• Someone hit a jackpot on the machine you just left - so you would have won that jackpot if you kept.
  • Check out these other videos that explain the inner workings of slot machines. The Jackpot Symbol Losses Disguise.

Jul 14, 2017 In 1964, the history of slot machines once again experienced a revolution when Bally Technologies introduced a game changer that would affect the beloved slot machine forever. This slot resembled the ones people were playing before, except instead of pulleys and springs to get the reels rolling and fix the odds, this machine used electronic motors. They hired engineers that had worked for major slot machine manufacturers like IGT to develop the in-house computer system to make it work while their casino operations side worked with slots and video poker manufacturers to create games that would work.


Slot machines are some of the most popular games at casinos. This is true for both the online and physical location machines. The great designs and the ease of use make them a great source of entertainment. They truly are a lot of fun.

While there are some standard features that are common among most slot machines, what I have found is that there are features that really make playing the game a lot more enjoyable.

It is these features that not only add value, but they incorporate ideas that make it hard to walk away.

Not Always Easy to Grasp

While these features add to the slot machines, you may not always understand exactly how they work or how they benefit you.

Some of these features are pretty straightforward, but there are ones out there that can be a little more difficult to understand. This is true whether you are using slot machines at an online casino or you are physically at the facility itself.

The truth is that if you don’t understand how the game works you are either likely to not play or to walk away after just a few minutes. I know I don’t like to feel foolish or ignorant, so it is better to avoid embarrassment by simply walking away.

If you are like me, then you understand that may deny you hours of fun, if not a chance to win big money, so here is a description of some of the more popular features on slot machines and how they work.

Bonus Rounds and Free Spins

No matter what slot machine you play, you are likely to find that there are bonus rounds or free spins that are available. Some slot machines offer both. This is a way for you to have an extra payout or to play additional rounds at no cost to you.

While most of us understand the concept of the bonus round and free spins, it is important to understand that there are many options out there that are available. Not every slot machine offers the same types of bonuses, so here are some of the more common ones.

Simple Bonus

This is the most commonly offered type of bonus. In the simple bonus, the player is awarded for hitting some particular combination or symbol on the reels. Sometimes that may mean that the player receives additional credits or money. He or she may also receive additional spins or the wheel may continually spin until a monetary value is hit.

What separates this type of bonus from other ones is that you will clearly understand that you are winning. When it occurs you will know what is going on and will feel a sense of joy and knowing you are about to win something.

Self-Playing

The self-playing bonus is one where the machine takes over for you. Depending upon the number of bonus spins that you won, the machine will continually spin the reels with you winning each time the reels stop.

So, for example, if you won six self-playing bonus spins, the machine would start to spin the reels. Each time that it stopped, you would win whatever prizes or credits were shown on the reels. You may receive nothing, you may receive big prizes. You will receive whatever the six spins give you.

Pick Game Bonus

Why many people like this type of bonus is that you are guaranteed to win some type of prize. You don’t necessarily know what that is, but there is something coming your way. Usually, in these types of games, you can pick certain rooms or symbols where prizes are hidden behind them. Whatever is hidden becomes your prize.

It is interesting that some slot machines will offer both the pick game and bonus spins. This may allow you to choose more than one prize, however, it is fairly rare that you will come up as a winner. It’s great when you win, it just isn’t going to occur very often.

Skill-Based Bonuses

This is one other type of bonus that I want to talk about. In the skill-based bonus, you actually play a major role in determining your prize. The wheels will spin, and it becomes your responsibility to press stop when you feel the reels will hit a winner for you.

These can be very tough to play. Even the best videogame players, people who have incredible hand-eye coordination, struggle with this type of game.

Note:

It’s not easy to hit the bonus, primarily because the challenge is that you don’t really get to practice.

I know when I have played slot machines that offer this bonus, I may only hit the bonus once or twice in an hour. That doesn’t really give me much of an opportunity to feel when it is right to press the stop button to win.

Scatters and Wilds

Another common feature on slot machines is scatters and wilds. For wilds, these symbols represent another symbol that can make you a winner. It’s like having a joker in a deck of cards. A wild symbol in a line where you have three kings and the wild would make it four kings, which can earn you a big prize.

Note:

Some machines add bonuses for receiving more than one wild. Should you receive two or three in a row, you can be a winner.

The scatters allow you to win no matter where they appear on the reels. Even if you don’t have five in a row, let’s say, the scatter acts as the missing symbol to make you a winner.

Ways to Win

This is becoming one of the most popular features on slot machines these days. Traditionally, you won when you had a line of symbols directly across the screen.

That has changed drastically over the years, as you can now play so that you can win if you have the right combination up-down, left-right, or even diagonally. Some slot machines even allow you to win if there is any type of direct connection between symbols.

