Interesting Blurb?

[DaBurglar]

As always with discussions like this and about the issue(s) of odds, and payouts and VP and how it is all managed, this thread has loose ends galore and is potentially in the process of spinning off into many different tangents.When a casino has its VP games on a server, they can at anytime look at the WHOLE system at once and see if they are up or down or whatever;  they can look at ALL the games, some of the games or one of the games.....you name it.  The versatility, flexibility and power that servers afford casinos in managing and presenting (and thus, acting upon)  real live dynamic INFORMATION about their games and operations is unprecedented.     The casinos, like the CET properties in AC for example, that are on servers can at any moment, look at the overall performance and see if the house is UP or DOWN and to what degree......if by chance the casino has recently taken several large hits (say several large handpays) on its VP, it can then do something like change paytables on large segments of its games, shut certain games down, make denominations unavailable, all from the comfort and ease of the centralized command work station.    The opposite is true as well if a casino suddenly finds itself clobbering its customers and wants to try and give some back.   Of course, on a more controversial and dark front, having a centralized, global control function such as what a video poker server-based operations can offer and give to a casino, means other measures and steps can be taken to control things and to allow casinos to further push their results in a direction they desire.    Today's gaming software and the user interfaces certainly hold the possibility of being able to tell the computer to increase or decrease the frequency of certain types of hands or results.   This of course would be against all the known gaming rules, as well as against basic fair play, but nonetheless it is not only possible but likely that such functionality exists in  a typical server environment.   To think otherwise is incredibly naive as well as ignorant......

[billryan]

So , just to be clear, you are claiming that if I'm playing a JOB machine that is 99.6 and a couple of people
hit Royal Flush's on other machines, or someone hits a Mega Buck jackpot, that the casino can change my 99.6 game to something less?
How would they do that? Remove a Straight Flush from the program? Change the program so less High Pairs occur?
Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
Why would a casino control board allow such a feature?

[paco13]

Daburglar,
My last visit to Harrah's I was having trouble finding an open game to play. There was 1 open right next to a game I had played the previous day but It wasn't one I really wanted to play. It was a multi line, multi game machine. I stopped momentarily and looked over the pay schedule. I then continued on in my search and decided I would come back to it if nothing else were open. I did return to it minutes later and sat down and slipped in a bill. To my surprise It no longer had the option of changing denomination. It was $1 only. I wanted to play .25 denom. I swear it was available moments prior. I looked to the games left and right of it (both identical machines)and sure enough the people playing were playing .25 denomination. Maybe my mind or eye's had played a trick on me I don't know but I cashed back out and left. I didn't like the feeling it gave me.

[gregorio]

You, of course, can point out proof of this, correct?
Proof of what? That server-based slot machines can be instantly programmed to lower their payouts? Well, have you or anyone else ever seen a notification on the slot machine that says this machines payouts are being changed???? There is your proof!

[gregorio]

So , just to be clear, you are claiming that if I'm playing a JOB machine that is 99.6 and a couple of people
hit Royal Flush's on other machines, or someone hits a Mega Buck jackpot, that the casino can change my 99.6 game to something less?
How would they do that? Remove a Straight Flush from the program? Change the program so less High Pairs occur?
Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
Why would a casino control board allow such a feature?Casino control board?? What exactly is it? And where is it located? Have you seen a door in the casino that says: " Casino Control Board"? Or maybe you have seen this door outside of the casino. Can you tell me where this Casino control board is located and why is it so hard to find?

[gregorio]

[QUOTE=billryan] So , just to be clear, you are claiming that if I'm playing a JOB machine that is 99.6 and a couple of people
hit Royal Flush's on other machines, or someone hits a Mega Buck jackpot, that the casino can change my 99.6 game to something less?
How would they do that? Remove a Straight Flush from the program? Change the program so less High Pairs occur?
Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
Why would a casino control board allow such a feature?Casino control board?? What exactly is it? And where is it located? Have you seen a door in the casino that says: " Casino Control Board"? Or maybe you have seen this door outside of the casino. Can you tell me where this Casino control board is located and why is it so hard to find? [/QUOTE]Secondly why is this notion so stupid? Why is changing the program so less high pairs occur sounds so stupid to you? You'd never know if they did change it, would you?  Would you know if they change the frequency of any pat hands?????? No chance!!!  So why is it so stupid????

[billryan]

As the Good Book says, Never argue with a fool.

[billryan]

Do you play in AC?
If so, next time you are stumbling out of the Irish Pub, take a gander across the street. It's the big building taking up the block.

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=gregorio]So why is it so stupid????[/quote]It's not stupid, it's illogical. There is no "up side" for a casino to rig a VP machine and plenty of "downside".   The vast majority of these games are negative, so the house already has a built in profit.  Add the fact that 99.99% of humans make errors (taking into consideration those that think they don't), plus those that don't know, can't or won't play with computer perfect strategy and you have at least a 10% house edge.  Creating software that could turn VP jackpots on and off would be an expensive and formidable task.   It's not worth the investment it when all they have to do is put the games on the floor and players will play anything with a jackpot no matter how rare.If you honestly believed VP machines are rigged, would you play them?  I surely wouldn't...  

[Vman96]

I'm interested, does any State have minimum slot machine payout percentages?   What's to keep the odds from being 50% in States that don't?

All US states that have state-regulated gambling that I'm aware of have a minimum payback percentage. And quite a few of them also have a maximum payback percentage. The most common range is 80% min-100% max. Nevada's minimum is only 75% though with no max.

But to answer your question about what's stopping those without a minimum? Well at some point the casino will lose money by offering too low of paying games because more people will give up playing. A casino with 80% payback is probably more profitable than 50% in the long term.

I don't believe anyone can switch the payouts of a video poker machine without switching the listed payouts.
It would be interesting to see if the listed outs of any given machine change during the week, but if the article I cited is correct, they can't change the payout of a machine while you are playing it.

Given most state laws (including Nevada and New Jersey) the VP paytable has to change with the payback change to be legal. And fwiw, the idle period in Nevada is 2 minutes now for server-based changes.

But I get the impression casinos use this sparingly for payback changes. If anything its more about changing denominations, or switching out the slot theme completely! They definitely don't use it much for VP. Paytables do not get adjusted day to day in my experience. More like annually.