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Surely when Charles Fey built his first slot machine in 1896 he never
could have envisioned where the contraption would travel and how it would
transmogrify. In fact, for a hundred years his innovation hardly changed
at all, except cosmetically. The external design, consisting of an ornate
metal box was wrapped around the mechanism and became fancier or plainer,
larger or smaller, in attempt to attract the eye. But as always, when
a player primed the machine with coins and pulled the handle, the reels
spun randomly and, governed by stoppers eventually came to a halt. Each
reel was decorated with a variety of symbols that, when matched according
to a pay schedule (printed somewhere on the face of the machine), the
player won; when no matching symbols appeared, the player lost.
Though Fey is given credit as the Father of the Slot Machine, prototypes
existed years before he came up with the idea of converting them into
gambling device--which he believed would enhance the profits on his sales
routes. These early "amusement devices" could be found in saloons where
polite society would not be exposed to them and where proprietors stood
on the edge of breaking the law.
These first apparatuses had a major drawback. They were designed in
such a way that after a certain number of coins were inserted the weight
of these coins would tip the scales and some of the stored coins from
previous play would spill out, thus providing a winner. It didn't take
long for street-smart players and wise guys to figure out that the coins
would come out automatically with a little pushing and shoving and slamming
the machine around. So it was back to the drawing board where clever
builders devised first a metal bar to help prevent "tilting," and then
came up with smaller devices that could be bolted to a counter top or
wall.
Meanwhile, in dignified establishments such as grocery stores and mercantiles,
a similar piece of equipment began popping up and being played by even
the snootiest of patrons. Called the trade simulator, this machine operated
much like other contemporary devices except that the winners produced
could be exchanged or traded for goods within the establishment--thus
the name "trade," perhaps a forerunner to the modern cents-off coupon.
Playing slots was (and is) both a tactile and sensory experience involving
the feel of the coins and the touch and pull of the handle. It involved
the sense of vision, the sense of hearing, and the innate sensation of
anticipation.
Winning and losing depended on a simple mechanism that included symbols
(usually fruit of some kind, perhaps bars and/or sevens, and of course
hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, Fey's original choice) affixed to
the three reels and a shaft. With ten symbols per reel, the machine was
capable of a thousand possible combinations.
Payout percentages are the most commonly used form of differentiating slot machines, and the most often used form of advertising slots by the casinos. Many casinos offer "98% payback slots " or some other high number as their payback percentage. This is most often thought of as "98% of the total amount of money deposited into the machine will be returned to the player". People tend to think this means if they play through $100, they should expect to have $98 come back to them. This is a bit of a fallacy however, because the return percentage is a theoretical one based on an infinite timeline. This means if you were to keep playing the slots game forever, you would eventually have made back 98% of what you put in. Most people don't usually play long enough to hit a big jackpot however, and winning that jackpot is part of the calculated 98%. This means if you play and don't win big, chances are you're actual return percentage will be significantly lower.
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What do I mean by traps? I mean slot machines that aren't entirely up front about what they offer you. The biggest trap by far is the full coins trap. There are many slot machines in Vegas that advertise great payback percentages and amazing jackpots, but they also advertise themselves as 'quarter slots ' or 'nickel slots ', which is a little misleading. The majority of these machines require you to play multiple coins in order to be eligible for some or any of its available jackpots. Many of them require that you are playing the maximum number of coins possible on the machine in order to be able to win the jackpot that probably convinced you to play it in the first place! So be very wary, you may find yourself in front of a machine that has three cars lined up in a row making you think you've won the grand jackpot, but no lights will flash, no sounds will erupt, if you only played one coin.
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There are many, many myths around the Internet trying to convince you that the casinos in Las Vegas have masterminded the way they place their slots , with loose slots more visible than tight slots . You will undoubtedly read about how slot machines near the isles, on raised carousels, or near the entrances and exits pay out more and more often than other slots in the casino. The logic is based on the idea that the casino wants any winner on a slot machine to be seen by as many people as possible, convincing them to play too. While this may be a fairly logical assumption, it seems as though if it was true once in the past, it sadly no longer is. Recently Michael Shackleford of the wizard of odds has done some fairly systematic tests of casinos around Vegas and found no difference between the payouts on machines located randomly, and those in previously though of 'loose' spots.
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A spectacular new slots game. This is the first
time ever a licensed product has been acquired for an online
casino game on the Microgaming platform. Tomb Raider™.
has been developed as a 5 reel, 15 payline, multiple coin slot
with a WILD (Tomb Raider) and Scatter (Lara) symbol, Bonus Feature game and Free
Spins. Tomb Raider™. is the 1st Microgaming slot game
where a player can win a Feature Game from the Free Spin game.
