Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in I Heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And it's time for another one of
Speaker 1: our classic episodes. The episode you are about to hear
Speaker 1: originally published on June eleventh, two thousand twelve, and it's
Speaker 1: called tex Stuff Plays the Slot Machines. As the title suggests,
Speaker 1: Chris and I sit down to talk about slot machine operation.
Speaker 1: How did these devices work? From the mechanical devices up
Speaker 1: to the digital age. I hope you enjoy today. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a gamble, and yes I made a
Speaker 1: jokey joke. We're gonna talk about slot machines today. Actually
Speaker 1: high rolling really doesn't have anything to do with it,
Speaker 1: but I just I needed something there. So here's a
Speaker 1: quick question. Have you ever have you ever played a
Speaker 1: slot machine, like an actual like a real life, for
Speaker 1: real z slot machine. Yes, no, you have not know.
Speaker 1: I have played a video game slot machines on my
Speaker 1: computer and my portable devices, but not for money in
Speaker 1: a casino somewhere. I'm even in a non casino I played.
Speaker 1: I've played pacinko before, I have played slot machines. Um,
Speaker 1: it's now grad the slot machines I've played were the
Speaker 1: more um, the more modern ones. The slot of your machines, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ones that are not dependent upon mechanical operation but
Speaker 1: on electrical or computerized actually all of the computerized operation. Um.
Speaker 1: But but we're gonna talk a little bit about all
Speaker 1: the different kinds of slot machines, not just the not
Speaker 1: just the computerized ones. So for those of you who
Speaker 1: have never seen one or don't know what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: the slot machine is a gambling machine. And uh, typically
Speaker 1: a slot machine has, especially the physical ones have three
Speaker 1: or more reels upon which are pictures. And the pictures
Speaker 1: could be anything, but you know, the stereotypical one has
Speaker 1: like lemons and liberty bell cherries, a bar, you know,
Speaker 1: and when three of those pictures line up, or there's
Speaker 1: some interesting configuration of those pictures, you win money. Uh
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, you might wonder what's the connection
Speaker 1: between the pictures and the cash, and that gets really interesting,
Speaker 1: particularly when we talk about the modern slot machines that
Speaker 1: are in casinos today. But to start, we should probably
Speaker 1: talk about you know, why do slot machines even exist. Well,
Speaker 1: they're really for the casual gamer. It's funny to think
Speaker 1: about because, uh, you know, our our audience is probably
Speaker 1: thinking of casual games is something like Bejewel, the match
Speaker 1: three type games or Marble shooting games. There are several
Speaker 1: different variations of those versus uh, you know, the the
Speaker 1: role playing games or the first person shooters. But it
Speaker 1: replies to two games in real life too. In terms
Speaker 1: of casinos. When we're talking about serious gaming, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the card games that require strategy, um, roulette tables,
Speaker 1: craps tables, Yeah, anything that has sort of a high
Speaker 1: barrier really, because they can be very intimidating to a
Speaker 1: person who's never played before. You walk up and you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. There's so many things going on with
Speaker 1: this and so many rules. I'm not sure where to
Speaker 1: start or what's going on. Yeah, I'll admit, you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons I don't play poker. Uh
Speaker 1: it's not because not just because I'm a terrible liar,
Speaker 1: but I can never remember which hand is which. I
Speaker 1: know you know that there are a certain combo, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember where they rank in terms of which
Speaker 1: one is higher than others, and high card pair three
Speaker 1: of a kind to pair. No, I'm just I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go through the whole thing. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's flush. Yeah, you have to know something
Speaker 1: about gambling if you want to go to the craps
Speaker 1: table or if you want to, uh to play high
Speaker 1: stakes poker, But you really don't have to know that
Speaker 1: much to play a slot machine. You put you put
Speaker 1: a coin in the machine, you pull the handle on
Speaker 1: the reels click into place, and you either win or
Speaker 1: you don't. And and there are two things that make
Speaker 1: that game very attractive to people who might otherwise not gamble.
Speaker 1: One is that it's easy. Like you said, it's it's
Speaker 1: there's not much to it. Yeah, it's it's and it's
Speaker 1: got a nice attractive sort of appeal to it in
Speaker 1: that when it wins, it's a very visceral experience, right,
Speaker 1: there's bells going off and coins are falling, and it's
Speaker 1: a great, you know, way of attracting attention. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: you know that's that's one of those things too. I
Speaker 1: mean when you win, when you really win, and the
Speaker 1: bells go off, the lights flash everybody around you knows
Speaker 1: that you won, so everybody turns around to look at you,
Speaker 1: and there's that thing of hey, awesome. And the second
Speaker 1: big attraction to it is that it has a very
Speaker 1: low betting point for you know, typical machines do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you can find machines that have much higher requirements, like
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars per play, but the vast majority of
Speaker 1: them tend to be cents, fifty cents, maybe a dollar
Speaker 1: and uh. And so if when when each individual bet
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be huge, it attracts the kind of
Speaker 1: gamers who would be otherwise disinclined to play a game
Speaker 1: where it's twenty five bucks per play, especially when they
Speaker 1: don't fully understand the rules. So they and and they's
Speaker 1: turned out that these things have become huge money makers
Speaker 1: for casinos. There was a report. We have a great
Speaker 1: article on How Stuff Works about how slot machines work.
Speaker 1: I really do highly recommend this because animals illustrations, it's
Speaker 1: it's an exhaustive approach to health slot machines work. And uh.
Speaker 1: In that article, it's revealed that something like six of
Speaker 1: gaming profits in the United States stem from slot machines.
Speaker 1: And when we get to the point where we talk
Speaker 1: about payback percentages. That amount of money is going to
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Yeah, and and those things are changing
Speaker 1: too as as we speak, because there have been recent
Speaker 1: developments in the slot machine. I know you're you're going
Speaker 1: really they've changed slot machines. How how changed can they be?
Speaker 1: They're changing them to where people think that they're going
Speaker 1: to pay even more in the future. But what we
Speaker 1: can get into that in a moment, So let's start
Speaker 1: about talking about how they work. Will eventually get into
Speaker 1: things like the odds that are involved with the slot machine,
Speaker 1: and also the payback percentages, because that's that's the part
Speaker 1: that the player really is interested in, in the sense of, uh, what,
Speaker 1: what's the likelihood I'll ever win money using a slot machine.
