Loose Change

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by DynamiteRave

Alright so onwards to my question.. So basically I have a much better chance of receiving a payout at a Vegas machine compared to a machine elsewhere?

Does the probability of receiving a jackpot payout vary as well?

Hey, there's never anything wrong with not knowing about something, acknowledging it, and yearning to learn more. That's great. What I've got a beef with is saying you know all about it, yet assert something completely contradictory to mathematic principles that are generally accepted as law.

On to the answer, it's not necessarily that you'll receive "a payout." It's that you'll get more of your money back.

A machine paying on average 92% payout means that for every dollar you play, you are likely to get 92 cents back. That may come in the form of winning a dollar every four or five times you play that quarter, or it may come in the form of dealing with a major cold streak until you hit a major jackpot, or somewhere in between. Now, you should note, that if you play a machine long enough, you'll get real close to that advertised payout of 92 cents per dollar played. But most people don't play that long. So what ends up happening is you catch the cold streak before the big payout, run out of money, and finish up your day as a loser. Or perhaps you come into the machine after it's had a big cold streak, and you happen to catch a big payoff.

So the payback % isn't necessarily about how often you'll win. It's about how much the casino's machines pay out on average.

Also, I definitely have to say that just because a machine has been cold for a while doesn't mean it's inevitably due for a big payoff. They program some machines to be big losers, and others (generally near entries and doors) to be bigger winners. So there's no system you can apply to it (though people will try). That's why they're such moneymakers for the casinos. So when you add up all the losing machines in the place with all the winning machines in the place, it comes out to a 92% payoff percentage. But there's no way to tell which are the winning machines and which aren't. It's just luck, that's why they call it gambling!

As long as you head to the casino with the expectation that you're going to lose some money, and you're comfortable with losing a certain amount, you'll be sure to have a good time. The morons who go in with the intention of making money are the ones you see pulling their hair out and later lying in the gutter while drinking an MD 20/20.