Players can wager five coins per payline with bets starting at
5 cents up to $1.00 per line. The jackpot is 7,500 times your
line-bet (max=$5) when
you hit 5 Tomb Raider symbols.
PLAYING IT SMART by ALAN KRIGMAN
Multi-line Machines Add a Meaningful Choice to Slot Play .
The slot machines dominant in the '90s gave players little flexibility for tailoring games to meet meaningful personal preferences. Differences like symbols on the reels were cursory, and serious options were accordingly limited. True, there was a pick of denomination -- $0.25, $0.50, $1, and so on. Another choice was giant jackpots with infinitesimal chances of hitting, modest meed with merely minuscule prospects of prosperity, or somewhere in between. And there were alternatives that few folks ever fathomed, like machines where extra coins bought more confusing ways to win as opposed to bigger returns and bonuses.
The nickel and other multi-line machines now proliferating at punting palaces across the ever-widening wagering world offer solid citizens additional diversity. This, more significant in shaping session performance than most slot fans yet fathom. For a particular amount dropped into the hopper of hope per round, it's the trade-off between more money on fewer lines or the converse.
Slot machines differ among games, to the extent that two devices may look identical, yet don't necessarily have the same inner workings. Further, the relationship between what players do and what they get involves the unpredictable intervention of chance rather than the certainty of cause and effect. So a painstakingly precise analysis entailing the probabilities and payoffs of one particular machine won't apply exactly to another. Intuitive understanding of what to expect, among any proficient gambler's greatest talents, is far better served using a simplified model.
For this purpose, picture a hypothetical five-line nickel machine. Make believe it takes up to five coins per line and has only one return level -- $0.15 for every $0.05 bet on a winning line. Experienced bettors know this means you win 2-to-1, a nickel earns you a dime, since the $0.15 includes your own money -- the $0.05 bet you didn't lose. Say you're comfortable risking $0.25 per spin. You could do it in various ways, the extremes being a quarter on one line or a nickel on each of five lines.
If the chance of winning were 31 percent, this game would have a payback of 93 percent. About average for the nickel slots.
The 93 percent return isn't affected by your decision to play one line at quarter or five at a nickel each. But, the net wins and losses per spin, and the chances associated with them, do change.
Betting $0.25 on a single line, you have 31 percent chance of winning $0.50 and the complementary 69 percent chance of losing your quarter. Betting $0.05 on each of five lines, probabilities and profits are as shown in the following list.
Chances of various wins and losses on hypothetical machine, betting $0.05 on each of five lines
no of probability net profit hits or loss
0 15.64% lose $0.25
1 35.13% lose $0.10
2 31.57% win $0.05
3 14.18% win $0.20
4 3.19% win $0.35
5 0.29% win $0.50
These figures demonstrate how distributed bets dampen expected ups and downs. Shifting the total from one bet to five drops forecast $0.25 losses from 69 to 15.64 percent, and only 50.77 percent of all spins are projected to lose anything. Big wins are also fewer -- the chance of earning $0.50 is below one percent with $0.05 per line, versus 31 percent betting all-or-nothing. But, a nickel win in the multi-line mode is expected slightly more often than $0.50 going for broke, and the other payoffs bring the overall shot at winning something to 49.23 percent.
Smaller bankroll swings characterizing each round of multi-line play ultimately keep players in the game longer on a given stake. Say you start with $50 and bet $0.25 per spin. The chance of being in action for at least 2,000 spins, about three hours of fast fingering, is 78.8 percent with a quarter on one line. It's higher, 98.5 percent, with a nickel on each of five lines. Sumner A Ingmark, celebrated songster of the slots, said it like this: You cannot win if you don't play, So temp'ring risk may save the day
(c) 2001, ICON/Information Concepts Inc.
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Dr Lovemore is a 5-reel 20-line video slots with a free spin game bonus feature, a wild symbol, and bets as low as one penny per line. Playing one cent per line allows you to play this 5 reel 20 line slot with bets as low as 20 cents per spin. Get a Bonus symbol on reels one and five to enter the free spin bonus game. You get 20 free spins and you can win more during the bonus spins. The Wild symbol can stand for any other symbol (except Scatter and Bonus symbols), to make the best possible winning combination. There is also a separate payout for several Wild symbols on an active payline. The payout for scatter symbols is multiplied by your total bet, not the line bet.
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