- Random Number Generator 1-10
- Random Name Generator
- Beat Random Number Generator Slot Machines
- Random Number Generator Wheel
- Slot Machines Are Not Random
The Random Number Generator (RNG) is a computer chip inside every slot machine that makes a thousand mathematical calculations per second. As soon as you hit that button to initiate the spin, the RNG freezes on a random set of numbers that determine the corresponding symbols on the reels, and those symbols appear on your machine.
If you had put in one or three coins the outcome would likely have been entirely different. The machine is constantly drawing random numbers and the numbers that were drawn at the moment you spin the reels determine the outcome. So, if you had played fewer or more coins you would have spun the reels at a different moment and thus the outcome would have been different.
Congratulations also on the new gig with Casino Player, I enjoy it the site and your occasional posts on bj21. As someone who works in the industry, admittedly not slots, I was under the impression that the more recent slots have the RNG stop the moment the first coin drops, so it really doesn't matter if you play 1,2, or 3 coins -- the symbols will line up the same. Have I been misinformed? According to your previous answer I apparently have. Keep up the good work and I'll stay in touch, thanks and best wishes.
Thanks for the kind words Dave. You're right that it was the money that finally made me accept the banners. It is my understanding that when the player presses the button to spin the reels the random numbers are drawn at that instant, which determine where the reels stop, and ultimately what you win. The number of coins bet does not matter.
Thanks for the compliment. The outcome of the game is determined when the player initiates the spin. The game is constantly drawing random numbers, even when not played. The random numbers chosen at the moment the button is pressed to spin the reels determine where the reels stop, which determines what the player wins. So, if the player bet three coins he would have pressed the button at a different moment, causing a different outcome.
No, that information won’t help you at all. Your odds are always the same on every spin, regardless of the counters.
To answer your question I asked a well connected gaming consultant and he said Nevada regulations state that one stop on a reel can not be weighted more than six times more than either stop next to it. So if a jackpot symbol were weighted by 1 and both bordering blanks were weighted by 6 then there would be 12 near misses for every one time the reel stopped on the jackpot symbol. This would be the maximum allowed near miss effect. My own results detailed in my slot machine appendix 1 back up this theory well. The red double seven was the highest paying symbol and I saw the blanks above and below it about 5 to 6 times as often:
Double Strike Actual Results
Symbol | Reel 1 | Reel 2 | Reel 3 |
Blank | 250 | 248 | 291 |
Double red 7 | 52 | 51 | 55 |
Blank | 259 | 292 | 262 |
The same source said that New Jersey and Mississippi likely have adopted the Nevada regulations.
My understanding is that the person who is pressing the buttons gets the money. I asked Brian, who helped with the last question, about this. Here is what he wrote, which I agree with.
In the scenario described, the person who put in the money and pressed the buttons would receive the jackpot.
![Random Number Generator Slot Machine Random Number Generator Slot Machine](https://casimg.com/w/articles-attachments/1/590/84e89cdbb4.png)
What I find interesting about this question is the paradox that in all likelihood, the jackpot never would have occurred without this chance encounter.
As you know, the random number generator in the slot machine is continuously working even when the machine is not in play. So even though one patron feels cheated, their run-in ultimately led to pressing the spin button at that exact millisecond when the RNG was on the winning combination. So, if one patron had acquiesced, there is never a jackpot to fight over.
Thanks for helping in the fight against betting systems. First let me say that I have never worked for a major slot machine company and don’t have direct knowledge of this. However, I know many people in the industry and those I trust pretty much are in agreement on this topic.
That said, it is my understanding that in all forms of electronic games, including video slots, video poker, and video keno, the outcome is usually determined the moment you make your decision. Meanwhile the possible outcomes are constantly being shuffled, thousands of times a second. I can’t speak for every slot machine but I believe that with the major U.S. slot makers the outcome is not predestined but depends on the exact microsecond you press the button to make your play.
Thanks for the kind words. Scratch cards and pull tabs can indeed be printed in batches. These batches will have a specified number for each win, and the return of the overall batch will be exactly as the maker intended. In some jurisdictions, where only pull tabs are legal, the outcome can be displayed to the player on a video monitor, in the form of a slot or video poker machine. However, in Nevada, that is not how slots work. Each play is completely independent of the past. A machine programmed to average a 97% return, could indeed pay under 95% or over 99% over a year, especially if not heavily played.
By John Robison
One of the questions I'm asked most often is - 'how is it possible for a slot machine to be a random device and for a machine to also pay back a certain percentage of the money played throughit?' If the results are truly random, people argue, then the payback should be random too.
Despite the fact that this governor function does not exist and in all jurisdictions whose regulations I’m familiar with, it is possible for the results on slot machines to be determined atrandom and for machines to have specific payback percentages.
