Dear Mark:
When it comes right down to it, isn’t lady
Luck really the deciding factor when it
comes to winning in a casino? Mark L.
Sorry, Mark, but it isn’t Lady Luck
nor Jack’s Magic Bean that is the deciding
factor when it comes to winning. It’s
knowledge of the game you are playing and a
solid grasp of the odds and probabilities
that will bring you success. The smarter you
play, the luckier you’ll be is the correct
answer here.
As a bonus, I can also tell you with
certainty what the deciding factor is when
it comes to losing: continuous play.
Because the casino has a built-in house
advantage on each and every game it offers,
the more hands you are dealt per hour, the
more dice throws you see, the more spins on
a roulette table, the more pulls of a
handle, the more the built-in casino
advantage chomps away at your bankroll. From
a player’s perspective–your perspective,
Mark– continuous play kills in a casino
environment.
The elephant in the room for every player is
the casino edge, and you can't beat it to
its knees with a Wiffleball bat. But with a
Louisville Slugger, and by this I mean smart
play, you can occasionally get on base.
Dear Mark: On a video poker machine that
offers numerous games, if I hit a jackpot on
one game, for instance Jacks-or-better, and
then switch to another game on that same
machine like Deuces Wild, do the odds change
in any way on Deuces Wild because I already
hit a jackpot on Jacks-or-better? Jill L.
Hitting a jackpot on one game, such as in
your example Jacks-or-better, has no effect
on the chances of your hitting a jackpot on
another game on that machine, nor does it
have any effect on your chances of hitting
another jackpot on the next hand on the same
game. Each individual hand you play on the
machine is, in effect, randomly dealt from a
freshly shuffled deck of cards.
Dear Mark: As you so often state, the random
number generator on a slot machine is always
crunching numbers. If that is true, then
doesn’t it stop to give you your results for
that particular spin? Dave N.
Technically, Dave, the random
number generator (RNG) never stops crunching
numbers. You are correct in that at some
point the software within needs to know the
value of the RGN to produce the outcome you
see on the screen, but what the program is
doing is "polling the RNG" to pinpoint its
value at that given moment, and it’s not
necessarily coming to a complete halt.
Just what creates that given moment? Some
action by you the player causes the program
to poll the RNG. It could be when you yank
the handle, deposit your first coin, or
press either the Spin or the Bet Max
buttons. Because pulling a handle and
pressing Spin commences the same action, the
program accounts for that, and any or all of
these events have been used by to initiate
polling the random number generator.
Gambling wisdom of the Week: "There
is no disgrace in being a loser. The
disgrace is not knowing why." VP Pappy,
Midwest Casino Guide
