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The Bonus Feature is triggered when three or
more scattered Chihuahuas appear. A second screen will appear
where the player picks one of two cards. If the player selects
a Bone then the prize is multiplied by the original bet and
the game ends. If the player picks a Hot Dog then the prize
pool doubles and the player wins another selection. There are
between one and nine bonus rounds. The player has a chance to
win up to 256 times their original bet.
Slot machines are actual free-standing "machines" easily identified by their spinning reels and pull handles. The concept is simple, drop in some coins, pull the handle and hope the reel
symbols line up. Different symbols win different amounts, and there's usually a jackpot available to be won.
Slot machines are a total game of chance. There are no rules to learn, and the outcome is totally random. The ease of play, the potential huge payoffs, the noise and the excitement level
around the slot area all contribute to a high entertainment value for some.
Slot machines come in a variety of forms with diverse symbols on the wheels and numerous payout systems. Slot machines can have from three to five reels/wheels and one to five payoff lines.
In all of them the basic idea is the same, to line up particular symbols on the payout line. The less likely a combination is to occur, the greater the payoff.
The most basic slot machines require you to bet one coin (a fixed amount such as a dollar), they have only three reels, only one payout line, and pay a multiple of the bet coins value
(e.g. Three cherries on the payout line will result in a payout 300 times the bet coins value). The player inserts the coin and pulls a handle (or presses a button on the front panel) and waits for
the wheels to stop on the payout line to see if, and how much they have won (the payout symbols and payoff values are posted on the front of the machine). The more complex machines accept
more than one coin (up to five), can have up to five wheels, and many also have up to five payout lines (three across and two diagonal).
You can turn
the paylines on through one of two different methods in the interface.
If you click on the Bet One button, the number of active paylines
will increase by one. If all five paylines are already turned
on, and you click on the Bet One button, then the number of active
paylines will reset to one. The Bet One button will be enabled
regardless of the balance or the credits in the machine. You
can also select paylines by clicking on the payline indicators,
which are located to the left and right of the wheelhouse. If
you click on a payline indicator, then all of the paylines up
to and including the line associated with the indicator are turned
on. All other paylines are turned off. For instance, if you click
on the third payline indicator, then the first, second and third
paylines become active, and the fourth and fifth paylines are
turned off. If you click on the first payline indicator, then
only the first payline is active. If you click on the fifth payline
indicator, then all five paylines become active. You cannot selectively
turn on individual paylines (for instance, you can not activate
the first, third, and fifth paylines, and turn off the second
and fourth paylines).
Most modern slot
machines are designed to look and feel like the old mechanical models,
but they work on a complete different principle. The outcome of each
pull is actually controlled by a central computer inside the machine,
not by the motion of the reels.
The computer uses step
motors to turn each reel and stop it at the predetermined point. Step
motors are driven by short digital pulses of electricity controlled by
the computer, rather than the fluctuating electrical current that drives
an ordinary electric motor. These pulses move the motor a set increment,
or step, with great precision.
But even though the
computer tells the reels where to stop, the games are not pre-programmed
to pay out at a certain time. A random number generator at the heart of
the computer ensures that each pull has an equal shot at hitting the
jackpot.
Whenever the slot
machine is turned on, the random number generator is spitting out whole
numbers (typically between 1 and several billion) hundreds of times a
second. The instant you pull the arm back or press the button, the
computer records the next few numbers from the random number generator.
Then it feeds these numbers through a simple program to determine where
the reels should stop.
.
You pull the handle or
press the button, and the computer records the next three numbers from
the random number generator. The first number is used to determine the
position of the first reel, the second number is used for the second
reel and the third number is used for the third reel. For this example,
let's say the first number is 123,456,789.
To determine the
position of the first reel, the computer divides the first random number
by a set value. Typically, slot machines divide by 32, 64,128, 256 or
512. In this example, we'll say the computer divides by 64.
When the computer
divides the random number by the set value, it records the remainder of
the quotient. In our example, it finds that 64 goes into 123,456,789 a
total of 1,929,012 times with a remainder of 21.
Obviously, the
remainder can't be more than 64 or less than 0, so there are only 64
possible end results of this calculation. The 64 possible values act as
stops on a large virtual reel.
Each of the 64 stops
on the virtual reel corresponds to one of the 22 stops on the actual
reel. The computer consults a table that tells it how far to move the
actual reel for a particular value on the virtual reel. Since there are
far more virtual stops than actual stops, some of the actual stops will
be linked to more than one virtual stop.
Computer systems have made slot machines a lot more adaptable, players
can simply press a button to play a game, rather than pull the handle.
For the manufacturers
and slot proprietors, one of the main advantages of the computer system
is that they can easily configure how often the machine pays out (how
loose or tight it is)
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