It’s difficult to reconcile the fact that results on slot machines are random and for us to be able to know what will happen overall on amachine. Let me illustrate how this is possible with my RWB Ping Pong Ball Game.
Suppose I have a basket that contains 100 ping pong balls. Eighty ping pong balls are white, 15 are blue, and five are red. You draw a ball at random from the basket. There’s acover on the basket, so you can’t tell what color ball you’re drawing. Also, you can’t tell the balls apart, so you’re no more likely to draw one ball over any other. After you drawthe ball, you record the color and put the ball back in the basket.
As you repeat this action, you will find that the percentage of draws that were red balls gets closer and closer to 80%, the percentage of draws that were blue balls gets closer and closer to15%, and the percentage of draws that were red balls gets closer and closer to 5%.
Random Number Generator 1-10
We know that this will happen because you draw the balls at random and each ball is equally likely to be drawn by you. But it is not equally likely that you will draw any particularcolor. Eighty percent of the balls are white, so we expect 80% of your draws to be white. Similarly for the blue and red balls.
Even though you drew the balls completely at random, the distribution of colors you recorded will match the distribution of colors in the total population of ping pong balls in thebasket. Random does not mean that everything is completely unpredictable and unknowable.
Now let’s make the game more interesting. You have to pay me $1 each time you want to draw. When you draw a white ball, I keep the dollar. When you draw a blue ball, I return your dollar.And when you draw a red ball, I pay you $16. A nice payoff for drawing the red ball.
Looking at this game from my perspective, I have a 15% chance of paying you $1 and a 5% chance of paying you $16. Calculating this out, we have 0.15(1) + 0.05(16) = 0.15 + 0.80 =0.95. On the average, then, for every $1 you give me to play, I will return 95 cents to you.
The RWB Ping Pong Ball Game is just like a 95% payback slot machine. Even though the outcomes in both games are chosen completely at random, each pays back 95% of the money played in the longrun.
A slot machine works very much like the RWB Ping Pong Ball Game. Conceptually, there is a basket of ping pong balls for each reel. But instead of having different colors on theballs, these balls have symbols representing the different symbols on the reels on them. Some symbols appear on more balls than other symbols.
Let’s set up a basket of ping pong balls for a reel from a real Double Diamond slot machine. Even though there are 22 symbols and blanks on the reel, our basket will have 72 ping pongballs in it. Having more balls in the basket than we have stops on the reel allows us to alter the probability of landing any particular symbol on the payline from what it appears to befrom counting the number of times it appears on the reel and dividing by 22.
The reel has 11 blanks on it, but I’m going to put 31 blank ping pong balls in the basket. Half the stops on the physical reel are blanks, but slightly less than half the ping pong ballsare blank, so it’s actually a little less likely than it appears for a blank to land on the payline on this reel. There’s only one cherry on the reel, but I’m going to put two ping pongballs with cherries in the basket.
Random Name Generator
All of the other symbols – single bar, double bars, triple bars, 7, and Double Diamond – appear twice on the reel, but the number of ping pong balls with each symbol in the basket is 25,4, 6, 2, and 2, respectively. We need about 6.5 ping pong balls with each of these symbols in the basket to have the probability of drawing a ping pong ball carrying the symbol be thesame as what appears to be the probability of having the symbol land on the payline from looking at the reel, so you can see how different the true probabilities are from what the reel makesyou think they are.
Just as with the RWB Ping Pong Ball Game, the more you play this Double Diamond machine, the closer the distribution of symbols landing on the payline will get to the distribution of ping pongballs with each symbol in the basket.
![Random number generator in slot machines Random number generator in slot machines](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sJ0PL0ldxms/TC6H9ngMA7I/AAAAAAAAAJM/cO6SDk184F4/s1600/sm.jpg)
Even though it sounds like random should mean completely unpredictable, the only thing we can't predict is what color ping pong ball you'll draw next or what symbols will appear on the paylinenext. Because we know the distribution of ping pong balls in our basket and the casino knows the distribution of symbols on the slot machine's reels, we can predict -- no, more than predict, wecan calculate with near certainty -- how much my game and how much a slot machine will pay back in the long run.
Beat Random Number Generator Slot Machines
The only reason we can't be dead certain of how much a machine will actually pay back is because the outcome of each game is truly chosen at random and there is no function forcing the paybackto a particular number. But given enough draws or spins, my RWB Ping Pong Ball game and a 95% payback slot machine will both pay back very, very, very close to 95%.
Random Number Generator Wheel
To sum up, there's no attempt in the programming of a machine to force it to a particular payback percentage. There’s no need to. Random sampling from a known population takes care ofit automatically.
Slot Machines Are Not Random
Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at [email protected].
Because of the volume of mail he receives, John regrets that he can't reply to every question.