A reader writes with a question about the slots: “I know that all the slots are computerized, but do they keep running when the machine is idle?
The answer:
Yes, the random number generator runs continually, even when the machine is not being played.
That doesn’t change the odds of the game, but it does have a couple of implications for players. One is that if you leave a machine and another player hits a big jackpot on the first spin after taking your place, it’s unlikely that you’d have had the same result if you’d stayed at the game. Between the time you leave and the next player sits down, the RNG has moved on, probably by thousands of numbers.
Another implication is that it makes nonsense of systems like the one a fellow tried to pitch to me a few years ago. It was for three-reel slots, and it involved scouting machines to see which symbols were on the payline, and just above and below, when the previous player left the machine.
Even if the RNG stopped running when the game was no longer in use and just started again when the next player started, that system wouldn’t work. Results are as random as humans can program a computer to be, and you can’t predict the next spin or spins from the symbols left by the last play. But when you add in that the RNG runs the entire time the game is idle and that the system was just picking machines without knowing how long since the last play — well, you’d be better off taking the money buying the system would cost and putting it into a slot machine instead.