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I see some folks in this thread underestimating casinos and exactly how far the odds are tilted against the players. I grew up in Vegas and have a lot of famil

I see some folks in this thread underestimating casinos and exactly how far the odds are tilted against the players. I grew up in Vegas and have a lot of family and friends who work in the casino industry. A particular family member is an executive at one of them and told me that he has control over the odds on machines (within the legal limit) down to a particular machine being used by somebody. Apparently this means if they need a particular high roller to stick around for awhile and spend some money they can go ahead and grease the odds on the machine they’re using to give them some winnings to spend. Then they can just make it back the next day or whatever by cranking it back and making the odds worse. Honestly at first I thought he might be exaggerating but some time later I had a friend who worked corporate finance at one of the big casinos independently tell me the exact some thing. These casinos though are really no joke. It’s one thing to skew the odds, and most people understand that, but being able to skew them in real time feels a lot more rigged. I assume some machines don’t operate this way because for many years the smaller casinos had machines that you could break even or win a bit consistently in poker, and some casinos even advertise odds. Still though its pretty shocking if my understanding is correct.

tempfortwitt90 3y ago
I wonder if it's even worse.. by law they are required to have a certain statistical payout right? What if the casino can enable "win mode" for their favorite customers staying in high priced rooms, and then turn it to basically zero for foot traffic. At the end of the month the machine paid out the correct ratio... Except you as a general player had zero chance to win because it paid out to their loyal customer earlier in the day.
- tapland 3y ago
  Don't think its worth the risk. You'd lower the average percentage player payout from like 98% (might be defaulted lower in Vegas, not sure) to low 90s and bump a few to over 100? it doesn't sound worth the risks. regular high rollers will still go there and still be profitable with regular slot odds.
- llamataboot 3y ago
  Casinos cannot alter odds on any machine (or rather they could, but it would be highly illegal) and have absolutely no reason to. Variance does that job for them quite fine.
  - tempfortwitt90 3y ago
    [flagged]
- HWR_14 3y ago
  I mean, the software and RNGs are audited. The legal odds have to be true in any given spin. If your suggestion it is only in monthly aggregate was true, they wouldn't waste it on favorite customers. They would accept a bid of millions of dollars to accept free slot machines from a vendor, have their customers lose money all month and then have a vendor rep come in once a month to win a suspiciously large payout that made the math work out. (Or some other third party, since I assume a casino employee could not win on their own machine)
koolba 3y ago
I call bullshit. There’s no way an industry as highly regulated as gambling which is effectively a license to print money, would be manipulating the odds on machines that are individually registered with the state gaming commission. The risk to the business for being completely shut down outweighs any weekend profit for getting a whale to stick around.
- kadoban 3y ago
  It probably depends how the regulations are written. Can the odds be _better_ than advertised without the casino getting in trouble? Then they'd quite plausibly have a range they could play with.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    As far as I know, they have to be exactly equal to the advertised payouts. This prevents stupid shit like making one of your slot machines "hot" as an advertising trick.
  - andy800 3y ago
    Game odds are very rarely advertised. Sometimes it is trivial to calculate or simulate the game (blackjack, roulette, craps, video poker) because all of the game parameters are known (i.e. 52-card deck, 38 slots on an American roulette wheel, two 6-sided dice) as are all the payouts. Slot machines, however, are opaque because the probability of hitting any specific combination is unknown to the public. The machine can promise that a 7-7-7 result will pay $5000 but you have no idea how often a 7-7-7 is supposed to hit. Sometimes a casino will take some less popular machines and configure them with an extremely low payout percentage (3% for example) and because the players would not otherwise know this, the casino will put a sign up "97% payout!" to try to attract some value-oriented players, just like a retail store takes old merchandise and puts it in a bargain bin at 50% off.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  What rule is that against? I don’t necessarily doubt you I just dont have any intuition about this. Because it seems like its already completely legal to play unfair games.
qup 3y ago
This is a myth, and a quick google search will support that. Wizardofodds mentions it here: https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/
- bdowling 3y ago
  The link you provided states that the technical capability is there, but Nevada has a rule against changing the odds without notifying the player. > "The conventional gaming device or client station must be in the idle mode with no errors or tilts, no play and no credits on the machine for at least 4 minutes. After this time, the conventional gaming device or client station must be disabled and rendered unplayable for at least 4 minutes. During the time the machine is disabled a message must be displayed on a video screen or other appropriate display device notifying the patron that the game configuration has been changed." — Technical Standards for Gaming Devices and On-line Slot Systems 1.140 https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ In other states, there may or may not be such a rule.
- freeopinion 3y ago
  Why would you quote anybody but Nevada gaming regulations in an appeal to authority on this question?
  - PaulRobinson 3y ago
    If you know anything about gambling, you will realise wizardofodds is the authority, and likely more trustworthy than the Nevada gaming regs…
  - qup 3y ago
    He's the authority.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  Wizardofodds mentions a specific methodology, which is not the issue. Are odds changed after an idle time? They can be, practically. They can be legally, in NV. https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=18669 https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1... This is not a myth.
aaron695 3y ago
