Four Queens: the slaying of one 10/7 DB machine

Reports have come in that one of the four $1 10/7 DB machines at the 4Q has been downgraded/disabled/taken out back and shot. However, the other three remain, for now at least. These are probably the most lucrative remaining machines in Vegas, even with the halved players club benefits. APs have been playing them constantly, especially during promos.

So many have asked the question; why have they only altered one? Why not all four? One person who asked was told it was "a business decision"--an insulting non-answer. I have a pretty good guess, though.

Slot department managers aren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. I've noticed in particular that they believe in "lucky" or "unlucky." When pondering the wholesale execution of a group of good VP machines, they often decide to do it one or two at a time. And their criterion is: which machine is losing the most/winning the least? That's the one that gets uprooted/downgraded.

Now, you know how stupid that is: fair machines with identical games and pay tables should return the same percentage to the house over time. But astonishingly, many slot managers still believe there are such things as unlucky machines. I've been told this by slot techs at Stations, Boyd, and most recently Arizona Charlie's, as the inventory of good VP was slowly whittled down. The "unlucky" machines went first.

So the "business decision" machine at the 4Q probably coughed up one too many royals. I'm sure that all the machines know they can be punished for that. So if you're playing the good machines at the 4Q (if any remain), and you hit a royal, whisper gently, "I'm sorry," and kiss the machine. It's the least you can do.

     The other 3 machines have been "out of order" since the 24th of April - ( I played them the night before all 4 were put out of order) and only one was put back into service with the payout changed to 9/6 for Double Bonus. The other 3 are still out of order.  

Then those machines might get downgraded as well; I mentioned the illogic of downgrading only one of the four. It's odd that the other three are "out of order" when it would take literally one minute for a slot tech to change the paytable. 

The question I have now is: does the downgraded machine now require $8 coin-in to earn a point (it was $16)? If so, that would be an additional 0.46%, which would partially compensate for the 1.1% payback loss due to the change from 10/6 to 9/6, and the machine would still be playable, especially with promos. Anyone know?

The one machine stll in service does have 9/6 DB but it's 9/6/4 (96.38%) not 9/6/5 (97.81%). However, the JoB on that one machine has been downgraded from 9/6 (99.54%) to only 8/6 (98.39%). I don't know how much coin-in is required.

  The one thing I noticed while in Vegas for 16 days, when I visited Downtown several times during that period, each and everytime I went into the 4 Queens - day or night - there was no one playing any of those machines in that bank of machines. In the past, there was always people playing some if not all of those 4 machines, plus the others in that same bank. After 3 months, the revenue that these machines have not generated must be substantial.

I suspect they're being downgraded because they were NOT generating enough revenue. Fullpay Double Bonus is a fairly easy game to learn, and Vegas has lots of APs scrounging for +EV opportunities. The 10/7 game, with half points, returns 100.6%--very attractive at $1 denomination.

The lack of play you observed could be because people were only playing them long enough to qualify for the monthly promotion. It could also be that APs who play those and other positive machines have been backed off, or at least had their players' cards revoked. I've seen that many times in the past.

In any event, the .25 fullpay are still there, and they earn $8/point, so they're a better play anyway.

Yuck! That's a real downgrade! But weren't we talking about four machines that had only 10/7 DB on them?

Only one of the four is in service and downgraded. The other three have been out of service all along. The assumption was all four have been downgraded but we won't know for sure until they are all back in service.

All four are back in service but with 9/6/4 DB and 8/6 JoB. I checked these myself this afternoon.

Well, that settles that. 9/6/4 DB is a full 3.3% downgrade from 10/7/5 fullpay, so those machines now return less than 97%. The 8/6 JOB is not quite as shitty, but still only 98.44%.

I think we can assume that the .25 games are next to go. Looks like the bean counters have prevailed. Four Queens was fun while it lasted.