Speaker 1: I'll even give you tips on how to pick the
Speaker 1: right slot machine, Okay, because I'm I'm I'm that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. Well, I would say there are four basic
Speaker 1: types of slot machines. This is this is just me
Speaker 1: making I didn't take these four from somebody else. So
Speaker 1: I would say the first one would be the purely
Speaker 1: mechanical machine. Yes, this is the the old slot machine,
Speaker 1: the original slot machines that used mechanical gears and levers
Speaker 1: to to execute its function. Yeah. Yeah, those showed up
Speaker 1: in uh in the eighteen eighties, yeah, um or eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds anyway, late eighteen hundreds and UM you know that
Speaker 1: they THENYME evolved into an electrical or electronic slot machines
Speaker 1: where these mechanical elements are working in tandem with electronics
Speaker 1: to help control things. And then you have the you know,
Speaker 1: a digital slot machine where the pictures are now on
Speaker 1: screens rather than reels. Yeah, you can also have a
Speaker 1: digital slot machine that still uses reels. Uh, it's just
Speaker 1: it's um, the all the workings are behind the scenes digital,
Speaker 1: but the ones that you know, what you're looking as
Speaker 1: a physical representation. It looks like an analog system because
Speaker 1: you've got these physical reels rolling around. But that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's really just for show. It's really just to show
Speaker 1: you what the final result of your spin was. And
Speaker 1: now I think we're moving into the completely computerized version
Speaker 1: of UM. But yeah, let's start with the mechanical one
Speaker 1: because I think, in a way to me, that one
Speaker 1: is the most fascinating simply because it's got UH gears
Speaker 1: and and police and brand and there's a block and
Speaker 1: tackle and there's a little man inside. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a little little bearded man. I need to check my notes.
Speaker 1: I think I think I think we realized that in
Speaker 1: a previous podcast that all technology in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: was ultimately powered by bearded old men. That was the
Speaker 1: mechanical turk. Yeah, that was That was our hoax podcast.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about the mechanical ones. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you were to open up a mechanical slot machine, first
Speaker 1: of all, don't do it in a casino because I
Speaker 1: will get you in trouble. Yeah, if you even look
Speaker 1: like you're han a mess with the slot machines there,
Speaker 1: well they were, they were watching you when he walked in.
Speaker 1: Very large people will come and very very firmly but
Speaker 1: gently suggests you high tail it out of there. But no,
Speaker 1: if you were to open up a mechanical slot machine,
Speaker 1: you would see the reels. Now those are those, the
Speaker 1: spinning elements that have all the pictures on them, are
Speaker 1: connected to a metal shaft and it's the central metal
Speaker 1: cheft supports the reels and allows them to spin. Uh,
Speaker 1: not that kind of shaft what you talk about. So
Speaker 1: um just talking about I can take it. So these
Speaker 1: the reels are actually connected to some notched disks, and
Speaker 1: these notched discs are what allow the reels to spin
Speaker 1: around the the the shaft, the shaft the and it
Speaker 1: also stops the reels from spinning. And I'll get into
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But anyway, it's got notches. Kind
Speaker 1: of think about how a bicycle wheel when you look
Speaker 1: at the central part of the wheel, it has those
Speaker 1: notches where the chain uh connects and pulls the wheel,
Speaker 1: so it turns the wheel, you know I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: So it's same sort of thing. Now that main shift
Speaker 1: shaft has a there's a secondary cheft that has something
Speaker 1: on it called a kicker. Now, this kicker is an
Speaker 1: element that that hits these uh, these notched disks and
Speaker 1: gets the real suspinning. And the kicker is actually attached
Speaker 1: to a spring. So when you put a coin into
Speaker 1: a slot machine, a coin detector first of all realizes
Speaker 1: that you put a coin in. Hey there's a coin, yeah,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you could operate the slot machine whether you
Speaker 1: had put a coin in or not, which would be
Speaker 1: not profitable at all to the casino. Also, if you want,
Speaker 1: nothing would come out because people would have been playing
Speaker 1: that already. But it releases a break that's on that level, right,
Speaker 1: So the brake gets released, and once the brake is released,
Speaker 1: you can pull the lever down. This is these are
Speaker 1: the old old machine we're talking about, the purely mechanical
Speaker 1: slot machines. Now that that pulls a hook that pulls
Speaker 1: back the kicker, and that compresses a spring. So once
Speaker 1: the hook moves past a certain point, it releases the kicker.
Speaker 1: The spring makes the kicker move forward, and the kicker
Speaker 1: hits those notches that are attached to the reels, that
Speaker 1: makes the reels begin to spin. Now, also attached to
Speaker 1: that kicker are three stoppers. And the stoppers are these
Speaker 1: these uh, these these pieces of material that can go
Speaker 1: into the notches and stop the reel from spinning. It's
Speaker 1: like putting a stick through a spoke in a bike
Speaker 1: tire as it's spinning. It's gonna make the bike tire
Speaker 1: stop spinning. It is not, however, unlike the documentary Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones and Last Crusade going to cause you to flip forward.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, don't try that at home
Speaker 1: unless your insurance is paid. Happening and you you don't
Speaker 1: hold us responsible for whatever happened. There was actually a
Speaker 1: great episode of MythBusters where they show that that particular
Speaker 1: stunt would not be possible, that it would not make
Speaker 1: you flip forward. It would make you crash, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't make you flip. So anyway, Yeah, the stoppers insert
Speaker 1: into the notches and stop the reels and the old
Speaker 1: mechanical ones. This was all purely by chance. The way
Speaker 1: that these stoppers would come in, and uh, the way
Speaker 1: that you would find out if you want, is that
Speaker 1: certain notches within that notched disk are deeper than others.
Speaker 1: All right, So if the first stopper happens to go
Speaker 1: into one of these deep notches, that deep notch corresponds
Speaker 1: with a jackpot symbol on the reel, So that real stops.
Speaker 1: And then you get one of the jackpot symbols. So
Speaker 1: let's say it's a seven. That's a very common one.
