Pokies and Slot Machine Information

Slot machine error yields fortunes

A misconfigured slot machine in a US casino has paid out a huge cash surplus to punters:

“The Caesars Indiana casino lost nearly half a million dollars over two-days last month on one slot machine that had been incorrectly set to give players credit for 10 times the amount of money they put into it.”

Courier Journal Article

Its interesting the error is of a type that could be allowed to occur in the first place.

The slot machines in the venue are TITO – ticket in, ticket out. Paying out in ticket form rather than via cash or attendant certainly has its advantages. Less cash handling and lower numbers of gaming attendants required will lower casino costs overall.

In the days before TITO, most payouts would have occurred with the assistance of a gaming attendant. The unusual payouts at the machine would almost certainly have been detected and dealt with. Half a million dollars coming out of one machine over two days is a huge amount of money.

A “not so smart” award goes to those players who used the malfunction to knowingly reward themselves whilst using their player loyalty cards in the slot machine in question.

The whole incident begs the question – why didn’t the slot management software detect the ridiculous payouts coming from one machine. From the article its clear that it was instead an honest player who reported the faulty machine configuration that led to its detection. Lets hope they rewrite their management software post-haste, to prevent an expensive recurrence.

Smoking bans coming to South Australia

Licenced venues in Queensland, Australia recently became smoke free (Slot machine blog). On July 1, 2006 the Qld goverment introduced smoking bans. Plenty of notice was given, and venues had a long lead time to build specialised outdoor smoking areas.

South Australia is following a similar path – smoking will be completely banned in 2007:

“After 31 October 2007 all South Australian enclosed workplaces, including hotels and clubs, will be smoke-free.”

SA Govt site

Anecdotal evidence suggests Queensland venues are noticing the difference. Turnover and patronage are down. As happened in Victoria when similar bans were introduced, it is likely they will recover.

South Australia has an amusing interim measure in place:

“Your venues is required to designate at least 50% of gaming machines, and one metre around these machines, as non-smoking.”

Its reminiscent of the old smoking/non smoking sections on aircraft – completely pointless. Smoke has a tendency to waft whereever it pleases, and a one metre exclusion zone is of limited value. The number of smokers present is likely to be unchanged, so the amount of smoke present in the venue overall will also be unchanged.

Pokies company seen as a winner

The worlds second largest poker machine manufacturer, Aristocrat, is seen as being on a winning streak:

Fnarena review

This comes on the back of its chief being recently voted one of Australias most admired CEO’s. After a turbulent couple of years things have certainly been picking up recently for Aristocrat.

South Australia loses $750m on poker machines

Residents of South Australia have lost 750 million Australian dollars on the pokies in 12 months.

“South Australians lost $751 million on poker machines in the past financial year, despite there being 1,500 fewer machines to play”

ABC News Online

South Australia has a population of around 1.56 million. Losses per citizen equate to approximately $500, though obviously the population actually playing poker machines would be considerably less. Each installed slot machine makes an annual citizen wallet deduction of around $60,000.

Interestingly, we can see from the following document that the number of gaming machines and venues in South Australia is fairly static in the last year or so, after the decline of 1,500 in the previous year:

SA Govt site

The South Australian government also publishes a list of installed poker machines by manufacturer:

SA Govt site

Aristocrat is by far the #1 supplier, though its lead is very slowly being whittled away by IGT (worlds largest slot maker) and by Konami. IGT have introduced a new range of “Blue Chip” machines which are considerably improved graphically over their older machines. Japanese manufacturer Konami are known for innovative features in their games.

Casino pays huge licence fee

The government of New South Wales, Australia is rolling in cash after its recent licence fee negotiation with the only casino in that state:

“THE State Government will go to next year’s election with … up to $500 million – the up-front fee it is set to receive for the renewal of Star City’s exclusive operating licence.”

Daily Telegraph

Governments can act as they see fit in relation to licencing of gambling products or venues. Ultimately though, as usual its the punters who pay for those licencing fees. The venue must recover the fees somewhere.

“industry sources estimate the average annual revenue from each machine is about $180,000.”

The casino obviously does very well with its pokies. This would equate to around $500 a day in wins per machine. One you take out the usual expenses and taxation, its quite a bit less.