> IGT's Double Diamonds reel-spinning slot is over 25 years old and players still look for it.
It's the only slot I'll play because it has the best pay table in the casino. It's the only one that pays 1600 coins for a 2 coin bet with sufficient payouts otherwise.
Euhm, I don't know anything about slot machines, but isn't the (statistical) expected value not always about the same ?
The payout-distribution could be different, maybe that's what you like about it ?
(anecdotal: I calculated the expected value for a few games on a gambling site a few years ago and they were all about the same, for every game, for every size of bet: expected value was around .96 dollar for every 1$ bet. YMMV.)
That expected value is known in the industry as RTP - return to player - and is generally in the 85-98% range. Once a game is certified as having that RTP, it can't change - BUT the standard deviation can vary wildly from machine to machine, with some paying out little and often, and others having a more 'lumpy' distribution of not paying out much and then paying out large prizes every so often. High rollers will often go for these lumpier machines, staking large amounts and hoping for the elusive x1000 multipliers.
Very good point. But players should also know that a given machine can be released in multiple payout levels. You can have a row of identical games but the game in the middle could be set at 95% and the others around it set to 87%. And the casino doesn't have to identify which is which. Sometimes you can glean this from the payout tables, you can almost always glean it from video poker games.
There's a voodoo science around how casinos are laid out and how games are arranged to maximize cashflow. You can get a degree in this at UNLV.
I don't know about the US - but here in the UK all machines are required to clearly display the return to player value in the terms of the gambling license.
Yeah, sorry about the US-centric answer. Having payouts labelled is a very nice thing. Obviously Las Vegas was built on the players not knowing or understanding their long-term odds.
It's described below, but basically the overall return is the same for the various machines, but some have "lumpy" payouts, with very little paid out and then a big win, while others have no big win but lots of small wins. The ones I like to play are the second kind -- more likely to return a small win to me, but I'm going to strike it rich.
It's the only slot I'll play because it has the best pay table in the casino. It's the only one that pays 1600 coins for a 2 coin bet with sufficient payouts otherwise.