Comment by garethsaxby | Hacker News Reader

Comment by garethsaxby | Hacker News Reader

I remember a long time ago in the UK, around 2003 or so, there was a similar problem with Fruit Machines (Slot machines found in UK bars and pubs).

Through dumping the ROMs and emulating the machines, it was found that the machines were effectively forcing losses at certain points in gameplay; from the same memory state, you bet high and the machine goes low, or you bet low and the machine goes high, giving you zero chance of winning.

There was a campaign called Fairplay that I believe resulted in a fairly small print label being placed on the machines stating that they would at times give no chance of winning; not a great win, but at least it was being said somewhere - http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/fairplay/fruit/bre...

The FairPlay site by Stuart Campbell is actually still up, although I remember first reading about it back in PC Zone personally. There's details on there about replicating the findings, but unfortunately the links are broken; http://www.worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/fairplay/fruit...

Interesting. In Spain first the state takes a cut from the moment a coin goes in, and from the remainder they're bound to return 65% of the money collected, minumum. The machines have a government-certified black box to perform this accounting.

Now, the law doesn't say anything about prize structure, and it's common knowledge that big prizes tend to appear within 10 plays when it's "cooled down", because machines increasingly shut big prizes down when they notice they have a compulsive player on them.

I also remember they have a sticker with the chances of winning.

In online gambling the games are never (or virtually never) rigged. Online slots also almost always pay out 96% or more. You make less money in the long runig you do not let your players win, but I assume small places like bars do not like that volatility.

It is still pointless to put in $1 and expect to receive an average of 96 cents. If you like speculation with less gambling, try call option debit or credit spreads on stocks or ETFs with a low bid/ask spread. It’s more sophisticated, more skill based, and has a higher EV.

And if you get good at it or are already good at it, let me know.

Interesting, I know Stuart from quite a while ago. Thanks for refreshing my memory.

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