I don't believe this. But it seems it is true. The catch is the high roller has a favorite machine, so you change the odds before they arrive. https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2921 https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2... "Once a game is initiated by a player on a gaming device, the rules of play for that game, including the probability and award of a game outcome, cannot be changed. In the event the game or rules of play for the game, including probability and award of a game outcome, change between games during a gaming session, notice of the change must be prominently displayed to the player." Other source, not sure where this reg comes from - "Slot machines in Nevada must sit idle for 4 minutes before an adjustment to payback percentage or game rules can be made. When a change is made, the machine must be taken out of play with a message displayed on the screen noting an update is taking place. The machine then must sit idle for an additional 4 minutes after the change before play is allowed."
ants_everywhere 3y ago
I was curious so I looked it up. This site seems to have some technical details: > Some slot machines operate on downloadable software, which comes from a central server. In these cases, the casino doesn’t have to open a game and change a chip. > Instead, they can simply download the software to alter RTP. But just as with replacing an EPROM chip, casinos need to follow their jurisdiction’s guidelines when changing server-based payout percentages. From https://www.gamblingsites.net/blog/inside-the-myth-that-casinos-can-change-slots-rtp-at-will/ https://www.gamblingsites.net/blog/inside-the-myth-that-casi...
NavinF 3y ago
You fell for a very old urban legend. Please google it before spreading "friend who worked corporate finance at one of the big casinos" stories. Your friend was just having fun at your expense, as was the family member.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  This is actually true that they can and do adjust the odds on these machines for high rollers and the like. It's all done by computer now, no lever. However, there are strict procedures involved. If there is a player on the machine, you can't change the odds or payouts without first kicking the player off the machine, and you have to make the payouts very clear (usually with a placard on the machine), and you have to change that too.
- fleshdaddy 3y ago
  Looks like there’s actually some truth to it. Wouldn’t be surprised by some exaggeration but please google it before leaving a comment dismissing it.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
Truth. Mistake no. 1 is expecting to beat the house in the long term when the expectation of all of these games, save PvP like poker, is less than zero a priori. The MIT blackjack team might have found temporary counting and signaling systems to exploit, but the casinos were never going to let any group bleed money from them in the long term. Every now and then some groups may try, but they're not going to beat a system that doesn't tolerate excessive winnings for long. If you want to go to Vegas for a vacation and make $100 last with your own system of minimum risk, sure, go for it.
somenameforme 3y ago
Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines (EDIT: incorrect, see comment below). The way some machines become profitable is when there's a progressive jackpot that hasn't been hit. Imagine there's a high roller $100 slot machine with a 99% payout. That means each spin you have an expected value of losing $1. Now imagine there's a $100 jackpot that you have a 1% chance of hitting (to keep the math clean). That jackpot is now adding $1 of expected value to each spin, so now your expected value is $-1 + $1 = $0. As jackpots grow, all machines (which offer them) will eventually become +EV, or profitable, to play. Casinos also regularly offer comps, bonuses, and other non-cash incentives to players who spend a lot of money, so it's pretty easy to end up with a +EV game. It's one of those scenarios where the casino gets to have their cake and eat it too. For instance, the way the jackpot may work is the casino takes $0.2 of each $1 of profit that high roller machine is yielding, and put it towards the jackpot. But when that jackpot gets high enough, the exponentially increased number of spins results in an overall profit gain for the casino, relative to just taking the whole $1 for themselves and having no jackpot. --- Finally, as a slightly different segment of gaming there are some machines which are "technically" capable of being beaten with skill. For instance many casinos now offer Limit Texas Hold'em poker machines, where you are playing "real" poker against a machine. But limit hold'em is an incredibly technical and complex game which no human is ever going to be able to come out on top of against a strong machine now a days. But it's a lot more fun than playing e.g. chess against a computer because the optimal strategy for heads up limit hold'em makes you look pretty much like a maniac, to somebody who doesn't know much about the game.
- iancarroll 3y ago
  > Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines. No, they aren’t, at least in Nevada. Some states make the whole casino disclose its average “return to player” metric though.
- jxf 3y ago
  > Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines. This is not accurate in at least Nevada, Michigan, and Maryland. Casinos are required to disclose the overall average, but not the rate of individual slot machines.
NickInSF 3y ago
The gaming machines are all networked Windows PCs with payout odds that are controlled by group, which can be defined into sections as small as twelve machines. (The exact number may have changed in the past decade.) NGCB (Nev. Gaming Control Board) does regular on-site audits of the machines and the central configurations to ensure that they are compliant.
jasmer 3y ago
'feels rigged'. My friend, the entire thing is rigged from top to bottom, from the time you see the ad, until you are back at home. The only way to win is to accept the grift on those terms.
andy800 3y ago
There's a little bit of truth here, but it's mostly incorrect. Yes casinos set the odds for any individual slot machine. However the game manufacturers prepare the games with about 5 configurations, even the loosest config will still be well into the casinos favor (it's sort of like how Call of Duty has an Easy, Normal, Hard or Legend mode), i.e. the game configs might be to hold 7.3%, 8.6%, 10.1%, 11.5% and 12.7%. Of course the game's theoretical hold is not revealed to players. The casinos are allowed to update a game configuration while it is on the floor and idle (not while it is being played). I doubt it has been tested but I believe Gaming Control Board would frown on configuration changes being made to accommodate an individual player, but even if a casino did this, they would not be "giving" a player any winnings, they would just be making it so the player was likely to lose at a slower rate, but still be losing, i.e. dropping from the 11.5% config to the "loosest" 7.3%. This is mostly a moot point anyway, because it is perfectly legal for a casino to offer a player hundreds or thousands of dollars in free slot play (or free bets), that's how they give a specific player "winnings to spend."