Speaker 1: So seven stops, yes, awesome, Well, that particular stopper moves
Speaker 1: a little bit to the left and the second stopper
Speaker 1: inserts into a notch. Now, if the second stopper inserts
Speaker 1: into the I can jackpot notch, the second one with
Speaker 1: the seven, that's again a deeper notch. It moves a
Speaker 1: little bit to the left, and then you see that
Speaker 1: a second seven has stopped, and you think, oh gay,
Speaker 1: so close, and then the third stopper inserts. Now, if
Speaker 1: the third stopper inserts into the jackpot slot again, it's
Speaker 1: a little further in than the other notches. Uh. The
Speaker 1: the third and final seven shows up and you think,
Speaker 1: I win. And meanwhile, the stoppers also connected to a
Speaker 1: little lever system that opens up a trap door where
Speaker 1: all the coins are, and then the coins fall through
Speaker 1: the trap door and land in your hot little gambling hands.
Speaker 1: But we're all over the floor. We're all over the floor.
Speaker 1: So if however, any of those stoppers hit a different notch,
Speaker 1: they will not go so far in as to allow
Speaker 1: that that doorway, that trap door to open. And so uh,
Speaker 1: anything that is not a jackpot would not pay out.
Speaker 1: And you could have different systems, uh, you know, different
Speaker 1: levels of complexity for your your standard slot machine. But
Speaker 1: the old old old slot machines essentially had one payout
Speaker 1: ability and that was it. And if it didn't land
Speaker 1: on just that configuration, then it would just keep your
Speaker 1: money and you have to keep playing. Yeah, no, Um,
Speaker 1: we were talking about casual games. These how these being
Speaker 1: casual games. The very first slot machines actually used the
Speaker 1: symbols for playing cards on the three reels UM. The
Speaker 1: idea of being that it was a system that people
Speaker 1: understood and probably would feel familiar with. UM. But it
Speaker 1: was a guy named Charles Faye who who came up
Speaker 1: with a machine called the Liberty bell and then he
Speaker 1: added a symbol of the Liberty bell um UM and
Speaker 1: that was it was sort of an experiment. Really, He's
Speaker 1: trying to see if this would catch on, if they
Speaker 1: could use some boles instead of the traditional playing cards.
Speaker 1: And as it turned out, it was very very popular,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons why they moved to
Speaker 1: the symbol version of this UM. And they also introduced
Speaker 1: some other, uh, some other innovations to about the way
Speaker 1: it would work UM. But Stephen Mille also added more
Speaker 1: symbols and UM also worked on making it smaller and
Speaker 1: uh you know, as time has gone on, they have
Speaker 1: become easier to put into casinos and other places. UM.
Speaker 1: Jonathan and I went to uh UM Hotel and and
Speaker 1: c E s in two thousand and eight, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the hotel was sort of like any other hotel,
Speaker 1: except of course it had slot machines in the in
Speaker 1: the waiting area, and I was thinking, wow, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll put these things anywhere at the airport too, but
Speaker 1: they're they're smaller and easier to fit, you know. And
Speaker 1: then it's sort of like computers. They over time they
Speaker 1: figured out ways to make them more refined and easy.
Speaker 1: You're yea, there's a particular slot machine in the Vegas
Speaker 1: airport and I can't even remember. I just remember every
Speaker 1: time I go there, I hear the same phrase over
Speaker 1: and over because I'm always it. There is wheel of Fortune,
Speaker 1: which I do hear over and over, but there's another
Speaker 1: one that it has like a like an old prospector
Speaker 1: type voice, like that kind of thing, and it just
Speaker 1: goes over and over and over again. And the problem
Speaker 1: is that I always get to the airport well in
Speaker 1: advance of when my plane is leading, so I get
Speaker 1: to listen to it until I am ready to um
Speaker 1: to just to screen like a crazy person, which by
Speaker 1: the way, I do not recommend you do in an airport, uh,
Speaker 1: particularly in an airport in Las Vegas. I's gonna say,
Speaker 1: how how did you find that out? Anyway, moving on,
Speaker 1: so so anyway, Yeah, that's that's that's the mechanical one.
Speaker 1: They're literally gears and levers that stop the reels, and
Speaker 1: those reels do correspond with payolts, and it all has
Speaker 1: to do with the actual physical um uh components. Now,
Speaker 1: once you move on a little bit, it gets a
Speaker 1: little more complicated. The first electrical systems were not that
Speaker 1: different from the mechanical ones, right, the but instead of
Speaker 1: having these physical stoppers go into notches and that determine
Speaker 1: whether or not a trap door opened, they would detect
Speaker 1: an electrical connection. So the the notched wheel or the
Speaker 1: wheel that's connected to the reels, has little electrical contacts
Speaker 1: on it, and when the contacts line up in a
Speaker 1: certain way, they create a circuit. And depending upon the circuit,
Speaker 1: that tells the machine if it's a payout or not
Speaker 1: a payout. And this is interesting to me because it
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of the Enigma machine because you
Speaker 1: think about the Enigma machine, which was actually it was
Speaker 1: a ciphering device, right, And the way the Enigma machine
Speaker 1: worked is that you would pick a certain letter, you
Speaker 1: would you would set the reels of the Enigma machine
Speaker 1: to a very specific setting, which you know the person
Speaker 1: receiving the message would also have to do. And you
Speaker 1: would type in your message and depending upon the way
Speaker 1: the connectors went, when you pressed say the letter A,
Speaker 1: then an electrical signal was sent to the first reel,
Speaker 1: goes in one side of that reel, UH comes out
Speaker 1: the other corresponding to a different letter, which goes into
Speaker 1: the second reel, that goes out of the second reel
Speaker 1: corresponding to a different letter to the third reel. And
Speaker 1: so the ultimate letter that you would get from your
Speaker 1: cipher would be completely different from the letter you typed.
Speaker 1: And because there were so many combinations, it was really
Speaker 1: tricky to break that code. Well, the funny thing is
Speaker 1: is slot machines when they were using these electrical systems
Speaker 1: were very similar. So an electrical current passes through one
Speaker 1: side of the reel. Let's say that it's a bar,
Speaker 1: and then the second one is also a bar. So
Speaker 1: the electrical current content us all the way through the
Speaker 1: first reel. The two contacts between the two reels are
Speaker 1: are touching one another, so then it continues on to
Speaker 1: the third reel, which is at a blank, so you
Speaker 1: have bar bar blank. It hits that third reel, there's
Speaker 1: no corresponding contact. The machine detects that it was a
Speaker 1: failed spin, and you win no money or you win
Speaker 1: whatever it is that that two bars and and right
Speaker 1: there might be there might still be an electrical current.
