A few weeks ago, I wrote that in the hours shortly after New Year’s Eve midnight I was cruising downtown Las Vegas looking for slot attendants resetting machines. Due to the W-2G threshold changing from $1,200 to $2,000 effective January 1, most machines needed to be reset to make them lock up at $2,000 rather than $1,200. My search on January 1 was unsuccessful, as I reported.
One of my readers, Mike, suggested I was off base. The jackpot meters have nothing to do with resets. Well, yes and no. The meters are unrelated to each other, to be sure, but some games need to be reset whenever such a change is made — and a few are positive when this happens.
Most games, of course, don’t reset at positive levels. With Buffalo Link, for example, the meters reset to a value of 100. At this level, the game returns about 80% and only players oblivious to the meters will play. (There are a lot of such players.) But there are definitely at least two games that reset positively.
On January 17, I found one! Or rather, I found a circular bank of four slot machines which had all been reset. Not immediately before I got there, but not too long before. Maybe a day or two? I can’t be sure.
How do I figure? There were four identical machines with perhaps 40 different combinations of denominations and number of coins required. You could play it for as little as 50¢ per spin — to as much as $50.
The $50-per-spin games are pretty formidable. Although the player definitely becomes the favorite at the level these meters were at, these are gambling games with considerable variance. Losing more than $10,000 playing a positive game of this size isn’t that uncommon. The vast majority of players who frequent this casino are not in position to play games requiring such bankrolls. The smaller games on these machines, where anywhere between 50¢ and $20 was required to play each hand, had all been played and the meters were no longer attractive. Perhaps by one person who made a day of it. Or perhaps by several people.
But among the four machines, there were five playable games — three for $30, one for $40, and one for $50. I had some money on me, but quite a bit less than $10,000. There was no guarantee I had enough to play one game — let alone all five. Bonnie, however, was with me because we had gone out to dinner together previously using casino comps. As is often the case in such situations, we checked some machines before we went home. If I ran out of money, Bonnie could sit at the machine while I went where I needed to go to get some. We would make sure the machine displayed an unattractive meter amount while Bonnie quietly sat in front of it so anybody walking by would have no reason to challenge her for the chair. I told her about this possibility before we started, and she was fine with it. She was actually pretty excited about us making some “big money.” Regardless of whether the results would be plus or minus, we don’t split gambling results, and this would all be my money we were dealing with. But she’s my biggest fan. Plus, she gets to experience hitting big jackpots with no financial risk to her at all.
When I started playing, I didn’t know there were other positive games on the other three machines because they were occupied. I loaded the first machine with $2,000 before we started. Playing for $30 per pull, it took longer to insert the 20 Benjamins into this machine than it did afterwards to hit a jackpot of $3,700. It took 20 minutes to be paid. I would have shifted over to one of the other machines while I waited, except all three were being played by friends of each other — for either 50¢ or $1. When I hit the jackpot, the players on the other three machines scurried over to take look. They were excited because playing for low stakes, they rarely hit jackpots. One finally saw that I was playing $30 a hand — and even asked me if I knew I was playing for that much! I told her I knew.
Just as we were finished with our first game, (it was the only good one on that machine), one of the other machines opened up. I had Bonnie hold the current machine, without playing, while I checked all the games on the recently vacated machine. Had there been good games on it, I would have had Bonnie hold that chair while I finished off on the machine we were playing. When the third machine opened up, and I found two suitable games, Bonnie sat there until I was available — which came about rather quickly because I hit a jackpot for $2,100 and it was going to take awhile to be paid.
Over the next three hours, we took down all five games — and received a large number of W-2Gs along the way. We ended up ahead a few thousand dollars — but nothing major. It was a decent result — but nowhere near what it could have been. I figure that where we started on those five games, our average expected win for the five was more than $15,000. We got nowhere near that, but I’m still glad we checked those machines that day. Plus, we put thousands of points on both Bonnie’s card and mine and will likely result in bigger mailers in the not-so-distant future.
How am I so sure that these machines were reset only a day or so before I got there? Well, I’m not 100% sure. But close to that.