tempfortwitt90 3y ago

I wonder if it's even worse.. by law they are required to have a certain statistical payout right? What if the casino can enable "win mode" for their favorite customers staying in high priced rooms, and then turn it to basically zero for foot traffic. At the end of the month the machine paid out the correct ratio... Except you as a general player had zero chance to win because it paid out to their loyal customer earlier in the day.

tapland 3y ago
Don't think its worth the risk. You'd lower the average percentage player payout from like 98% (might be defaulted lower in Vegas, not sure) to low 90s and bump a few to over 100? it doesn't sound worth the risks. regular high rollers will still go there and still be profitable with regular slot odds.
llamataboot 3y ago
Casinos cannot alter odds on any machine (or rather they could, but it would be highly illegal) and have absolutely no reason to. Variance does that job for them quite fine.
- tempfortwitt90 3y ago
  [flagged]
HWR_14 3y ago
I mean, the software and RNGs are audited. The legal odds have to be true in any given spin. If your suggestion it is only in monthly aggregate was true, they wouldn't waste it on favorite customers. They would accept a bid of millions of dollars to accept free slot machines from a vendor, have their customers lose money all month and then have a vendor rep come in once a month to win a suspiciously large payout that made the math work out. (Or some other third party, since I assume a casino employee could not win on their own machine)

koolba 3y ago

I call bullshit. There’s no way an industry as highly regulated as gambling which is effectively a license to print money, would be manipulating the odds on machines that are individually registered with the state gaming commission. The risk to the business for being completely shut down outweighs any weekend profit for getting a whale to stick around.