Speaker 1: But then what would happen is that would be directed
Speaker 1: to a different sensor on the far side of this system.
Speaker 1: So that way, uh, you know, there might be one
Speaker 1: sensor that, when it's lit up, says this dude just
Speaker 1: made himself a pretty penny, and there might be another
Speaker 1: center sensor that says this dude just made some decent money,
Speaker 1: and there might be one. So this dude needs to
Speaker 1: go and has some drinks at the bar because he
Speaker 1: has not one a darn scent. And U Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the essentially the electrical one. But other other than that,
Speaker 1: other than the the electrical component where it's trying to
Speaker 1: make that circuit, it was very similar to the mechanical one.
Speaker 1: Now eventually you got to once that would use an
Speaker 1: electric motor to spin the reels as opposed to the
Speaker 1: the the gears or the spring really I should say,
Speaker 1: because the kicker was spring loaded. Um, there was something
Speaker 1: else that that we didn't talk about as far as
Speaker 1: the basic functionality of slot machines in general, Um, the
Speaker 1: wheels spin all the same time when you begin the game. However,
Speaker 1: they don't stop at the same time. If you've never
Speaker 1: seen a slot machine, you'll see the reels stop in order. So, uh, real,
Speaker 1: number one will stop and the other two are still spinning,
Speaker 1: and we all number two will stop, and so you
Speaker 1: have an idea. You know, you may have thought if
Speaker 1: you hadn't seen one of these when Jonathan was talking
Speaker 1: about the sevens popping up one after the other, Um,
Speaker 1: well you know, aren't they all stopping at the same time. No,
Speaker 1: they're not. So wheels one and two have stopped, but
Speaker 1: re is still spinning. What will it be? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: helps helps build suspense and it and it encourages people
Speaker 1: to keep playing. Yeah. You you might think that there
Speaker 1: was a mechanical reason for this. It's not. It's completely psychological. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's so that it will convince people to keep playing.
Speaker 1: For one thing, near missus can make a person determined
Speaker 1: to play longer. Right, So, something that looks like it
Speaker 1: you almost hit it, like you hit uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you almost hit three bars. You actually hit three blanks.
Speaker 1: But it's the three blanks directly above three bars, and
Speaker 1: you think, if I close, I just I gotta keep playing,
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it does keep people playing longer, which
Speaker 1: and we'll get into more about the psychological elements later.
Speaker 1: I thought near Mrs meant your wife was standing next
Speaker 1: to you. Your wife's over at the Nichols slots. So
Speaker 1: the next you have the photo electric cells version of
Speaker 1: UM of a slot machine. Now this is similar to
Speaker 1: the electrical detection systems, but in seven electrical circuit what
Speaker 1: happens is the little um notched wheels. Instead of being
Speaker 1: notched wheels, they have uh these discs have little holes
Speaker 1: in them and a light source shines from one side
Speaker 1: of the slot machine inside the slot machine. You can't
Speaker 1: see it from the outside, but shines through, And if
Speaker 1: the reels are lined up properly, then a sensor on
Speaker 1: the other side of the slot machine detects it and
Speaker 1: that's what lets the slot machine know whether or not
Speaker 1: to give a payout. So of course, if the discs
Speaker 1: are not aligned quite right, then no light is going
Speaker 1: to be passing through and that ends up being a
Speaker 1: miss and so or it could be a hit. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you had it where all the different positions had
Speaker 1: light except the one winning position. You could have that
Speaker 1: be the hit. It all depends on, you know, the
Speaker 1: actual manufacturer. But the the vast majority of slot machines
Speaker 1: you will run into today, assuming you're not going through
Speaker 1: like some sort of museum or curiosity type thing, are
Speaker 1: computerized slot machines. And these are absolutely fascinating to me
Speaker 1: because ultimately, the mechanical elements of this device, all the motors,
Speaker 1: the reels, the spinning, have nothing to do with whether
Speaker 1: or not you win or lose. In other words, the
Speaker 1: old mechanical one, the notches, corresponded with those those pictures
Speaker 1: that you saw in the reels, and so in a way,
Speaker 1: you could say, the way that the pictures line up
Speaker 1: determine whether or not you won. But the computerized ones,
Speaker 1: the the whether you won or lost is determined the
Speaker 1: moment you press a button or pull lever. And and
Speaker 1: here's why. Well, yeah, I mean it's really the pictures
Speaker 1: are just for the people. Yeah, the pictures really just
Speaker 1: tell you kind of the The pictures are just a
Speaker 1: physical representation of what the result was of when you
Speaker 1: press the button or pulled the lever. Well, guys, I
Speaker 1: hate to break in here in the middle of a podcast,
Speaker 1: but we all know the house always wins, so let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break to thank our sponsor. The secret
Speaker 1: is random number generators, and we've talked about random number
Speaker 1: generators and how they're not. Yeah, we did a full
Speaker 1: episode on random number generators. It turns out it's really
Speaker 1: hard to build a true random number generator because computers
Speaker 1: depend upon algorithms, and algorithms have set rules, and when
Speaker 1: you have set rules, it's really hard to create something
Speaker 1: that's random. You can create something that is complex, and
Speaker 1: you might have a very long, long, long string of
Speaker 1: results that appear to be non repeating, but if you
Speaker 1: were to go long enough, you might start picking up patterns.
Speaker 1: There are random number generator systems that depend very much
Speaker 1: on outside systems that we do not control. Therefore they
Speaker 1: feel more random. For example, there are random number generators
Speaker 1: that generate numbers based upon weather conditions. So depending upon
Speaker 1: the barometric pressure and the temperature and things of that nature,
Speaker 1: a number will be generated. And because we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have control over that, it's a very chaotic system and
Speaker 1: the numbers are It sounds weird, but more random than others. Well,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't necessarily know it in the in the
Speaker 1: bowels of a casino because they don't have any windows, right,
Speaker 1: very most of them. It's very important, no windows, no clocks.