Consider this: In the previous three months, I have checked those same four machines several dozen times — and have found plays for $20 or higher twice. This time I found five such plays all at once. I figure these games were just too big for casual players and so they remained on the machines. At this casino, the larger denominations don’t get much play.
Glad you found your machines Bob. Hopefully more to come.
I still don’t understand how an accumulator slot can be +EV at reset, I thought that they generally start with very low EV and gradually become positive. Does this imply that some machines start positive and lose EV with play?
jstewa22
I googled it and this is what AI came up with. Not sure this is the exact right answer as I’m a VP/blackjack only gambler and find slots to be extremely boring, but it does make sense. Maybe Dancer will enlighten us.
“A slot machine becomes a positive expectation (+EV) play at reset primarily through linked progressive jackpots that have grown significantly beyond their base reset amount, creating a scenario where the potential payout outweighs the mathematical edge of the house.”
OMB13, thanks, but it’s still not clear to me. This implies that it would only happen with linked progressives and I’m not sure that’s what Dancer is referring to. Regardless, I still don’t see how resetting one machine in a bank of progressives would improve the EV of that machine (compared to pre-reset).
OMB13, thanks, but it’s still not clear to me. This implies that it would only happen with linked progressives and I’m not sure that’s what Dancer is referring to. Regardless, I still don’t see how resetting one machine in a bank of progressives would improve the EV of that machine (compared to pre-reset).
Was at Paris on Sunday and Monday. They had a new bank of 4 Dragon Link machines where the balls can come up with 3 times the amount, like 3 Mini’s. The 4 were linked. The Grand was at $50,005.00, and the major was at $5,250 (or right about that). Started playing $5 per hand. Hit a double major, triple minor ($1500), and other wins. Came away over $15k ahead. I asked how long the machines had been there, and my host told me they opened up on Saturday night. They were also set at the $2000 to lock up. These were reset machines, moved from another location at the casino, but hard reset. So I would have to agree with Bob, there is advantage on some new or fully reset slots.
Lucky: That was a very nice hit, indeed. Congratulations! But that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I’m talking about starting from positions where, if I had the same position over and over again, I would make money. There will be winning sessions and losings sessions. But what makes a machine playable is on average the player will make money starting from that particular position.
Insofar as Dragon Link in particular goes, I know of no way to beat that machine over time (which might say more about my lack of knowledge than the particular game). So until I learn something usable about that game, I am NEVER going to play it.
For players who do play it, some will win and some will lose (with the loser predominating.) You, Lucky, caught a nice bit of positive variance — but if you continue to play that same machine starting randomly, you will give it all back — and more.
John James also responded to your post — and I agree with what he said.
I stand corrected. I misunderstood. And I know I was lucky. The other 3 machines did not pay anything other than small hits, but nowhere near enough to cover the losses. Most of my time was spent on VP. Nothing at Paris that I could find (I am NOT anywhere near being a professional, and do not know the math to see, even with promotions, to tell if its good or not. I am 7 Stars, and with the suites, food, drink, and other perks, it works out. Last year I was in positive territory. This year starting out that way also. Fortunately for me, a work emergency came up, and I had to leave Monday night, so went home this time a winner.
Lucky, your name sums it up, you were lucky. This isn’t what Bob is talking about. Here’s a better example. Suppose a machine has a bonus that has to hit when a meter reaches 25 . During regular play after hitting the bonus it resets at 5 . But when the machine is reset by slot techs it resets at 18 instead of the usual 5 . At 18 it’s worth playing.
This is a big oversimplification but I think you’ll understand now.
Thanks, John. Seems odd to me that a machine’s bonus would reset to a higher value when updated by slot techs, than when it resets after a hit. Why would a machine be configured to do something like that?
jstewa22 — seems like you’ve asked the same question numerous times — namely, “why would a slot machine ever reset positively?”
It’s a good question.
Tell you what. I’ll answer that question in my Feb 10 blog post. I’m going through a phase where I’ve written lots of blogs in advance, and my Feb 3 post is half-written, along with others between now and then.
Excellent!
Thanks, Bob, looking forward to it!