kadoban 3y ago
It probably depends how the regulations are written. Can the odds be _better_ than advertised without the casino getting in trouble? Then they'd quite plausibly have a range they could play with.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  As far as I know, they have to be exactly equal to the advertised payouts. This prevents stupid shit like making one of your slot machines "hot" as an advertising trick.
- andy800 3y ago
  Game odds are very rarely advertised. Sometimes it is trivial to calculate or simulate the game (blackjack, roulette, craps, video poker) because all of the game parameters are known (i.e. 52-card deck, 38 slots on an American roulette wheel, two 6-sided dice) as are all the payouts. Slot machines, however, are opaque because the probability of hitting any specific combination is unknown to the public. The machine can promise that a 7-7-7 result will pay $5000 but you have no idea how often a 7-7-7 is supposed to hit. Sometimes a casino will take some less popular machines and configure them with an extremely low payout percentage (3% for example) and because the players would not otherwise know this, the casino will put a sign up "97% payout!" to try to attract some value-oriented players, just like a retail store takes old merchandise and puts it in a bargain bin at 50% off.
nonethewiser 3y ago
What rule is that against? I don’t necessarily doubt you I just dont have any intuition about this. Because it seems like its already completely legal to play unfair games.

qup 3y ago

This is a myth, and a quick google search will support that. Wizardofodds mentions it here: https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/

bdowling 3y ago
The link you provided states that the technical capability is there, but Nevada has a rule against changing the odds without notifying the player. > "The conventional gaming device or client station must be in the idle mode with no errors or tilts, no play and no credits on the machine for at least 4 minutes. After this time, the conventional gaming device or client station must be disabled and rendered unplayable for at least 4 minutes. During the time the machine is disabled a message must be displayed on a video screen or other appropriate display device notifying the patron that the game configuration has been changed." — Technical Standards for Gaming Devices and On-line Slot Systems 1.140 https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ https://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/slots/progressives/ In other states, there may or may not be such a rule.
freeopinion 3y ago
Why would you quote anybody but Nevada gaming regulations in an appeal to authority on this question?
- PaulRobinson 3y ago
  If you know anything about gambling, you will realise wizardofodds is the authority, and likely more trustworthy than the Nevada gaming regs…
- qup 3y ago
  He's the authority.
Supermancho 3y ago
Wizardofodds mentions a specific methodology, which is not the issue. Are odds changed after an idle time? They can be, practically. They can be legally, in NV. https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=18669 https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1... This is not a myth.

aaron695 3y ago

I don't believe this. But it seems it is true. The catch is the high roller has a favorite machine, so you change the odds before they arrive. https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2921 https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2... "Once a game is initiated by a player on a gaming device, the rules of play for that game, including the probability and award of a game outcome, cannot be changed. In the event the game or rules of play for the game, including probability and award of a game outcome, change between games during a gaming session, notice of the change must be prominently displayed to the player." Other source, not sure where this reg comes from - "Slot machines in Nevada must sit idle for 4 minutes before an adjustment to payback percentage or game rules can be made. When a change is made, the machine must be taken out of play with a message displayed on the screen noting an update is taking place. The machine then must sit idle for an additional 4 minutes after the change before play is allowed."

ants_everywhere 3y ago

I was curious so I looked it up. This site seems to have some technical details: > Some slot machines operate on downloadable software, which comes from a central server. In these cases, the casino doesn’t have to open a game and change a chip. > Instead, they can simply download the software to alter RTP. But just as with replacing an EPROM chip, casinos need to follow their jurisdiction’s guidelines when changing server-based payout percentages. From https://www.gamblingsites.net/blog/inside-the-myth-that-casinos-can-change-slots-rtp-at-will/ https://www.gamblingsites.net/blog/inside-the-myth-that-casi...

