Can the machines be switched to "don't pay" ?

Aren't the payout percentages of a VP machine set on a cycle of 40,000 hands?

billryan, payout percentages on VP machines are NOT "set." In fact, you could play a machine that over its entire life will never have a royal flush, or will never show quad kings. All VP machines are based on a random shuffle of 52 or 53 cards (joker games). You might, over the course of a lifetime, see a royal once in 40,800 on JOB or you might see 5 royals in 40,800 hands on a JOB machine.

tondoug... thank you.

The EV of a machine does not change if the paytable stays the same. If you don't understand that then you will forever be lost. However, I sense you don't want to understand so I won't waste my time.

Darn... whatever you do, don't frustrate Arcimedes !!!

a question: if you are going to participate in the forum, why not respond with an answer that would help others to understand your position or understand the facts?

Arc, you are right that the EV of a machine does not change if the paytable stays the same. But that wasn't the point being made by the other poster. I sense the problem was one of using an improper term or phrase. I think that perhaps the other poster questions whether you can have positive results over the short term? And Arc, even you know that you can't always have positive results over the short term -- that you will have losing sessions as well as winning sessions.

Not everyone is as smart or as exact as you Arc. Be more tolerant of the rest of us non-IBMers.

Ok, so maybe using the word "calculated" was wrong. I'll try again. Most of the machines an "advantage player" chooses to play on, with "perfect play", with comps included, have a payback of over 100%, over the "lifetime of the machine"
Are we correct so far? Yes or no Arch.

Yes, but it is irrelevant. The "lifetime of the machine" has no meaning. It adds nothing to the discussion. The correct choice of words is to replace "the lifetime of a machine" with "over time". A player can just as easily get ahead of the EV immediately and stay ahead forever (or lose later) as they are to get behind and catch up later. The intent of your misstatement is to imply that people lose on positive plays if they don't play millions of hands. That is NONSENSE.

The reason I've won 12 of the last 13 years (and 9 in a row) is because you don't have worry about the "lifetime of a machine". In my case I've played hundreds of machines and never played more than a couple hundred thousand hands on any one of them in any given year I won.

You also fail to understand that "over 100%" is not in itself the big issue if a person really wants to win. The key is the amount of edge a player has. If they are playing at 100.06% they will very likely lose no matter how much they play. If they have a 1-2% edge then they are huge favorites to win.

I'm very tolerant of people who ask questions nicely instead of stating I'm a person "who can't seem to understand the simple notion ...". I returned exactly the tone of tomdoug. You reap what you sow.

The implication was you can't win in the short term and that is nonsense since the long term is simply made up of multiple short term plays. If you couldn't win in the short term then no one would win, period.

Arc, I have to agree that you certainly can win in the short term. Twice that I know of players hit two royals on the same machine within two hours. It happened once on the $1 DDB progressive at Rincon and also on the $5 DDB progressive. I am very jealous of the lady on the $5 progressive... the first time she hit was for about $52 thousand... the second time it was about $21-thou. Nice hits. What wonderful luck.

And your friend Rob Singer even wrote in one of his books how he hit two royals back-to-back -- but this was on a 25-cent machine. As he was paid off for the first, he was asked to "play off" the royal and he got a second. What wonderful luck again.

Agreed, on a 101% machine one has an advantage playing just one hand or ten million hands, there is no magic switch that flicks on over time. However on a 101% machine one will lose more often than not if the time is broken down into 8 hour segments.

This is the key fact that many folks simply don't understand. Even advantage players lose 60-70% of the time depending on the variance of the game. They just lose less on average when they lose and win more on average when they win. This year for me has been a perfect example. I've lost 10 of 14 sessions ... yet, I'm still ahead for the year.

There's no magic to VP play. Just a simple application of statistics. Anyone who thinks otherwise is confused and refuses to educate themselves.