Pokies and Slot Machine Information

2007 Gaming Expo Exhibitor – IGT

IGT (International Gaming Technology) are the worlds largest slot machine maker and they do a great job of displaying their wares.

Exhibitor summary.
Overall rating :
(4.5 / 5 stars)

Display area : very large.
Gaming machine selection : very large.
Staff knowledge/approachability : good-excellent.

IGT had a large number of the blue chip range of slot machines on display this year. Some old favourites like “Blue Moon” have been updated with the latest technology, whilst others like last years “Money Chimes” jackpot range of machines also made an appearance.

We managed to accidentally break a couple of the machines, but this is likely due to the temporary installation setup. IGT reps arrived quickly to fix the machines.

There didn’t appear to be a huge variety of new games on display. There is a new Wolf themed game called “Wolf Run” on the way which will no doubt be popular:

Wolf Run also shows a trend towards 5×4 reel games – usually slot games are 5×3 reels. As slot players are maturing they are looking for more interactive and interesting gameplay – more reel images and paylines can add more excitement to gameplay.

A custom roulette system was also on display. Many Australian casinos have roulette tables and associated game terminals where a player can electronically wager on the outcome of the roulette wheel spins. This allows many more users to play a single table than can physically fit and play on the table itself.

The twist with these next generation roulette systems is that no dealer is required. The system is completely automated and draws are held about every 60 seconds. There are several advantages. The gambling venue does not have to pay a dealer is possibly the most attractive. There are also no delays – the system spins the wheel every minute of the gambling day and no table clearing is required. It was unclear how the machines pay out, but its likely to be a ticket based system.

Player trust is likely to be the only downside to automated roulette. Once punters acclimate though, autoroulette will take off.

IGT’s stand and staff are highly commended. If they can produce this quality at the Australasian level, we can only imagine what they can do at the annual Vegas convention.

2007 Gaming Expo Exhibitor – AGT (Ainsworth Gaming)

AGT is a relatively new Australian gaming technology designer and manufacturer – with some of the most impressive design credentials in the business.

Exhibitor summary.
Overall rating :
(4.0 / 5 stars).

Display area : large and spacious – lots of mingling room. AGT have put up their own gallery of images from the convention: click here for galleries.
Gaming machine selection : large.
Staff knowledge/approachability : good.

AGT had a high number of machines on display, including a few new games. The flagship Ambassador gaming cabinet with its huge sideways mounted definitely stands out from the crowd. It does seem odd that the majority of the visual display area on these machines is devoted to the paytable, and a smaller part to the game reels.

The quality of AGT games is good. There is not a huge variety in the games – most appeared to be standard 5×3 reels. The game music is catchy though – really gets you hopping.

Overall, this vendor display was interesting and showed evidence of ongoing development in game and cabinet technology.

2007 Gaming Expo Exhibitor – Aruze Gaming

Aruze Gaming are a Japanese slot machine and pachinko/pachislo concern.

Exhibitor summary.
Overall rating :
(4.0 / 5 stars).

Display area : large.
Gaming machine selection : large.
Staff knowledge/approachability : excellent.

Aruze gaming have been around for almost 40 years. With almost 1,000 employees, they are able to leverage their size into making good games and invest in new technology.

As with some other vendors, most games were repeats of what was on show at the prior years convention. Some newer games had very flashy 3D graphical animations on the LCD screens above the normal game screens.

Aruze had their new automated roulette game on display. Twelve roulette stations sit around a single roulette wheel which is computer controlled. A draw is held roughly every minute:

Roulette is a very popular game in casinos. Making it electronic brings a huge speed advantage to the game which can help offset the lower returns roulette tables bring over conventional slot machines.

The house edge on slot games is usually around 10 percent, but on a roulette table with a single zero, the house edge is less than 3 percent.

The Aruze autoroulette stations offered a maximum bet of $100 per wheel spin – much much less than is offered in most casinos. They were graphically excellent, with crystal clear sound.

The slot games on offer do look different to those of other vendors. They generally have a more cartoonish graphic style. The sounds and music are very vibrant, and the gameplay fairly standard.

To their credit, Aruze offer a greater breadth of game themes than some others – including games like “Warrior Queen” and “Electra II” which are worlds apart from the Egyptian themed games typically offered as standard fare.

