Breaking the Slot Code review

Possibly the "Major" jackpot on those "Link" machines.  In general, the Mini, Minor, Major, and Grande jackpots change with the coin bet, as in the 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, $1, and $2 selected.  I've seen the Major reach $1000 and stay there for a long time before it is hit.  At some point it will hit, of course.  We watched (and played) one for two days.  It was hit by somebody the morning we were leaving.  And BTW  that particular game is not featured in 'the book'.

That's just my experience, not from anything in the book.  I'm sure I'll learn more if I ever go back to the book.  It got a little 'tedious' for me and how I want to spend my time playing.

Candy

Then it should be very easy to explain in one sentence. He doesn't even have to tell us the real name of the machine, so that he can share that info without also giving us the golden keys to that treasure trove of riches.

But you use the right word: "clue." Not a certainty: a HINT. The author of the book conjectures that when the bonus hits X or whatever, the game becomes +EV. But no cold, hard calculations, no icky old math, are given.

Sure, we could all look at a machine and say, hey, that bonus is really big, maybe it's worth a play. But as I keep saying, we can't KNOW that the machine's in a positive state. We can only surmise, and hope.

If there's a "must hit by" feature on a machine, AND it's possible to calculate the maximum number of spins to make that happen, then it would be possible to ESTIMATE the potential return, and I say estimate because there would still be no way to determine the expected cost of those spins.

I'm just playing with you; the machine is Golden Jungle. There are a few machines that play like this one does; one of the others is Scarab. If you watch someone play once, you can easily figure it out. If you don't want to figure it out on your own, I'll tell you.

Well, I'm not going to scamper over to my local casino to try to find one of those machines and wait until someone plays it, so why don't you just tell me 

I was thinking a Youtube video.

This game plays in 10 spin cycles, you lock in Buddhas to convert to wilds on the tenth spin. Most of the time people who play it always complete the 10 spin cycle.

In this case the player did 2 spins and left it. $6 a spin 8 spins left, max loss $48.

This is the type of game where you want to finish the cycle, but sometimes people just flat run out of money and maybe have two spins left.  I have actually seen this with the scarab game.  Someone had left with a bunch of scarabs and only two spins left.   It was a penny machine.   I jumped on there for $2.40 a spin, so $4.80 total and ended up with a little over $24, so almost a $20 win.   Advantage Play.  

Seems like its nothing life changing.  

I guess you can argue there is value to be had in seeing an advantage slot thats not far away from hitting.  But I cant imagine I would jump from casino to casino scouring the floors looking for them.    

To the extent I'm trying to keep my play within reasonable recreational losses I dont think this knowledge plays a big role.   Just my opinion.

I compare it to people doing the $20 challenge( wondering through playing $20 in machines), a different way to play slots.  And agree that a lot of the book covers slots that are fairly obvious, although some of those there are some minor details that most would ignore. I think some people are over-thinking it, there is no guarantee no matter how good the situation is or how you get there, true of all advantage play. 

 I put the book's strategies in with counting cards at BJ, the theoretical edge is briefly available to the table, but only the counter knows to  increase their bet and take advantage. And like counting cards, it's a very small advantage, but unlike counting cards the casino does not lose from vultures, except the dissatisfaction of a small number of people who are unhappy with the disruption. 

Adding to my original post, only saw this on a re-read of a section, but the author says something about earning huge amounts of rewards points, with an exclamation point.  Well no, that's what lead to that "purge" a couple fo years ago, those influencers were vulturing on comped stays, they were over-comped and winning, 2 sins the casinos will not tolerate.  Unlike the glory days of video poker, nothing in these strategies will earn enough rewards to matter.

 I agree with your comments 100%.