You can't get an exact answer to that. It varies by manufacturer and jurisdiction. Apparently, on most machines the next card(s) are not picked until the draw button is hit. On some, especially very old machines, 10 cards are picked initially. And it is my understanding that some jurisdictions require this although I don't know this for a fact. New IGT machines select the draw when the draw button is pushed, although since Nevada has no regulation some might draw 10 cards.
But most people mistakenly believe that the RNG "is constantly running, shuffling decks" or whatever. If this was done by taking the results of the last number chosen to get the next one then it would be possible to predict the next cards drawn by knowing the sequence. A completely secure way is to use the internal clock, which tracks down to a small fraction of a second to provide a new "seed" number to the RNG whenever Deal or Draw is pressed. This also reduces the amount of processing the machine has to do which would generate more heat and shorten the life of some components (this last was told to me by an electrical engineer. It might be idiotic but it seems to make sense to my untrained logic).
The most important thing, of course, is that this knowledge only affects us psychologically and has absolutely no effect mathematically. If we know that 10 cards were drawn then we can punish ourselves for making the "wrong" decision, like which of two pairs to keep in FPDW. On the other hand, we can never make the wrong choice if the cards are selected with the draw push since we would not have drawn the same hand if we had selected different cards to hold. I find this last comforting, but I also realize that psychological considerations have no bearing on how I hold a particular hand.
Hope this helps.
Bill
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At 06:58 AM 03/26/2003 -0800, you wrote:
I have a quick question on how the RNG works on VP. I just returned from a Tunica Practice Trip ( Seeing how well I had learned from FVP ). During this trip I had several occasions where I had four cards to a RF. Naturally I held the four cards ( I did not hit one though). After the cards are dealt, is the RNG still running or shuffling the remainder of the deck??? Or is the next card is already determined ?