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¢ $1 and $5. When you hit at least one snowflake
with max coins on the payline, your snowman will slowly start
filling in with snow and the number above the snowman will increase
with each snowflake that you receive. You win the accumulated
snowman bonus once the number above the snowman reaches 200.
Watch out for the sun icons! Each sun icon subtracts one from
the number above the snowman but adds that credit to the snowman
bonus meter. Once you have won the snowman bonus, the bonus will
default back to 500 once you spin again. In addition, a penguin
icon will match any symbol on the payline except for the snowflake
and the sun icons. Frozen Assets slots may also be configured
as a local progressive game, where a 3-coin bet (max bet) hitting
three Frozen Sevens (7) on the payline wins you the local progressive
jackpot total, the current jackpot is located just above the
reels.
In a modern slot machine,
the odds of hitting a particular symbol or combination of symbols
depends on how the virtual reel is set up. As we saw in the last
section, each stop on the actual reel may correspond to more than one
stop on the virtual reel. Simply put, the odds of hitting a particular
image on the actual reel depend on how many virtual stops correspond to
the actual stop.
In a typical weighted slot machine, the top jackpot stop (the one with
the highest-paying jackpot image) for each reel corresponds to only one
virtual stop. This means that the chance of hitting the jackpot image on
one reel is 1 in 64. If all of the reels are set up the same way, the
chances of hitting the jackpot image on all three reels is 1 in 643, or
262,144. For machines with a bigger jackpot, the virtual reel may have
many more stops. This decreases the odds of winning that jackpot
considerably.
The losing blank stops above
and below the jackpot image may correspond to more virtual stops than
other images. Consequently, a player is most likely to hit the blank
stops right next to the winning stop. This creates the impression that
they "just missed" the jackpot, which encourages them to keep gambling,
even though the proximity of the actual stops is inconsequential.
A machine's program is
carefully designed and tested to achieve a certain payback percentage.
The payback percentage is the percentage of the money that is put in
that is eventually paid out to the player. With a payback percentage of
90, for example, the casino would take about 10 percent of all money put
into the slot machine and give away the other 90 percent. With any
payback percentage under a 100 (and they're all under 100), the casino
wins over time.
In most gambling
jurisdictions, the law requires that payback percentages be above a
certain level (usually somewhere around 75 percent). The payback
percentage in most casino machines is much higher than the minimum --
often in the 90- to 97-percent range. Casinos don't want their machines
to be a lot tighter than their competitors' machines or the players will
take their business elsewhere.
The odds for a particular
slot machine are built into the program on the machine's computer chip.
In most cases, the casino cannot change the odds on a machine without
replacing this chip. Despite popular opinion, there is no way for the
casino to instantly "tighten up" a machine.
Machines don't loosen up on
their own either. That is, they aren't more likely to pay the longer you
play. Since the computer always pulls up new random numbers, you have
exactly the same chance of hitting the jackpot every single time you
pull the handle. The idea that a machine can be "ready to pay" is all in
the player's head, at least in the standard system.
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