Congratulations to this vendor for making their floor space stand out. Great layout, very attractive attendants (dressed as tigers no less, complete with tails!) and highly approachable staff made for a very successful presentation.

New Zealand flicks the monitoring switch

New Zealand gaming machine control has entered the same era of government oversight as most Australian jurisdictions – finally.

“The Department of Internal Affairs has hooked-up over 20,000 gaming machines to an electronic monitoring system ahead of schedule.”

Computerworld article

Until now overall control has been quite lax in comparison to Australia and the USA. The change benefits the government as it is able to instantly tell from a central location what funds are due to it. It also benefits players – its very much more difficult for nefarious venues to modify slot machines in their favour when the gaming software is centrally monitored.

Also of interest in the article is the following quote:

“connecting 20,289 gaming machines”

New Zealand has a population of 4,181,836 – which indicates there is a slot machine for every 206 residents. This is roughly half the per capita slot machine installation in Australia:

(Taken from http://www.pokiemagic.com/blog/2006/03/29/gaming-expansion-in-usa/)

Section 87(2) of the NZ Gambling Act 2003 guarantees public access to the statistics gathered by the new monitoring system – we’ll report them as we find them.

How slot machines actually pay – payout myths put to rest

An aura of mystery surrounds slot machine payouts. Players wonder just how the slots decide what to pay – and when. The secret formula is really quite simple, though the underlying mathematics certainly are not. The key lies in the random number generator (RNG) which is at the heart of every electronic slot machine.

Each of the ‘reels’ on a slot machine – there are five in the sample game below – consists of a number of images stacked on top of each other. Each number corresponds to a symbol on that reel in the game. The order of the images on each reel typically stays the same throughout the life of the machine. At the end of each reelset, it loops back to the beginning. There are typically dozens but may be hundreds of virtual positions on each reel.

It is because there are so many symbols on each reel that so many different payout combinations are possible. If a game has 40 symbols per reel, there are 40×40x40×40x40 (102,400,000) different pay window combinations – assuming no patterns are repeated on each reel.

The RNG comes up with thousands of random numbers per second. The microsecond that you hit the Spin button on the game, a final random number is selected. This determines which image will stop on each reel. In the example below, images 14, 15 and 16 are the selected images for reel 1.

The number of reels varies on different games. Some games may have only three or up to seven. Any more than six or seven and the games become too hard for the player to understand.

If you watch a game long enough you might be able to work out the order of images on each reel. There is no real benefit to this though, as you still won’t be able to predict where each reel will stop.

The real sophistication in game design isn’t created by the RNG, it is actually in the order and quantity of each symbol on each reel. The end result of the incredible mathematics is that over a very long time (perhaps millions of spins), the game will return a quite precise amount to players and a tidy amount to the venue. Manufacturers typically specify a RTP (return to player) percentage with accuracy to 1/100th of a percent.

You can now see that the slot machines are not actually calculating a payout before each time you hit that Spin button. They are simply selecting a series of random numbers to stop each reel. Any payouts are really almost incidental. This realisation also busts other myths:

Myth 1: machines run hot or cold. The use of the RNG absolutely refutes this. There is absolutely no pattern of winning or losing on slots. Its all completely random – every single spin. This relates to free games as well. You might get 1 free game every 100 spins, or you might get five in a row. There is simply no way to predict it. There are less free game trigger symbols on each reel than other images though – they are less likely to appear than low paying symbols.

There are some websites and books which offer so-called player strategies for slot machines. Consider these in the light of the RNG in slots and you’ll soon realise there is no long term strategy for winning playing slots (using doubleup does change things a little – we’ll cover that later).

Myth 2: somebody stole my free games. Sometimes you’ll get up from your gaming machine and move to another. Perhaps you had played for a long time without getting any free games. Then another player sits down and in their first couple of spins they win the free games. Rather than breaking a ceramic ashtray over their heads, consider instead that its simply the luck of the draw – the precise moment they hit the Spin button is in fact what triggered the free games – the correct images on each reel.

Myth 3: talking to my slot machine helps.We’ve covered some of the player types before (Slot machine players). Simply put, neither cajoling nor threatening will make the slightest difference to a poker machine.

The best thing to do when playing slots is simply to set a budget beforehand, and sit back and relax when playing.