Last November, a 49-year-old man won the largest UK jackpot ever - playing an online slot machine. His take was £2,086,585. This, despite what we know to be a universal truth: slot machines (jackpot machines) are the worst bet of them all. They take much more than they give. The maths, the science and the psychology are all against you.
It's why the machines are the darlings of the casinos: they generate between 60 and 80% of all casino profit. According to figures collected by Las Vegas-based gaming expert Michael Bluejay, the return percentage makes the cost of playing fruit machines outrageously high in comparison to other forms of gaming. Games such as blackjack or baccarat give the casino a 1% edge over the player. A slot machine set at a relatively high 90% offers the casino a whopping 10% edge. According to Bluejay, a player on a one-dollar slot machine will on average lose $800 in a ten-hour session. This is money ground away by the machine as winnings are fed back into the machine. The same player over the same time period will lose only an average of a tenth of that ($79) playing a low-intensity game such as roulette. You still lose money at roulette, blackjack and baccarat, but you lose it more slowly; so you enjoy a longer night out.
People talk about strategies, like watching as punters pump in money then hovering like a vulture to move in if it doesn't pay out for him. But random number generators have no memory for the past or plan for the future. They do not make decisions. The machine's outcomes are determined by random numbers and every time you play a machine the odds are exactly the same. It's a myth that the slot machine will tighten up after it has hit the jackpot, or that it will be loose if it hasn't been paying. This is not true. It's like spinning a roulette wheel. Every time you play the odds are the same.
By controlling how often certain symbols that pay out money appear, manufacturers can mathematically control how much money the machine will pay out over its lifetime. Most manufacturers and players agree that machines set to pay out below 75% are far too stingy to maintain player interest, though they certainly exist.
Most people misunderstand the percentages, according to US expert and author Frank Legato. 'People think that because it's a 98% machine that it should pay back 98 cents in every dollar they gamble. No, several hundred people over a couple of months will have got back 98% of everything that was put in that machine.' He claims that even a 98% return machine will make $200 to $300 a day for a casino.
'It's about impression management. The high-frequency gambling, plus near misses, plus the lights and colours and sounds and noises... all contribute to a person staying on the machine. 'Why is there a metal payout tray? So that when coins fall into the tray, you hear the "kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk" and it emphasises the win. You go into a casino and there might be 1,000 machines but you'll hear the 20 that are paying out and the coins hitting a pan. What you don't hear are the 980 machines that are losing at the same time.'
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