked machines and that the regulators are monitoring to catch unscrupulous casino directors should they illegally replace the chips in the machines, then you have to accept that truly random events happen both ways...in other words, **** Happens.The machines are NOT random but you can detect when they are in good cycles and play them then and do not play them when they are in a bad cycle.  If #1 is true, then change machines by all means as it would make no difference and might make you feel better.  If #2 is true, then you would be committed to finding a machine that you could tell quickly was in a winning cycle...a project for which I have had no success.The machines are NOT random and as such, should not be played at all because they have been tampered with and are not "fair".  You would be gambling against a stacked deck!I guess each player has to make that decision and play (or not play) accordingly. 

[jm002546]

  Hold up - I am not saying they are not returning the expected amount, but that they may not be truly random in their workings. Say, they select random1000 hand batches with different payout %'s, some positive, some negative, maybe to intentionally produce winning cycles that create excitement.  I don't doubt the accuracy of the overall payouts. But I don't trust the casinos to give the entire story either.  I have personally jumped on single line 5 coin 25 cent machines and dropped $150 in a couple if minutes.  How exciting for the counterpart who did just the opposite.   

[Eduardo]

I'm pretty sure that I've seen something posted in the past that the cards on a class 3 machine have to be dealt the same as an actual card deck would be, not pre-selected in any way (which also would exclude "random" groups).
 
That would be the equivalent of allowing stacked decks at a blackjack table that lead to more exciting plays and letting the dealer pick one up at random. That would NOT go over well among the players I know.

[pokeherguy]

I think he must have some special plays and knows how to spot a machine in a cool or cold cycle.

I would like to order the clam chowder please, here is my slot card.

 
 
See, while I do believe he is making a joke and I also know who and what he is refering to, when did I ever mention anything about hot and cold cycles or special plays?