Paylines

An important feature directly related to the ways to win feature is the payline. Many of the more popular slot machines have anywhere between three and seven rows of reels that you can choose to bet on each time the wheel is spun.

By offering this option, it allows you to incorporate many different ways to win. If you purchased just the single payline, you would need that line to have the right symbols for you to win. However, if you chose all five paylines in a game, you would win if there were any of the right combinations of symbols in any direction.

This is a very popular option, but it is also more expensive. If you are playing a $1 machine, for example, and you wanted to play all three paylines, you would have to pay $3 each time you spun the wheels. It’s a greater risk for a greater opportunity for reward.

Note:

The three most common and popular types of slot machines that use these paylines afford you 243, 1024, or over 100,000 ways to win. It depends upon the number of lines that are in play.

Progressive Jackpots

One last feature I wanted to include is the progressive jackpot. This is not a feature offered at every casino, but it should be. Many people love this feature, as the jackpot increases as people play until somebody hits the right symbol combination. That may take a few days, it may take months.

What often happens is that these jackpots will reach a rather sizable amount before someone reaches the payoff. Some casinos have paid a lucky winner more than $10 million. Some of these progressive jackpots begin at $1 million. If this jackpot is offered and you find a slot machine you really like to play, you may want to sit down and play for a while.

They Can Be Fun

There is no doubt that slot machines can be a lot of fun to play. They can be even more enjoyable when there are features that pique your interest and keep you playing.

Hopefully, this explanation will help you to enjoy games more fully. It should also help to steer you toward games you may not have tried before.

So good luck to you. My hope is that you will be a big winner now.

THE REEL DEAL
by Frank Legato

Class II: Is It Fair?

Electronic bingo games are becoming more sophisticated and more like traditional slot games.

When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA) established the various classes of gaming permissible by Native American tribes on reservation lands, the law designated bingo and similar games under the heading of “Class II.” The classification was established to allow tribes to hold bingo games on their reservations, but it stipulated that “electronic aids” could be used to simulate bingo.

That stipulation led to electronic versions of the game of bingo, which eventually took the form of Class II-style slot machines, known as Bingo Games. The Class II Bingo Games would essentially be a game of bingo, with prizes drawn from the overall money wagered. Those prizes, however, would be displayed as reel results on the slot machines.

In recent years, those Class II bingo machines have become more and more like their traditional, or “Class III,” slot cousins in Las Vegas. The Seminole Hard Rock properties in Florida represent the state of the art in Class II sophistication. The central computer system, developed by a team headed by former IGT systems chief Lyle Bell (now the CIO for the Seminole Hard Rocks), was created with a singular purpose—to provide a player’s-club experience to simulate the Class III slot experience on a Class II floor. Meanwhile, Casino Operations Senior VP, Charles Lombardo—formerly slot operations VP at Caesars Palace—worked with the major slot manufacturers, who refined Class II technology to provide games that look and play like the traditional games.

Though they are technically electronic bingo games, the Hard Rock’s slots mimic the traditional Las Vegas-style games in every way. Other than the LCD screen that shows the bingo patterns appearing with every spin, it is hard to tell the difference.

How do they make bingo games behave like slot machines? And how are the payback percentages determined? The answer to both can be summed up in one word: mathematics. The Class II electronic bingo games at the Hard Rock are programmed with mathematical calculations to mimic Class III games as closely as possible while remaining within the definition of Class II bingo that is contained in IGRA.

Under IGRA, a Class II game must have a draw of bingo balls, and must result in what is called a “game-ending pattern.” That is a pattern of numbers—two, three, four in a row; diagonal, vertical, four corners of the bingo card, etc.—that ends the game with a winning result.

According to Lombardo, this occurs continuously. “We have a 20-millisecond window, and anyone (in the casino) pushing the Play button during that window is put in the game for that common ball draw,” he explains. “It must be at least two players, but the maximum is unlimited. If it is a minimum of two, one of them gets a bingo—a winning pattern.” He says every ball draw results in at least one bingo.

Bingo slot machines how they work

How do the payback percentages work? One of two ways, says Lombardo. In one style of game, the calculations relate to the stack of possible outcomes loaded into the central computer. In this style of game, there is always a 50-percent hit frequency—one of every two spins on average results in a bingo, with a prize determined from a finite pool of outcomes loaded into the computer. When the bingo game is over, the computer selects a prize from the top of an electronic “stack” and feeds it to one of the games with a winning outcome. To the player, it looks, for instance, like a mixed-bar win for $5. That just means a $5 prize has been awarded from the results of the bingo game.

The overall payback percentage in this case is governed by how many results equal to each prize amount are included in the finite stack of prizes. Just like the universe of numbers from which the random number generator in a regular slot selects reel outcomes, the payback percentage here is determined by the universe of prizes available for each winning result. The hit frequency is always 50 percent, but the payback percentage is determined by how many $2 prizes, how many 75-cent prizes, how many $1,000 prizes, and so on, are loaded into the program.