Speaker 1: The so the the the way these systems work is
Speaker 1: they generate a random number through some means, and the
Speaker 1: number tends to be huge, like within the billions in
Speaker 1: most cases. So your odds are not exactly stellar. Well,
Speaker 1: it has nothing that doesn't really have a whole lot
Speaker 1: to do with it, and I'll explain why. But you
Speaker 1: you've got this random number which is generated the moment
Speaker 1: you press the button or pull the lever. So you
Speaker 1: put a coin into this machine, you push the button,
Speaker 1: you have either one or loss already, the reels that
Speaker 1: are spinning. That's just for show because you the machine
Speaker 1: already knows if you want or lost, because what happens
Speaker 1: is it's constantly generating these random numbers. And the lever
Speaker 1: is also just for show. These days, you don't need
Speaker 1: a lever, no, that's why they all they have buttons.
Speaker 1: Most people I see like this, the quote unquote serious
Speaker 1: gamblers just press the button like they'll they'll just load
Speaker 1: up the the slot machine with credits and then you
Speaker 1: just start pressing the button to stop things. But the
Speaker 1: way it works is that it has this big random
Speaker 1: number and then it divides that random number by some
Speaker 1: other number, and it all depends on what the machine is,
Speaker 1: who the manufacturer is, what the number is. Tends to
Speaker 1: be some sort of factor of of like sixteen six
Speaker 1: four something like that, and uh, you end up dividing
Speaker 1: the number by that. You know that you divide the
Speaker 1: random number by the non random number. It's always you're
Speaker 1: always dividing by that. You take the remainder and then
Speaker 1: you apply that remainder to a virtual reel. So it's
Speaker 1: it's like the physical reels in that it has a
Speaker 1: certain number of slots if you will, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: there's no physical representation of it. This virtual reel is
Speaker 1: mapped to the payouts. And so let's say that it
Speaker 1: lands on on real number UM fourteen, and then through
Speaker 1: connecting all that uh through the system, it could say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, when it's on fourteen, that is a
Speaker 1: payout of five to one. So if you put a
Speaker 1: dollar in, you won five dollars. Uh. That's essentially how
Speaker 1: it works. Now that virtual real could be pretty large
Speaker 1: and could be mapped to the physical reels in um
Speaker 1: in a very kind of convoluted way, and ultimately you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to assign more of those notches
Speaker 1: in the virtual reel to misses in the the what
Speaker 1: what looks like misses in the physical reels. So in
Speaker 1: other words, uh, you know, if you've got sixty four
Speaker 1: actually little we'll say thirty two. Let's say you've got
Speaker 1: thirty two slots in this virtual reel, you could make
Speaker 1: sure that uh, twenty of them go to missus outright,
Speaker 1: So then you have the twelve that are going to
Speaker 1: go to some sort of hit. And then out of
Speaker 1: those twelve, six of those go to really low payouts,
Speaker 1: all right, and then the six remaining three of those
Speaker 1: go to medium payouts. And now the three remaining two
Speaker 1: of those go to larger payouts, and one goes to Jackpott. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you've got a lot more geared toward
Speaker 1: the geared toward the misses than the hits. And that's
Speaker 1: a very simplified way of saying it. Because the virtual
Speaker 1: reel actually adds way more options for the casino because
Speaker 1: you you would have a virtual reel for each physical reel.
Speaker 1: Then you you suddenly made that much more complicated. In fact,
Speaker 1: the odds of of hitting the jackpot can be in
Speaker 1: the hundreds of thousands, like around two almost like two
Speaker 1: d fifty thousand to one, Like you would have to play,
Speaker 1: you know, a quarter of a million times before you
Speaker 1: would necessarily not necessarily hit it. But I mean that's
Speaker 1: just your odds. Like your odds are two times out
Speaker 1: of two thousand you will not hit the jackpot, right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing to good way to think about
Speaker 1: it if you're going in and playing these games. And
Speaker 1: that's just one version of it. I mean, it all
Speaker 1: depends on how many slots this virtual reel has. That
Speaker 1: determines what and how many of those are geared towards
Speaker 1: uh losses. That's what determines the odds. So the funny
Speaker 1: thing is that means that all those reels that are spinning.
Speaker 1: This also applies for video slot machines. By the way,
Speaker 1: all those reels that are spinning is just for show.
Speaker 1: Has nothing to do with whether or not you won
Speaker 1: are lost. Uh so uh there there. That's really again
Speaker 1: that psychological element that draws people into play. What depends
Speaker 1: what what determines it is the random number. And there's
Speaker 1: because it's random, and because it's generating millions of numbers
Speaker 1: over the course of a second, there's no way to
Speaker 1: know when to press the button or pull the lever
Speaker 1: because there's no way to predict when that random number
Speaker 1: is going to hit the right number for you to
Speaker 1: get a payoff. On top of that, every single spin
Speaker 1: is random, Like every every single second that goes by,
Speaker 1: you've got all these random numbers being generated. So hitting
Speaker 1: a jackpot on a machine doesn't mean that that machine
Speaker 1: is not going to pay out for another you know,
Speaker 1: month or three months or year, whatever. That has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it, just like losing and a spin
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that your next spin is more likely to win.
Speaker 1: It's random, so you have just as equal a chance
Speaker 1: to win or not win on each subsequent spin. It
Speaker 1: also means that if you were to ever hit this
Speaker 1: and it does that thing where the payout line we
Speaker 1: didn't even talk about payoutlines. A payoutline is a line
Speaker 1: that goes a physical line, usually, although on video it's
Speaker 1: a it's represented by a graphic, but it's a line
Speaker 1: that goes across the slot machine indicating this is where
Speaker 1: the symbol needs to be in order for you to win.
Speaker 1: All right, So on one of these computerized machines, when
Speaker 1: the real stop and the bar bar bar is just
Speaker 1: above the payout line, that has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: anything like it looks like you were close, but that
Speaker 1: it's meaningless. Uh, it's only if they were all three
Speaker 1: on the payout line. That would just indicate that that
Speaker 1: random number it was in your face, eiver from that
Speaker 1: particular play. So in other words, you have that psychological
Speaker 1: kick to keep playing because you were so close. But
Speaker 1: when you're talking about random numbers, close doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: So uh, that's that's the basic way that these things work. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that there aren't odds and there aren't
Speaker 1: ways to improve your odds. Um. So for example, uh,
Speaker 1: if if you're if you're real, virtual real is one
Speaker 1: is sixty slots long. Here's the actual number I find
Speaker 1: finally found it. Two. Your odds of winning the jack
Speaker 1: putterre one and two, assuming that jackpot is assigned only
Speaker 1: one entry in those virtual reels. Uh, that's that's not great.
