Inside a cybernetic
one-armed bandit
21 May 1999
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
On the weekends, do casinos make adjustments on
their video poker machines to make more money?
Sam K.
Do you mean do casinos take a screwdriver to
their slots on the weekends to tighten them up?
No way. It is not cost effective for the casino
to continually alter the payouts on their
machines. To alter the percentage return in
their favor on a video game, the casino must, by
law, make a hardware change. You do this by
swapping out an internal component, the ROM
portion of the microprocessor chip. ROM, or read
only memory, is a chip the slot manufacturer
provides the casino. This is the chip that tells
the video poker machine to pay 9 coins for a
full house, 6 coins for a flush. Additionally,
they would have to physically change the glass
payout schedule on their machines.
What you could see is a seasonal wholesale
change to improve their theoretical hold by
making all 9/6 machines to 8/5 bandits. By
changing to all 8/5 machines, the house holds an
additional 3% edge on each and every machine.
Dear Mark,
Is there a way that the casino can program a
video poker machine so that a royal flush never
appears? Shanon B.
Can, yes. Would? Never!
What you have described is called secondary
decision programming. A good programmer could
write code that allows the computer within to
stop a hand that is about to be dealt in favor
of a different hand. This would prevent big
winning hands like royal flushes from appearing
their theoretical number of times.
In a highly regulated industry like casinos, it
is safe to assume honesty in programming.
Dear Mark,
When I am dealt the first five cards on a video
poker machine, are the draw cards already
sitting behind the cards I want to discard, or
are they dealt from the top of the deck? Ed. P.
It depends, Ed, on the company who produced the
slot or how old the machine is. In the past, the
majority of video poker machines operated using
parallel dealing. This is where all 10 cards are
dealt simultaneously, meaning, you are dealt
both the display cards and their draw
replacements. Discard that dreadful four of
clubs and the seven of diamonds, which you
didn't need, was sitting behind it all along.
Today, the new machines employ serial dealing.
Here replacement cards are dealt right from the
top of the deck-similar to a live poker game.
Because the cards are shuffled and displayed
randomly, neither way has any effect on the
outcome.
Dear Mark,
What are the chances of hitting the lottery
twice in one lifetime. Has it ever happened?
Milton G.
In a perfect world we all would win the lottery
once, shoot scratch golf and drive a Mercedes.
But that wasn't perfect enough for divorced
convenience-store manager Evelyn Marie Adams of
New Jersey when she won her state's lottery
twice within a four-month span in 1985. The odds
against Ms. Adams winning the double bonanza
were 15 trillion to one. Fifteen trillion,
Milton, is three thousand times the number of
people on this planet. Since then, seven others
have joined the elite fraternity of repeat
lottery winners.
Dear Mark,
How much edge does the casino have in blackjack?
Bert B.
It strictly depends on the skill level of each
individual player. Against the average Joe the
casino has about a two percent edge. A hunch or
superstitious player can easily give back eight
percent.
Depending on the rules of a particular casino, a
Deal Me In reader who uses perfect basic
strategy has only a half of a percent
disadvantage. They also get rated and work the
casino over for comps. Because many casinos give
back between 20 to 40 percent of the expected
win-not the actual win-in player gratuities, the
Deal Me In player actually shows a positive
expectation when playing blackjack.
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