Reminds of when Jerry Lawlor "broke" Andy kaufman's neck in a wrestling match it didn't come as much of a surprise when it was revealled as a fake.The last time I heard of fruit machines was in the Monty Python skit about Doug and Dimsdale.

At least with mechanical gambling machines (slots and the like), you could be pretty sure they were unsophisticated enough that you had an outside chance of getting that third cherry. Electronic machines, from day one, were designed to eliminate that chance, yet the public has embraced them. I don't know how P. T. Barnum's spirit can live with itself, being right all the time. How boring that must be.

Skid

I should get these guys to research Gauntlet: Dark Legacy to determine the frequency of a poisioned fruit vs. meat in one of the random chests; I'm almost certian there's one in the courtyard of the castle barracks - even with x-ray glasses, you can see it change from fruit to magic to junk to meat, and when you open it at meat, it turns into poisioned fruit. What are the odds? I bet these crafty NTK guys would be able to expose Midway Games for what they really are: a bunch of theives and trolls (perhaps literally!).

Although slot machines are a terrible bet in general, the fact that the result you see is predetermined by a machine, even before you press the button, isn't what makes them a bad bet. It shouldn't be too surprising to people that the results are no longer determined mechanically, and that spinning reels just give entertainment value and prolong the event. Random number generators are used because they are highly accurate, not subject to tampering (like the old "hold" reels could be) and can be modified easily.

What makes slot machines a bad bet is not this fact. Whether the reels, or some algorithm, determine if you win or lose is immaterial. It's the payout rate which affects whether a slot machine is poor, bad, or terrible.

The article says the machines "cheat" because they predetermine the result before you press the button. You're not guaranteed to lose, they just predetermine what's going to happen. While the US slot machines I've seen analyses of calculate this after the user presses the button (see http://www.wizardofodds.com/games/slots/ for a decent explanation), it really makes no difference when this determination is made - whether it was 10 years before you pressed the button, right before you press the button, or right after you press the button. What makes a difference is what % of the time you win.

If you must play slot machines, educate yourself on what the payout rates of the slot machines are. Some off-strip casinos in Vegas have 94%+ payout machines. Some video poker machines approach 100% and in rare situations, with perfect strategy, can be slightly player-positive. South Dakota's slot machines, on the other hand, had an atrocious 64% payout. South Carolina's are around 71%. Louisiana around 90%. And bear in mind that unless you hit the jackpot, your "short term" expectation on slots is always significantly lower than the "advertised" payout rate. (For instance, if there was a slot that had a 1 in 100 billion chance of paying out 110 billion dollars, otherwise it paid nothing, that machine would have a "110% payout" -- but unless you play hundreds of millions of times, you're almost guaranteed of getting a 0% payout.)

Further reading:
http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/01...et_videopoker.shtml
http://www.state.la.us/doa/gaming_revenuerev3.pdf
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/022803/opi_20030228049.shtml
http://www.wvgazette.com/static/series/video/gambling4.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/26/1032734277788.html

Excellent post, jk. I was going to post a similar rant but you have done a much more thorough job than I ever would have.

and jk enriched BB! thx mayn!

The boingboing title for this made me think it was ripped off
from cruel.com ("Cruel Site of the Day").

The outcome of a scratch-off lottery card is predetermined too. Doesn't mean anyone's cheating you by selling it.

Canadians may have a radically different take on your headline!!!

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_machine

Fruit machine was a slang term for a device that was supposed to be able to identify homosexuals. The subjects were made to view pornography, and the device measured the pupils of the eyes, perspiration, and pulse for a supposed erotic response.

The other meaning is also listed, with a British origin - which would explain why I never heard it before.

What jk said.

This reminds me a bit of a study that came out perhaps 3-4 years back railing against the McDonaldland characters (Ronald, Grimace, Birdy) because they were _designed to sell hamburgers!_

jk and the others: read the article. It isn't that a PRNG always generates a pre-determined number. It shows that if you bet the next card will be high then it generates a low, and if you bet low, it generates a high. Hence, there is no gamble, you always lose.

"The outcome of a scratch-off lottery card is predetermined too. Doesn't mean anyone's cheating you by selling it."

*pushes bottom lip out with tongue* Deeeeerrrr!

Edited by author 06-07-2003 09:32 PM
dalke: No, the article claims that the machine has decided ahead of time whether you will win or lose, and that your choice is thus irrelevant. Although the article focuses on the case where you lose, it does not actually say that the machine always decides that you will lose.

It could very well be true that it decides your fate before offering you the choice, but it doesn't seem like "cheating" to me in any real sense. Whether it decides before or after you press the button is mathematically irrelevant, as long as it's being done randomly. If put a pair of dice in a black box and offer to give you $100 if they come up double six, what does it matter whether I roll before or after you place your bet, as long as you can't see the dice (and, of course, assuming they're fair)?

About Chris Smith's link to wikipedia about the fruit machines: A "gaydar" version of Voight-Kampf from Blade Runner/DADOES?

Yeah true about %age.. some idiots about eh.
it is possible to scam the fruit-machines if you know the right Fruit machine cheats, tips, tricks and emptying methods!

alex