6a. Payback Scale Question
Date: Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:57 pm ((PST))Sorry that this is not a VP-centric question, but this is the group
that I believe can help me understand it the best.I have a slot machine payback question.
Most experts explain / agree that slot machines' payback percentages
get slightly better as the denominations increase. So $1 slots pay
slightly higher payback than $.25 which pay slightly higher than $.05,
etc.So with the proliferation of "penny" machines, which you can play as
little as a few cents or as much as $50 in one pull, where do these
machines stack up on this frequently accepted scale? Am I playing a
penny slot or a dollar slot? Could it be possible that the payback
percentage is being calculated based on the level of coin-in for each
pull? Or, are these machines' paybacks set at the manufacturer just
like any traditional reel machine is?
Reasonable question, and I don't know the answer, but the presumption that higher denom. has higher percentage payback certainly doesn't hold in VP all of the time, and sometimes is actually the other way.
What you say MAY be true and a pretty reliable rule for NON-video poker slots, I don't know.
I remember at Mirage watching the 9/6 Jacks VP lose its 0.67% cash-back first at the $1 level, then $5, $10, and finally across the board -- which IS supportive of what you say.
But on the other hand, I frequently will scout a new place that I visit, and find $0.25 or $1 9/6 Jacks, and when I go to the high limit area, find the $5 and up are all 9/5, 8/5, or even worse. The LV Hilton's $0.25 10-play machines (when they existed; I've heard they're gone) were in the middle of some $0.25 50-play machines that were short-pay.
I've never quite understood HOW a casino decides to vary its payscales on its machines. But I don't understand how gas at the pump can go up and down 10% or more overnight either, or how a stock market that averages 8% return a year can have so many single day moves of 1-3% in a year!!
--BG
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