Casino Player September 2022

IN THE NEWS

through those numbers, at rates often exceed ing 1,000 numbers per second. When a player hits the“spin”button, the computer freezes the sequence of numbers generated at that nanosecond, and translates it into a reel result. That all happens in an instant. Therefore, if you’ve been sitting and losing spin after spin at a slot machine and give up with someone standing behind you waiting to play, just the several seconds it took for you to stop playing and stand up, and for the other player to sit down, insert money and begin play ing means there is virtually no chance you would have hit that “spin” button at the exact same nanosecond the new player did, even if you had just kept on playing. He didn’t steal your jackpot.You would have gotten a different result. THE GOOD GAMES ARE NOT NECES SARILY ON THE END OF THE BANK For decades, slot managers in casinos would draw players into the casino by placing the highest-paying games where they were most visible—on the ends of slot rows, or facing the casino entrance.This is not necessarily the case anymore. First, even in the past, there were as many slot officials who would bury the highest paying games in the middle to minimize their liability as there were those who wanted to trumpet them. But more significantly, over the decades, slot officials developed specific RTP policies for each denomination—pennies returning 90 per cent; dollars, 94 percent, etc.—and they gener ally stick to those policies when buying machines. So, a penny game buried in the mid dle of a bank is going to return the same as a penny game on the end of the bank across from the nightclub or restaurant line. There are other persistent myths, such as the value of alternating between spin button and handle on an old-style slot—it’s the same; the handle just pushes an internal spin but ton—but if you ever have any questions about what’s true or false about a slot, just shoot us a letter.We’ll get right back to you. ´

Actual pay statistics have shown that a slot game will generally match its theoretical pay back percentage within several weeks of play, not through the life of the machine. So these calculations work. But again, they don’t mean you win 97 percent of the time.They mean everyone will collectively win back 97 percent of all wagers. The simpler way I like to look at it comes from the easier-to-understand house advantage on table games.When a slot has a 97 percent RTP, that game has a 3 percent house edge. You may find that level of RTP online, but good luck finding that in a casino.Most of those slots on the physical floor have a house edge more like 10 percent,many even more. RTP, of course, is not the only cause of a myth surrounding slot machines that has sur vived. To their credit,most of the slot blogs get it right when addressing these ones: The slot program is designed as a random se lection of numbers generated by the random number generator. As such, each spin of the reels is an independent event selecting from all possible results in the game—which, by law, must be available on every spin.No one spin is related to any others.Therefore, it is impossible for a game to be“due”to become hot.Any given game can go weeks without returning a jack pot, and then go several more weeks.Or it can return several jackpots in a few days.You never know. The only exception to this rule is in the new games that feature a“Must Hit By”jackpot. There are several games out there with this fea ture. It’s usually a mystery progressive jackpot, and under the meter it will say “Must hit by $500.”Well, if the meter’s at $495.75, you can say that machine’s“due.” A NEW PLAYER WHO WINS AT THE MACHINE YOU JUST LEFT DID NOT “STEAL YOUR JACKPOT” This is true because of the sheer speed at which the modern random number generator gener ates the numbers in the program. Even when the machine is idle, the RNG keeps cycling A SLOT GAME IS NEVER “DUE” TO PAY OUT

O n Aug. 12, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood in Hollywood, FL, surpassed $1 billion in jackpots awarded in 2022.This is the second consecutive year that Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood reached this milestone, awarding more than $2 billion in jackpots in less than two years. Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood has awarded more than 331,768 jackpots thus far in 2022,which equates to nearly one jackpot every 62 seconds.The average jackpot size is about $3,000,with SeminoleWild Card mem bers hitting approximately 90% of jackpots. “We pride ourselves in providing our guests the ultimate experience,”said Bo Guidry, president of Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood.“When our players come to Seminole Hard Rock, they get lucky. Awarding $1 billion in jackpots in each of the last two years shows just how lucky they can get.” The 150,000-square-foot expansive gaming floor displays 2,800 of the most pop ular slots, including video poker, electronic roulette and electronic craps, as well as a non-smoking room. SUNSHINE SLOTS Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood reaches $1 billion in jackpots awarded

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