Speaker 1: But each slot machine has something called a payback percentage.
Speaker 1: Payback percentage tells you how much money a machine gene
Speaker 1: is going to pay back to the player over the
Speaker 1: course of the machines lifetime, So you might think, well,
Speaker 1: what's the percentage? Because a lot of the games in
Speaker 1: in Vegas and in Atlantic City and other places where
Speaker 1: gambling is legal are notoriously weighted towards the house as
Speaker 1: they as they have to be, because otherwise the house
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist. There wouldn't be a business if it weren't profitable.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the games you'll you'll play in
Speaker 1: a casino are weighted so that the house wins more
Speaker 1: frequently than it loses, so it makes money. Well. Slot
Speaker 1: machines the payback percentage usually there's a legal threshold that
Speaker 1: they must meet, which could be anything around seventy for example,
Speaker 1: so it says that seventy five percent the money that
Speaker 1: you pay into a machine will be paid out over
Speaker 1: its lifetime. Um most machines in in gambling institutions, especially
Speaker 1: places like in Vegas, are much higher than that, like
Speaker 1: or higher, meaning nine of the money paid into them
Speaker 1: gets paid out over the course of that machine's life.
Speaker 1: It sounds like great odds, right, and why you would
Speaker 1: think why is that even? Why would you even have
Speaker 1: it that high. Well, if you if you lowered those
Speaker 1: payback percentages, if you had machines that had lower percentages,
Speaker 1: then people would realize that your machines don't pay out
Speaker 1: is frequently. That's called tight. Machine is playing tight if
Speaker 1: it doesn't do a lot of payouts. Well, if Bob's
Speaker 1: casino down the street has loose slots, meaning that they
Speaker 1: pay out more frequently, you're gonna go down to Bob's.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna waste time at this other casino where
Speaker 1: all the slot machines are tight, right, I mean, why
Speaker 1: would you so? In order to be competitive, these casinos
Speaker 1: tend to have payout percentages that are at nine or higher. Now,
Speaker 1: I need to stress this. That does not mean that
Speaker 1: you will win nine of the time you play. What
Speaker 1: that means is a over the course of its life,
Speaker 1: of the money it it takes in will be put
Speaker 1: back out to players. That could mean that you walk
Speaker 1: up to a slot machine dollar slot machine, let's say,
Speaker 1: and you play that dollar slot machine ninety times and
Speaker 1: you don't win anything, and you walk off, and someone
Speaker 1: else comes up and plays that dollar slot machine ten times,
Speaker 1: and on the tenth one they win ninety dollars. Well,
Speaker 1: they just that's so that nine could be paid out
Speaker 1: in small payoffs, small wins or big jackpots. And uh
Speaker 1: it's and it's again it's like an average over the
Speaker 1: lifetime of a machine. So on any given day a
Speaker 1: machine might be playing a little tight or a little loose,
Speaker 1: because again it's depending upon random numbers. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: way you adjust those percentages is again those virtual reels
Speaker 1: I was talking about. If more of the virtual reels
Speaker 1: correspond to winning combinations, then the machine will be looser
Speaker 1: than a machine that had as fewer winning combinations. Well,
Speaker 1: you can't tell that as a person just standing there
Speaker 1: looking at a machine. Uh, there's no way of knowing
Speaker 1: whether or not the virtual reels within this machine are
Speaker 1: favoring you or not. So so that's that's the real trick.
Speaker 1: But there are little hints I can give you to
Speaker 1: help increase your chances of winning if if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to hear them, sure, However, keep in
Speaker 1: mind that your mileage may vary. Yes, these are all generalities,
Speaker 1: nothing specific, and you need to keep in mind that there.
Speaker 1: First of all, there is no system that will let
Speaker 1: you win at a particular slot machine because it's dependent
Speaker 1: upon random numbers, and when you have a random number,
Speaker 1: generator systems do not apply. So if you've ever heard
Speaker 1: about a surefire system, no fail system for winning at
Speaker 1: a slot machine, it's uh, it's a it's probably it's safety.
Speaker 1: Bullpucky is a good phrase to use to describe that. Um. However,
Speaker 1: there are approaches you can take to playing slot machines
Speaker 1: that will increase your odds of winning. First of all,
Speaker 1: in general, and all again, all of these are generalities,
Speaker 1: not rules, so there are exceptions. In general, the higher
Speaker 1: the amount of money to play the slot machine, the
Speaker 1: higher the payback percentages. So a nickel slot machine might
Speaker 1: have a nine payout and a quarter slops. She might
Speaker 1: have ninety two, and a fifty cent might have four,
Speaker 1: and a dollar might be five, dollar might be ninety seven.
Speaker 1: You can actually find machines with payoff percentages of up
Speaker 1: to so here's the other thing. Though, Once you get
Speaker 1: over five dollars, then the percentage jumps are smaller. So
Speaker 1: in other words, the jump from a nickel to twenty
Speaker 1: five cents might be fairly significant, but by the time
Speaker 1: you to five dollars, the jump from five dollars to
Speaker 1: say a hundred dollars would not be as significant. So uh,
Speaker 1: it's still better than the lower priced slot machines, and
Speaker 1: that the payback percentage is higher, but it's not so
Speaker 1: much higher that you should just immediately go to the
Speaker 1: hundred dollar slots. Chris and I have a bit more
Speaker 1: to say about slot machines. We're gonna push our luck
Speaker 1: in just a minute, but first let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. So rule number one and
Speaker 1: again this is again rule in the sense of just
Speaker 1: general guideline, is to look for the slot machines that
Speaker 1: are going to be priced at a level that you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with based upon the bank roll you bring
Speaker 1: in with you to play, but are the at the
Speaker 1: highest level of that that comfortable scale. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if you just want to play all day, the nickel
Speaker 1: slots are fine, you're just not gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: of payback on that. Um, If you have a bankroll
Speaker 1: that's a sizeable nature and you want to play five
Speaker 1: dollar slots, you are more likely to see a payback
Speaker 1: from those machines. It's not a guarantee. Second, UH, machines
Speaker 1: tend to be looser in places where it's going to
Speaker 1: inspire other people to play. So, for example, in high
Speaker 1: traffic areas, uh, that's a good place to go because
Speaker 1: they are their places where people are are walking by
Speaker 1: frequently and it draws a lot of attention. If you
Speaker 1: see slot machines that are on like a raised uh
Speaker 1: diets like, like there's a little platform, there's like five
Speaker 1: or six slot machines up there that look at Yeah,
Speaker 1: those also tend to be a little more loose than
Speaker 1: the ones that are in the middle of the casino.