NavinF 3y ago

You fell for a very old urban legend. Please google it before spreading "friend who worked corporate finance at one of the big casinos" stories. Your friend was just having fun at your expense, as was the family member.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
This is actually true that they can and do adjust the odds on these machines for high rollers and the like. It's all done by computer now, no lever. However, there are strict procedures involved. If there is a player on the machine, you can't change the odds or payouts without first kicking the player off the machine, and you have to make the payouts very clear (usually with a placard on the machine), and you have to change that too.
fleshdaddy 3y ago
Looks like there’s actually some truth to it. Wouldn’t be surprised by some exaggeration but please google it before leaving a comment dismissing it.

sacnoradhq 3y ago

Truth. Mistake no. 1 is expecting to beat the house in the long term when the expectation of all of these games, save PvP like poker, is less than zero a priori. The MIT blackjack team might have found temporary counting and signaling systems to exploit, but the casinos were never going to let any group bleed money from them in the long term. Every now and then some groups may try, but they're not going to beat a system that doesn't tolerate excessive winnings for long. If you want to go to Vegas for a vacation and make $100 last with your own system of minimum risk, sure, go for it.

somenameforme 3y ago

Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines (EDIT: incorrect, see comment below). The way some machines become profitable is when there's a progressive jackpot that hasn't been hit. Imagine there's a high roller $100 slot machine with a 99% payout. That means each spin you have an expected value of losing $1. Now imagine there's a $100 jackpot that you have a 1% chance of hitting (to keep the math clean). That jackpot is now adding $1 of expected value to each spin, so now your expected value is $-1 + $1 = $0. As jackpots grow, all machines (which offer them) will eventually become +EV, or profitable, to play. Casinos also regularly offer comps, bonuses, and other non-cash incentives to players who spend a lot of money, so it's pretty easy to end up with a +EV game. It's one of those scenarios where the casino gets to have their cake and eat it too. For instance, the way the jackpot may work is the casino takes $0.2 of each $1 of profit that high roller machine is yielding, and put it towards the jackpot. But when that jackpot gets high enough, the exponentially increased number of spins results in an overall profit gain for the casino, relative to just taking the whole $1 for themselves and having no jackpot. --- Finally, as a slightly different segment of gaming there are some machines which are "technically" capable of being beaten with skill. For instance many casinos now offer Limit Texas Hold'em poker machines, where you are playing "real" poker against a machine. But limit hold'em is an incredibly technical and complex game which no human is ever going to be able to come out on top of against a strong machine now a days. But it's a lot more fun than playing e.g. chess against a computer because the optimal strategy for heads up limit hold'em makes you look pretty much like a maniac, to somebody who doesn't know much about the game.

iancarroll 3y ago
> Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines. No, they aren’t, at least in Nevada. Some states make the whole casino disclose its average “return to player” metric though.
jxf 3y ago
> Casinos are required to display the current payout rate on any and all slot machines. This is not accurate in at least Nevada, Michigan, and Maryland. Casinos are required to disclose the overall average, but not the rate of individual slot machines.

NickInSF 3y ago

The gaming machines are all networked Windows PCs with payout odds that are controlled by group, which can be defined into sections as small as twelve machines. (The exact number may have changed in the past decade.) NGCB (Nev. Gaming Control Board) does regular on-site audits of the machines and the central configurations to ensure that they are compliant.

jasmer 3y ago

'feels rigged'. My friend, the entire thing is rigged from top to bottom, from the time you see the ad, until you are back at home. The only way to win is to accept the grift on those terms.

andy800 3y ago

There's a little bit of truth here, but it's mostly incorrect. Yes casinos set the odds for any individual slot machine. However the game manufacturers prepare the games with about 5 configurations, even the loosest config will still be well into the casinos favor (it's sort of like how Call of Duty has an Easy, Normal, Hard or Legend mode), i.e. the game configs might be to hold 7.3%, 8.6%, 10.1%, 11.5% and 12.7%. Of course the game's theoretical hold is not revealed to players. The casinos are allowed to update a game configuration while it is on the floor and idle (not while it is being played). I doubt it has been tested but I believe Gaming Control Board would frown on configuration changes being made to accommodate an individual player, but even if a casino did this, they would not be "giving" a player any winnings, they would just be making it so the player was likely to lose at a slower rate, but still be losing, i.e. dropping from the 11.5% config to the "loosest" 7.3%. This is mostly a moot point anyway, because it is perfectly legal for a casino to offer a player hundreds or thousands of dollars in free slot play (or free bets), that's how they give a specific player "winnings to spend."