If we consider the Nevada Gaming Regulation as a case in point, it is clear that the random component of casino gaming is an intractable element of all operations. The randomness of a slot machine game ensures that the previous outcome has absolutely zero impact on the future outcome, and the amount of coins that you deposit has absolutely no correlation with the symbols that line up on the spinning reels. There is however a correlation between the number of coins that you play and the size of the jackpot that you receive – but as for the actual symbols that result from the random number generator, there is no connection. And just for the record, there is no rule or truth to the assertion that slot machines have to make up a certain payout quota within a certain period of time. In other words if the machine hasn’t paid out X amount of dollars by the end of the month, it will not suddenly rush to make payouts just before the month is about to close out to meet that quota. This is all rooted in the concept of randomness of outcomes.
Understanding slot machine gaming
In order to understand how a slot machine would be beneficial for the purposes of profitability in a casino, let us consider a simple coin toss. With every flip of a coin, you have a 50% chance of being correct. In the long-term, over thousands upon thousands of coin tosses you will likely break even. This is why 50-50 games like that are not offered in casinos. The way casinos make money is by offering a lower payout percentage than the actual true odds of the outcome occurring. In other words if you bet on tails and you lost, you would lose your full wager, however if you bet on heads and you won, the casino would give you say 80% to 90% return on winning bets. The remaining percentage stays with the house, and this is how they make money in the long term. This is known as the casino edge, and it is often expressed as a percentage. In the above examples, it was mentioned that slot machine RTP figures range from 92% to 96%. This is the casino edge and this is how they ensure their profitability over the long-term. In other words, for every $1 that you wager, you will win back $0.92 or $0.96 in the long-term – the rest will be won by the casino. And so it is with slot machine games too. Before one dismisses casinos as moneymaking entities, one has to accept that they run a tremendous risk over the short-term and the RTP figure is simply a safeguard for the risks that online casinos and land-based casinos take on when offering high-paying slot machine jackpots to players.
You may be wondering how a random number generator actually functions in a practical way. Fortunately, it’s a lot less complicated than the tech gurus would like us to believe. Each slot machine has a certain number of spinning reels and a certain number of symbols. There are also a certain number of paylines, sometimes they are fixed and sometimes they are not. For each reel, the random number generator will select a random number which is associated with the symbol. The number of symbols in each slot game is vast, and can be seen in things like the paytable of the game that you are playing. By the time you have deposited coins in the slot at a land-based casino, or virtually done so at an online casino, the random number generator has already determined the outcomes. What you see playing out in front of you is merely for entertainment purposes only. That’s why many casinos offer quick-result functionality where you can simply click the spin button and the results are generated immediately. You don’t need to go through the rigmarole of watching the reels spin and individual reels coming to a stop one after the other. It should be pointed out that standard non-progressive slot games will typically feature between 35 and 50 stopping points per spinning reel. If we move onto electromechanical slot machine games with invisible reels, you could have as many as 256 stops. The actual mathematics of slot machine games vis-a-vis random number generators gets highly complicated, so consider the following table as an indication of symbols, selected numbers and possible outcomes.