Speaker 1: You want to find places that like our our near
Speaker 1: say a coffee bar or or just a bar. In general,
Speaker 1: those tend to be pretty good too, because again, people
Speaker 1: who are taking a break start hearing that and they
Speaker 1: want to start playing. So those tend to be a
Speaker 1: little looser than the ones in the rest of the casino.
Speaker 1: Places that are generally tighter include entrance ways because if
Speaker 1: the machines over toward the entrance are playing loose, people
Speaker 1: never really gravitate away. They never leave that entrance, so
Speaker 1: they're also likely to leave once they get to a
Speaker 1: certain point. So casinos don't want people to leave, so
Speaker 1: you need to you know, they're usually a little further in,
Speaker 1: but there in further in towards high traffic areas also restrooms.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily the best slot machines near restrooms, because uh,
Speaker 1: what happens there is that you might be with a
Speaker 1: group of people someone used to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: So you think, oh, well, i'll learn the bathroom. I'll
Speaker 1: just play the slot machine a few times. Well, if
Speaker 1: you have, you know, if you're gonna be there playing anyway,
Speaker 1: then you can make that slot machine play a little
Speaker 1: tighter because you know that people are gonna be playing
Speaker 1: it anyway, because it happens to be near the restrooms. Um.
Speaker 1: Also anything that's close to other games. So if it's
Speaker 1: slot machines that are close to say blackjack tables or
Speaker 1: roulette or craps, or it's slot machines that are close
Speaker 1: to say a sports betting area, probably not geared to
Speaker 1: win as frequently because the casinos don't necessarily want attention
Speaker 1: pulled away from those games. So you want to find
Speaker 1: slot machines that are not close to other games, they're
Speaker 1: not close to restrooms, they are in high traffic areas,
Speaker 1: possibly near a coffee bar or just a bar, and
Speaker 1: uh and try those, and try the higher denominations the
Speaker 1: ones that are you're still comfortable with, but are higher
Speaker 1: denominations than saying nickel slots or quarter slots. The other
Speaker 1: rule is that, and again not really rule. The other
Speaker 1: guideline is that not all the machines in that area
Speaker 1: are going to play loose. So a good idea is
Speaker 1: to start playing a machine for a little while, and
Speaker 1: if it just feels like that machine is not playing
Speaker 1: loose at all, you may want to switch to a
Speaker 1: machine that's close by, because some machines in that area
Speaker 1: are going to be playing more loosely than others because
Speaker 1: they the casinos want people to win because it inspires
Speaker 1: more people to play. And keep in mind, even though
Speaker 1: you might walk away a huge winner, like even if
Speaker 1: somehow you beat those odds and you win one of
Speaker 1: those crazy jackpots, over the course of the life of
Speaker 1: that machine, the casino is going to keep Or even
Speaker 1: if it's just two percent of the money that's put
Speaker 1: in there, that's money that's put in there by people
Speaker 1: like you. It's not money that the casino has put
Speaker 1: in there. So the casino, the casino is making money
Speaker 1: no matter what, right, So so don't feel badly for
Speaker 1: them when you win a big jackpot because the casino.
Speaker 1: The casino always wins in the end, always wins. And
Speaker 1: it's because we're the ones pouring the money into the casinos,
Speaker 1: not the casinos themselves. So those are the general rules. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, you could even follow all these rules and
Speaker 1: you could be playing the smartest possible play and still
Speaker 1: not come back with anything. You could you know, lose
Speaker 1: your entire bank roll because it's again ultimately dependent upon
Speaker 1: those random number generators. These are just the ways to
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of an edge when you
Speaker 1: are playing slot machines. So there is no such thing
Speaker 1: as a no fail system. Uh. And uh, your mileage
Speaker 1: may vary. As Chris did say earlier, right right now,
Speaker 1: of course, going back to uh what Jonathan said about
Speaker 1: not feeling bad, slot machines pull in about a billion
Speaker 1: dollars a day in American casinos. So even when you're
Speaker 1: doing these big payoffs over the long run, because these
Speaker 1: slot machines are making casinos major bank Now, when I
Speaker 1: was talking about the computerized slots, um, this is something
Speaker 1: I didn't know about. Now there's a major company that
Speaker 1: makes slot machines. Uh. They're based in Nevada. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not. UM. It's called International Game Technology and they're
Speaker 1: they're pretty much considered, if not the leader, one of
Speaker 1: the very top leaders and making slot machines UM. And
Speaker 1: we were talking about loose and type machines. Well, in
Speaker 1: the past, if you wanted to change the way a
Speaker 1: machine played, you had to actually get into it. You
Speaker 1: have to get a slot machine technician to come in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you know electronic machines, you couldn't automatically control whether
Speaker 1: it was tight or loose. You had to go change
Speaker 1: the electronics in the guts of the machine. And if
Speaker 1: they started getting dated. Well, that's that's sort of an
Speaker 1: older one we were We were just talking a minute ago,
Speaker 1: sort of inadvertently about how they have themed machines, which
Speaker 1: is pretty common. Properties, entertainment properties and different groups have
Speaker 1: sponsored machines. And you know, there are themes that your
Speaker 1: people are familiar with pretty much pretty much like any
Speaker 1: major UM property you can think of, there's probably a
Speaker 1: slot machine that that is tied to that property. And
Speaker 1: and for some people, the entertainment factor of the slot
Speaker 1: machine is enough to keep them playing even though even
Speaker 1: if they're not necessarily winning. Yeah, they might pick a
Speaker 1: machine that goes along with a TV show that they've
Speaker 1: watched for years or something like that. Um, you know
Speaker 1: it's comfortable. But I was reading an article in the
Speaker 1: Huffington Post by Ron Dicker who was talking about something
Speaker 1: that I g T is working on, and they are
Speaker 1: offering server based slot machines. So basically, the machines themselves
Speaker 1: are generic, and the casino would be able to control
Speaker 1: those machines and change the designs on the reels. For example,
Speaker 1: the virtual reels to a different kind of property, so
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to replace the entire machine if you
Speaker 1: wanted to change from say a Wheel of Fortune machine
Speaker 1: to a Transformers machine. I should add also the virtual
Speaker 1: reels that Chris is talking about are the ones that
Speaker 1: you see as a player, But virtual slot machines also
Speaker 1: have the other kind of virtual reels that I was
Speaker 1: talking about, the ones that even the slot machines that
Speaker 1: have the physical reels they also have the video slots
Speaker 1: also have virtual reels that correspond to that random number.