Electronic Slot Machines How They Work

In a multiline video bingo game, this system results in a game virtually indistinguishable from that nine-line game in the Vegas casino that has a 50-percent hit frequency. According to Lombardo, though, this method is also used on some of the traditional single-line, three-reel slots. In this case, the 50-percent frequency still stands, but not every win is a traditional reel combination. Because traditional games like Blazing 7s or Red, White & Blue generally have hit frequencies around 14 percent for the seven or eight possible winning combinations in the pay schedule, a 50-percent frequency would be impossible and still have the game make money for the casino.

To remedy this, Lombardo explains, “we came up with a bonus feature.” Fourteen-percent of results in the pool will be actual reel combinations, and the other 36 percent of the winners will yield a bonus symbol on the reels that will accumulate. When you accumulate 25 of those symbols, you win one bonus credit. Therefore, you still have the 50-percent frequency, but your frequency of reel wins is similar to what it is in the traditional Class III versions of those games.

In the other style of game, the odds of each winning bingo pattern is matched to the odds of each paying combination in the slot game. “We figured out the odds of hitting certain patterns on the bingo card,” Lombardo explains, “and we take those bingo patterns and plug them right into the payout scheme to replicate any Class III game.” Drawing from millions of possible patterns on a bingo card, programmers can match the odds of landing any given combination of symbols on a slot machine. In this way, each chosen bingo pattern can trigger a certain payout combination. Hit frequencies and percentages in this case will match a traditional slot exactly.

But what are those payback percentages, and how do we know they are fair? As you may know, the Seminole tribe is a sovereign nation, and its casinos are not subject to state regulation or public reporting of payback percentages. How do we know we’re getting a fair shake?

We know we’re getting a fair shake because tribal casinos must compete with all other casino choices, says Lombardo. “We are competitive with all Class III markets,” he says. “We’re not doing anything differently (with percentages) than Atlantic City, Las Vegas or Mississippi. We are competitive with any casino in the country.” He adds that he takes average bets in lower denominations into account when determining the payback percentage he wants to offer. “If I am requiring players to cover the lines on a 20-line nickel game, that’s a dollar bet,” says Lombardo. “I take that into consideration when I figure out the payback percentage I offer.”

Lombardo adds that tribal casinos have obligations to both the players and the slot manufacturers to keep the games fair. “Over the long hall, any player is going to know if you screw with percentages; they’ll know the difference,” he says. “And, a manufacturer is not going to give us their title if we are going to misrepresent that title (with low payback). We don’t want to kill a title.”

It is that respect for the player—and obligation to represent a manufacturer’s title fairly—that should make you approach the slot experience at the Hard Rock or other large Class II tribal casinos with expectations similar to those you have when playing slots in most major jurisdictions. In other words, you are likely to get a fair shake. They know that if you don’t, you will go elsewhere.

TIP OF THE MONTH

Class II Video Poker

We have noted before that video poker in a Class II tribal casino does not work in the same manner as video poker in a traditional casino. While this is true, it does not mean that it is unfair, or that you can’t win.

Modern Slot Machines How They Work

The result of any Class II video poker hand is predetermined by the result of the ball draw in the bingo game on the little screen. In some jurisdictions, you will be required to touch the screen to daub the bingo card and claim your prize.

Those results are determined by winning patterns on the bingo card. Using one of the two methods described above, a winning pattern will either trigger one of a stack of predetermined prizes or a corresponding video poker hand, according to the odds. The odds are calculated to be similar to the odds of a standard video poker game. You won’t find the player’s-advantage paytables in Class II, but the return represented by the pay schedule you do see will be similar to the return of that game in a traditional casino.

Slot Machines How They Work

The real difference lies in the importance of perfect strategy. A Class II video poker game is actually better for the strategy novice, because the game will often correct your bonehead moves. If the bingo result determines you win the a certain prize, you will get that prize even if you make the wrong choice, through a special feature on the game.

For instance, on the IGT version of Class II video poker, let’s say your winning bingo pattern translates to the prize for four-of-a-kind, and you are dealt 10-c J-c Q-c J-h J-s. Even if you screw up and decide to go for the royal, the game will not let you. A “Genie” will appear on the screen and change your hand to four Jacks—for the quad prize that corresponds to the bingo pattern you got.

How Slot Machines Work Video

It’s better for the novice because it shows you the optimal strategy by changing your choice to match the bingo win. Other than that, the Hard Rock’s Lombardo says the games work like the standard versions of video poker—again, because the Class II casino will not risk “killing a manufacturer’s title.” “A lot of players may not know the difference between Class II and Class III,” he says. “That’s why we replicate the video poker paytables as closely as possible. It would be a killer for us to do anything else.”