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Reason #4 why the Wizard likes Bovada:

One-Stop Shopping

Bovada offers the triple crown of gambling: casino, poker, and sports. Many other casinos have tacked on poker as an afterthought, and many poker rooms have tacked on a casino as an afterthought, and the lack of attention shows, sometimes painfully. And very few of these sites let you make sports wagers.

But Bovada doesn’t just offer all three, they do each one well, and everything’s integrated. It’s easy to play all three off one deposit, off just one account.

Another nice thing about Bovada is that you don’t need a separate account to play casino games with fake money. In fact you do not even need an account for that at all, you can just click over there and play. Finally, Bovada usernames are only six or seven characters long making them possible to remember. By contrast some competitors’ usernames are extremely long and cumbersome.

Visit Bovada

Ask the Wizard: Slots - Slot Machine Innards

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When are the odds chips changed in a slot machine? Do casinos tighten machines on weekend?
— James from Cherry Hill, USA

I think the proper term for what determines the odds is an "e-prom" and they are very seldom changed. If a casino wants to tighten or loosen a machine they have to first seek approval from the gaming authorities. The machines are equally as tight on the weekends as during the week.

 

Your explanation of virtual versus physical slot machine reels was most informative.

  1. Given the random number generator stops on a virtual Cherry say, how does the machine make the physical reel stop on a visible cherry? I mean technically speaking.
  2. Does this explain how Pachislo machines from Japan can electronically alter payout percentages without altering the physical reel symbols?
  3. Suppose the machine decides its time for a BAR, the only BAR on the third reel, just as one passes the payline. Does it let the reel go one full turn and catch it on the next go-round?
  4. Suppose a physical reel stops on a paying combination by mistake, i.e. a symbol other than the virtual one pre-ordained. What happens then?

Thanks much.
— Larry Hatch from Redwood City, California

Let me answer each question individually.

  1. It is just programming code that dictates to the machine that if the virtual reel stops on a cherry to make the actual reel stop on a cherry. There are actual notches on the reels which may help the machine to stop in the right place. If you peer through the glass at and angle you can sometimes see these notches. However I am not an engineer and am not sure exactly how the machine knows to stop at just the right moment. It just take it for granted that it can.
  2. Theoretically the casino could change the payout on a slot machine with just a remote control. The remote control could tell the machine to use any previously programmed virtual reels. Practically speaking the major casinos need to get approval from the gaming authorities to change the payback of a machine. If they did get such authorization all a slot technician has to do is replace a chip inside the machine, known as an e-prom. This happens infrequently and would not warrant the expense of a remote control.
  3. I don’t think the machine ever fails on the first try to stop where it wants. If we can send a man to the moon we can get a machine to stop a spinning reel where desired.
  4. Again I don’t the machines ever make mistakes. However hypothetically speaking if it did accidently stop on paying symbols it would pay off. From what I understand it is the notches on the reels that actually indicate where the reels are and what the machine should pay.

 

Have you noticed when you look sideways past the right reel on IGT games there are 4-5 counters inside the machine labeled "coins in, coins out, jackpots" or similar wording? I was just wondering what your experience with the counters was. Is there any way to get helpful information from those? Thanks for your time.
— Chris from Madison, USA

No, that information won’t help you at all. Your odds are always the same on every spin, regardless of the counters.

 

Can you explain the numbers inside the slot machines. These numbers are usually seen on the right side of the window. There are three of them what do they mean? How can I use them to my advantage?
— Bo from Wetumpka, USA

They are some kind of counter. As a player they won’t help you at all, just ignore them.

 

I have heard it is illegal for a slot machine to deliberately have too many near misses. Can you tell me what you know about this?
— Anonymous

To answer your question I asked a well connected gaming consultant and he said Nevada regulations state that one stop on a reel can not be weighted more than six times more than either stop next to it. So if a jackpot symbol were weighted by 1 and both bordering blanks were weighted by 6 then there would be 12 near misses for every one time the reel stopped on the jackpot symbol. This would be the maximum allowed near miss effect. My own results detailed in my slot machine appendix 1 back up this theory well. The red double seven was the highest paying symbol and I saw the blanks above and below it about 5 to 6 times as often:
Double Strike Actual Results
Symbol Reel 1 Reel 2 Reel 3
Blank250248291
Double red 7525155
Blank259292262

The same source said that New Jersey and Mississippi likely have adopted the Nevada regulations.

 

I understand random number generators, virtual reel stops, and physical reel stops. What I don’t understand, and can’t find any information on anywhere, is how the game determines what the pay-out will be for the selected symbols. For example, in an IGT Red, White, and Blue game number SS4335 the top jackpot which is the Red Seven, White Seven, Blue Seven correspond to virtual reel positions 044, 043, 044 and physical reel stops 08, 08, 08 respectively. Each of the three reels have seven symbols, the Red Seven, White Seven, Blue Seven, Red Bars, White Bars, Blue Bars, and Blanks. That equals 343 symbol combinations. I know that the SS chip does not contain a table with all possible combinations and pay-outs. It has to be indexed somehow. How does the machine know that reel stops 08, 08, 08 correspond to the Red, White, and Blue Sevens and how does the machine know how much to pay out? I hope you can answer this question. If you cannot could you recommend any articles or books that can.
— Anonymous

There is a "look up" table that maps the various random numbers to stops on the reels. However I wasn’t sure how they go from there to actually determing what the player won. So I asked a former slot machine mathematician, who asked not to be identified, about this one. Here is what he said, "Your first idea is correct. The position on each reel strip is independently selected via the RNG. The code then examines the symbols along each bet-upon payline to determine winning outcomes. Scatter awards could also be determined this way. ALL of the major video-based slot manufacturers do it this way. You could view the algorithm as a big series if-then-else’s but actual implementation might be a bit more eligant." I hope that helps.

p.s. After this column appeared I received another e-mail regarding this question. It is rather long so I offer this link.

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