Speaker 1: This is important because when virtual slot machines first appeared
Speaker 1: on the scene, people were suspicious that perhaps these slot
Speaker 1: machines were fixed in some way, like there was a
Speaker 1: specific number of plays you would have to play before
Speaker 1: there was a payout, but that's not the case. They're
Speaker 1: based on random number generators, just like the machines that
Speaker 1: have the physical reels are um so there's no difference
Speaker 1: in the way they operate on that end. The only
Speaker 1: real difference is that you've got a screen showing you
Speaker 1: the symbols as opposed to physical reels, but the whether
Speaker 1: you win or lose is still based on that random
Speaker 1: number generator. And this makes sense when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because if a casino were to introduce is a game
Speaker 1: that was fixed one you might be able to figure
Speaker 1: out the system right, so then you could game the system,
Speaker 1: and two people would not play those games because I mean,
Speaker 1: why would you play a game that's fixed. So so
Speaker 1: it doesn't not it does not make sense for a
Speaker 1: casino to employ a system that has uh you know
Speaker 1: that that's that's fixed in its favor beyond just the
Speaker 1: way the odds work. Yeah. Well, it sort of reminds
Speaker 1: me in a way of the arcade machines that had
Speaker 1: difficulty settings. I've gone to UH to play a game
Speaker 1: in a convenience store that I played in a pizza
Speaker 1: partlor parlor and I found it one played way easier
Speaker 1: than another, and it's simply because the difficulty settings are
Speaker 1: are you know, changed in that case, and it's it's
Speaker 1: very much like the tightening or loosening of a slab machine.
Speaker 1: They're not going to manipulate that on a game by
Speaker 1: game basis because there's there's no benefit in doing that. However,
Speaker 1: these new server machines will let them change the themes
Speaker 1: of of the machines, and they can also change things
Speaker 1: like the payouts, So they might change the clientele. For example,
Speaker 1: older people might play in the mornings, um, you know,
Speaker 1: because they go to bed earlier, and they might change
Speaker 1: uh to late night. They might change the casino machines
Speaker 1: to higher dollar amounts because a more mature theme. Right whenever,
Speaker 1: whenever the casino is going to be really busy, I
Speaker 1: would imagine that's when they would want to get to
Speaker 1: some of the higher payouts because it would mean that
Speaker 1: if you have someone hit that perfect random number, that
Speaker 1: the the the big celebration would be so overwhelming and
Speaker 1: it would get the attention of a lot more people,
Speaker 1: thus inspiring more people to play that. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't want someone hitting the mega jackpot when the casino
Speaker 1: is practically deserted, because then there's that advertising aspect is
Speaker 1: not part of it. Um. Also, there are games that
Speaker 1: are linked to one another where there's a shared jackpot,
Speaker 1: a progressive jackpot, in other words, the jackpot itself grows
Speaker 1: as more and more people play. Now, from what I understand, UH,
Speaker 1: the player who wants to try and increase their odds
Speaker 1: as best as possible probably should just go to the
Speaker 1: fixed jackpot machines. Um. And also if there is the
Speaker 1: option that most machines have this where you can play
Speaker 1: multiple credits at once, So in other words, instead of
Speaker 1: playing one dollar, you're playing three dollars on a spin,
Speaker 1: which would increase your jackpot. That's also a smart move.
Speaker 1: And while you could play uh, there are some games
Speaker 1: that allow you to have multiple pay lines, like that
Speaker 1: pay line is that that horizontal line that we talked
Speaker 1: about that goes across the machine. You can see when
Speaker 1: it lines up that you are getting credit for that
Speaker 1: particular real right. There are other machines that will allow
Speaker 1: you to play multiple play lines for multiple credits. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, there might be diagonals, it might be
Speaker 1: even more convoluted than that with some of the video
Speaker 1: machines that I've seen, but in general that means that
Speaker 1: your payolts tend to be lower. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the advice I saw was multiple credits are good, multiple
Speaker 1: pay lines not so good if you're looking for significant payouts.
Speaker 1: And again keeping in mind, no guarantees. You could walk
Speaker 1: into a casino, follow all the guidelines and still walk
Speaker 1: out penniless. So yeah, they say that, um, these these
Speaker 1: new machines with the server in the in the back
Speaker 1: end of the machines basically will increase the take from
Speaker 1: what you call them customers see no goers gamblers, um.
Speaker 1: But they also there are also people who are afraid
Speaker 1: that the gambling addiction that it may cause will also
Speaker 1: increase UM. So keep in mind that these these games
Speaker 1: are very addictive. UM. And you know, if you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person that that the that might fall for
Speaker 1: something like this and fall in love with playing it,
Speaker 1: you know, keep that in mind because, uh, the odds
Speaker 1: are that you will not end up a winner over time,
Speaker 1: especially if you find yourself on a warm summer's evening
Speaker 1: on a trainbound to nowhere. That's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: songs of all time, and I am not ashamed to
Speaker 1: admit it. Alright, So anyway, guys, all right, so that's
Speaker 1: that's slot machines, the general rules of how they work.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I feel like there were a lot of
Speaker 1: things that we didn't even we didn't even get to
Speaker 1: this fascinating. It's really cool. I mean, you know, again,
Speaker 1: it's all about the long play. Casinos are all about
Speaker 1: the long play. In fact, it's interesting to me when
Speaker 1: you look at businesses today, how many businesses are very
Speaker 1: much focused on the short term gain and how that
Speaker 1: can hurt a business sometimes if they focus on short
Speaker 1: term gain and they sacrifice long term consequences. And that
Speaker 1: wraps up another classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed it, and if you have suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, send me an email the addresses
Speaker 1: text Stuff at how stuff works dot com or hop
Speaker 1: on over to our website that's tech Stuff podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where you're gonna find an archive of all of
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