The recent thread on various jurisdictions that place legal limits on
vp returns, and the implications for players of those kinds of laws,
prompted me to contact I. Nelson Rose, who many of you will recognize
as the leading authority on gambling and the law.
He told me that to the best of his knowledge, all such laws would be
enforced by adjusting paytables, but he went on to say that he was
not aware of any jurisdiction that places a maximum return limit on
individual machines. That doesn't mean that there aren't any, though.
Most importantly, he said that any such limit would be placed on
individual machines rather than on a a pool of machines, but that the
limit would be "over time." So a player at any given machine at any
given moment can expect a fair game with a fair payout. Again, this
in no way speaks to whether payoffs are lowered, but that would be
reflected on the paytable.
One way casinos handle machines that pay "too much," is to simply
pull them off the floor, which is somthing that we've all seen happen
from time to time.
Anyway, hope this helped. A little.
lb