Regular readers know that I love to hear close encounters of the winning kind. Slot and video poker players have been great about emailing me their experiences in winning back to back jackpots, or at least jackpots within a few plays of each other.
The latest comes from Suzanne, a video poker player who wasn’t sure her story qualified because it involved royal flushes by two different players.
Regular readers of this blog might remember Charlene, a slot player who usually played three-reel games with her husband George, but who played video slots when she was on her own. In a blog entry published March 27, Charlene explained her husband wanted nothing to do with video slots, which he doesn’t see as real gambling.
It’s not difficult to see patterns in wins and losses, and it’s all too easy to jump to conclusions based on small samples. Over the years I’ve fielded questions from readers who wondered if they should skip drawing to four-card straights because they missed several times in a row and from others who were convinced 20 was a losing hand in blackjack because they dealer drew a few 21s to beat them one night.
Players sometimes have difficulty with the idea that slot machine results can be programmed and random at the same time. So for many years, I’ve used a comparison to roulette, where you don’t know when any given number will turn up, but the odds of the game will lead to a 5.26 percent house edge – the same as a 94.74 percent payback percentage.
Among those who have been playing in casinos as long as I have, there’s a sizable number who miss being paid in coins clattering into the tray of slot machines. On a September day when I cashed out by printing a ticket, the machine’s speakers resounded with an imitation of that sound, and a neighboring player told me she missed the real thing.
Video poker games are designed to be as random as humans can program a computer to be. The odds of drawing winning hands are the same as cards were dealt from a real deck.
Still, when odd streaks happen, players can’t help but wonder if something more is going on.
When you’re a smaller slot manufacturer trying to compete with the likes of IGT, Bally, WMS and Aristocrat, you need to be nimble, creative and innovative.
Multimedia Games has been all of that, and expects to keep bringing the innovation now that it has been acquired by Global Cash Access. The new company is in the process of rebranding, and will reveal a new name in late August.
One thing I’ve warned blackjack players about is games that pay less than the standard 3-2 on blackjacks. If you play video blackjack, you have to be extra watchful, as one reader learned.
We all make mistakes in the casino. Blackjack players stand when they meant to hit, slot players forget to check to see all the paylines are active and players at any game sometimes have a brain cramp and make a bet that’s larger than they’d intended.
When video slots first came out, it took only a single bonus event to entrance players. Neighbors would stop their play to watch whenever someone went fishing in Reel ’Em In or chose their Chinese foods from the menu in Fortune Cookie.
For gamemakers, attracting slot players is all about offering different play experiences to different segments of players. There are big jackpot games, high volatility games, second-screen bonus games, free-spin bonus games and more.
Sometimes video poker players find the goal of winning the most hands at odds with the goal of winning the most money.
The video age has enabled game designers to get creative in any number of ways, and that includes the way they use reels and symbols. One of the latest wrinkles is Cluster Power, a new way to play you’ll be seeing in the coming year on Aristocrat Technologies’ Sons of Anarchy slot machine.
Players usually don’t notice, or even have a chance to see, behind-the-scenes procedures that are important to the house.
Back when slot machines were a three-reel world, progressive jackpots were available only to those willing to bet the max. If you weren’t going to bet three coins, or two coins on some high-denomination machines, you weren’t going to be eligible for the progressive.
Who’s it to be, Superman or Spider-Man? The Man of Steel from the planet Krypton, or the angsty young man with the radioactive spider bite? As a comic-book loving kid, it was Superman for me, but that was before Spidey really hit his stride.
When it comes to slot-playing time, either one can save your bonus in new games of heroic proportions.
Recent Comments