Hey guys! I'm a poker player (obv), but I'm also curious about slots machines. How they work? Who programm their winrate and what is the rake in this kind of machine?

In Quebec/Canada per example, some slot machine only keep 8% for each dollars you put in (you can read this on the machine). How do they calculate this rake?

If I put 100$ on the machine, gamble until I only have 1$, win 98$ (total 99$), gamble again until I have 1$, win 97$, etc, until I got busto, how do the slot machine see his rake?

If you have a book on the subject or a video, feel free to post a link.

I'm just curious about the subject.

Thanks

You simply design the wheels with the desired number of winning combinations, and then spin them randomly. Over time the combinations determines the payout and no control of the spins or outcomes needs to be used.

I don't think that's the way modern slots work. It's my understanding that they use a RNG and the result of the spin is determined when you hit the button. The spinning wheels are just for show.

The principle is still the same. The main point for the OP is that spins are random and results are random, and in fact required to be by law in many places. The full result set possible on the machine contains the desired number of winning results to give the desired payouts while using random outcomes. There is no controlling of results of individual spins.

The payout odds on slots are misleading.You mentioned that the machine you were looking out has a return rate of 92% . The 92% is based off turn over, not cash in/cash out.

+1 this is true for pretty much any modern slot (you maybe could still find a few out there that are dated but anything flashy or fun nowadays is RNG-based.)

Also OP - as far as your scenario on how the slot machine gets their piece of the action: you're right that the scenario you outlined they really aren't making money. However, the scenario you described (while possible and certainly happens) is far less likely to happen over the huge volume of sessions a machine has.

Slot machines (which I personally enjoy playing from time to time) are great for casinos because they are one of the purest examples of a game that gets gamblers to falter based on the sunk cost fallacy. People put $100, $200, $1000+ into a machine and figure "probabilistically it has to hit at some point" so they keep chasing the money they've already put in and end up very quickly losing more.

I mean think about, slots are the place where real degens dont have to interact with another living soul, usually has some form of a huge exponential reward if you hit the jackpot, and it is completely play at your own pace with no stopping unless you choose to.

Great post sir (sorry for assuming your gender), thanks!

Check out this lady!!!

RTP is just the expected value of the payout for any spin divided by the cost of the spin. Expected value of a spin is calculated by multiplying the amount of each possible payout by the probability that the payout will occur and taking the sum.

To illustrate suppose you have a simple slot machine that costs $3 per spin. It has bars and blanks on each of its three reels and only one Pauline. It pays $2 for bar/blank/blank, $20 for bar/bar/blank and $200 for bar/bar/bar. Each reel has 20 positions, with five bars on reels 1 and 2 and two on reel 3. The probability of the $2 win is 27/160. The probability of the $20 win is 9/160. The probability of the $200 win is 1/160. The expected value of the payout is 54/160 + 180/160 + 200/160 = 434/160 or $2.71. This machine would therefore have an RTP of 2.71/3.00 = 90.4%.

Obviously real machines have more complex paytables and the individual payout probabilities are not given. An additional complexity ids that you often can play different bets per spin and these can have different RTPs. Generally, for example if you can bet 1, 2 or 3 credits, most payouts will be proportional to your bet (ie the 3 credit payout is triple that of the 1 credit payout for the same combo), but the jackpot payout is often higher for the maximum bet. I’ve seen machines with, for instance, jackpot payouts of 1500, 3000, and 5000 for the 1,2 and 3 credit bets. This can be magnified on progressives since the max bet is typically neede to win the progressive jackpot. I’m just guessing, but I’d assume the RTP that’s reported is for the max bet and might be lower if you bet less.

i gotta say i'm really impressed by the effort put in by the link spammers in this thread, every single one of them here is easily 10x better crafted than the hundreds of others i've seen here

On the off chance the OP actually cares, there was once a data dump on how one of the major games is produced. It is in this article here:
https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/lobstermania/

I had to find it earlier for research purposes for my own game development.

Also the amount of spam in this thread is pretty annoying. I had to report them all and wait 1 minute between each report.