Still More About Slots

Last week I wrote about the hypothetical “Green Bob” machines. Today I’m going to talk about how to obtain some of the numbers we assumed last week. You should probably read that article before trying to make sense out of this one.

In general, there are three sources of information about these slot machines — par sheets, information from others, and figuring it out yourself.

1. Par sheets.

A par sheet gives a lot of information about the game. These are designed to be useful to employees in slot departments. Probably more than 10,000 people have access to par sheets. I am not one of them.

Under certain circumstances, people with access to par sheets will share them with others. I have made a few unsuccessful attempts over the years at getting a slot director to provide par sheets to me. How to be successful at this is not something I can speak about from my own experience.

2. Learning from others

I got started by having a “guru” I trusted give me some useful information. There are X feeds and Internet sites dedicated to this. Over time, my first guru stopped telling me things and I found a second. I “bartered” by sharing video poker information for slot information — but bartering can take many forms.

Much of the information online is not very good. Over time you’ll need to figure out the sources you can trust and the sources you can’t. I see no possibility that bobdancer.com will ever become a major source of slot machine information.

3. Figuring it out yourself

On the Green Bob machine, the information you need is: How long does it take, on average, for each meter to go off, and how much, on average, is each extra spin on each meter worth. You also need the RTP (return to player) — which is to say you need to know whether this game returns 88% overall, 92%, or whatever. 

We’ll cover the RTP first. Assuming you don’t have access to the par sheet, this information is usually in the data displayed when the slot machine is open. There is a LOT of information there, but the RTP is near the top. When the door is open, read what’s there. Sometimes slot employees will tell you to step away, but usually they don’t care. Sometimes you can get them to open up a machine for some reason, perhaps claiming that you’re not sure, but you think the bill acceptor didn’t record the last $100 bill you entered. 

In the Green Bob machine, you also need to know how long it takes each of the three meters to go off. You can do your counting while you are playing or somebody else is playing. So, each spin will add to each of the three counts. Eventually one of them will go off. You’ll record that number and start counting over again. The more cycles you have the better.

We don’t have a Mega meter on this particular machine — but these typically have a cycle of 50,000 or more — approximately the same as a royal flush. You’re never going to get an accurate count for enough cycles to get a close estimate on the cycle. When figuring out whether I’m going to play a game with a Mega meter, I ignore that meter. One will go off periodically and that day will be a winner, but I always assume that that day won’t be today.

There are games where the top meter tops out at 99 spins. I’ve heard pros say things like 99 on the top meter might or might not be a play. It could take you 12 hours of play to find out. 

Once you get a cycle for each meter, you need to figure out how much each spin pays. I collect by both denomination and number of coins — so a penny game betting 500 coins would be recorded differently than a dime game betting 50 coins. While both games require $5 per spin, it’s very possible that the latter game is a bit looser. As the denomination increases, some manufacturers, not all, give the player a slightly better game.

After 30 or more data points for each number of coins/denomination combination, you can get a fairly reliable average of how much each spin is worth. But there will always be variance. Sometimes 25 spins for a certain bet size will return $30 and sometimes it will return $800. You’ll never know how much it will return this time until you play it.

From here, you need to put all the numbers together to figure out how much it will cost to get a Minor meter currently at xx to go off and how much it will return once it does go off. These are average amounts. Sometimes the machine will give more. Sometimes it will give less.

That is basically how it’s done. It’s hard work and once you have the numbers, you’re competing with many other players who have their own numbers — however obtained — sometimes by guessing. There’s a lot of walking around checking machines. If you’re looking for an easy way to get rich quick, this isn’t it.