Please Explain.. Hit Frequency vs Win Frequency

[John0813]

I am new on this site and when I went to the IGT Bible section about my Haywire Deluxe slot Machine it listed 6 SS Chips and two columns...one on Hit Frequency and the other on Win Frequency. What do they mean??? If the Hit % is high the Win % is low..can someone explain this to me.

Thanks

[jay]

Each machine has a paytable.

The lower end of the paytable like a single Cherry or two.... comes up more frequently.... that would generate your higher HIT%
However what you are winning is very little so your WIN% is relatively low.

5 hits in 20 plays = 25% HIT frequency,
20 plays x 3 coins = 60 in
2 play x 6 coins won = 12 out.
Win frequency = 12 / 60 = 20% oayout.

On the newer platforms things get even more convoluted where you might put in 400 pennies, but win 200 pennies
From a hit % you could actually have 100% hit rate - getting paid on every pull
but you would still be in the very very low % for win%
In this case you would be losing....but there would still be a win%

Liars, Dam Liars and statiticians (Sorry David).

[John0813]

Thank You.....

[StatFreak]

Short answer:
For the S Plus bible, it's actually very simple. The hit frequency is the reciprocal of the win frequency, and vice versa: they are really expressing the same value. The one thing that can throw you off is that the win frequency is expressed as a percentage while the hit frequency is not.

Details:
Another way to put it would be to say of the hit frequency, "If I play this machine, I will hit a winning spin once every f times, where f is the hit frequency," and of the win frequency, "If I play this machine, I will hit a winning spin p percent of the time, where p is the percentage."

To use Jay's example:
5 hits in 20 plays = 5/20 = 0.25 = 25% hit frequency. Note that without the percentage conversion, this number is 0.25.
5 hits in 20 plays = 20/5  = 4 = a win frequency of 4.

From the Haywire Deluxe 3cm:
SS6417    97.476 (95.950)    15.797    (64) AAA    500/1000/2500 (12)    100/200/300 (33)    6.33
SS6422    85.072 (83.546)    14.421    (64) AAA    500/1000/2500 (12)    100/200/300 (33)    6.93

Note: The win frequency percentage is slightly more accurate than the hit frequency since it displays 5 digits of accuracy instead of 3, so expect rounding errors.

1/0.15797 = 6.3303
1/6.3303   = 0.15797 = 15.797%

1/0.14421 = 6.9343
1/6.9343   = 0.14421 = 14.421%

[StatFreak]

...
On the newer platforms things get even more convoluted where you might put in 400 pennies, but win 200 pennies
From a hit % you could actually have 100% hit rate - getting paid on every pull
but you would still be in the very very low % for win%
In this case you would be losing....but there would still be a win%

Liars, Dam Liars and statiticians (Sorry David).

I agree completely. I think that these new multi-line, scatter pay, bonus round monstrosities are despicable. Fun to play, but despicable. It comes down to human psychology more than statistics. The game designers got smart -- if that's what kicking their greed into high gear is called these days. They have gathered more extensive psychological data on players over the years and are using these data as a weapon against the player.

Most players like to see frequent small wins; they interpret this to be a "loose" machine when it really indicates a machine with low volatility. Some, more savvy players realize that in order to have a better chance at a large win they have to sacrifice the frequent smaller payouts. These people seek out high volatility machines such as Five-Times pay and Ten-Times pay. To the less informed gambler these machines seem "tight" because they don't understand the volatility concept.

The new breed of video slots take low volatility to the extreme in just the manner that Jay describes. The uninformed player sees constant wins and is psychologically baited into thinking that the machines pays well. I've played several of these games online and what I have noticed is that, with almost no exception, I never get ahead more than a few dollars.

After all, if I'm playing 300 coins per spin on a penny machine, that's $3.00 per spin. Even if I win 25,000 coins, that's only $250.00, so I've won $250 on a $3 bet. Compare that to a three-coin/three-reel S2000 type dollar slot. I don't think of a $250 win on a 3 coin dollar slot as a jackpot. I think of amounts like $2,400 to $25,000 as jackpots. On the penny video machine, that would be 240,000 - 2,500,000 coins!!! And we know from the PAR sheets we've seen that the odds of hitting the top prize (which is usually less than 250,000 coins) is over 16,000,000 to 1. On the three reel dollar slot, it ranges from 32,768 (some of the older games that pay a maximum of 800:1) to 262,144 (typical 64 stop games) to as high as 1,728,000 (120 stop Ten-Times pay). There are really very few 256 stop machines if you don't count the WAPs. Child's play by comparison.

So, do I want to play $3 a spin on a game where I only win about once in every 6 pulls, but with a 1 in 260,000+ chance of winning $10,000?
Or do I want to play $3 a spin on a game where I win something (but less than I bet) almost every pull, but with a 1 in 17,000,000 chance of winning $2,500 (250,000 coins)?

I guess it depends on the player...  What do you want out of your gaming experience? (Note the psychological effect of using the term "gaming" instead of "gambling" -- chalk up another victory to the casino industry.)

     Do you want to be "entertained" with the expectation that you are spending money to be entertained, with very little chance of walking away a winner?

     Or do you want to gamble? That is, do you want to put your money at risk for a reasonable chance to walk away with more than you came with,
     understanding that the house is entitled to a small edge?

[uniman]

Nice explanation Stat!   
All Universal Ultra slots are 256 stop. I have a 2-coin game with a top jackpot of 2500 coins.
Chance of hitting it............16,777,216 to 1 ! 
They built the program to hit frequent medium range hits like 100, 300, and 600 coins. That is what they determined players wanted.
The jackpot is just window dressing that one would never likely see!
They also piled on the blanks next to the jackpot symbols in the virtual stop table.

[StatFreak]

Nice explanation Stat!   
All Universal Ultra slots are 256 stop. I have a 2-coin game with a top jackpot of 2500 coins.
Chance of hitting it............16,777,216 to 1 ! 
They built the program to hit frequent medium range hits like 100, 300, and 600 coins. That is what they determined players wanted.
The jackpot is just window dressing that one would never likely see!
They also piled on the blanks next to the jackpot symbols in the virtual stop table.

Well, if you look at high volatility IGT games like Five-Times Pay (I believe that 5x and its variants are the most successful of this genre of game) they did pretty much the same thing. Of course, the top prize isn't quite as tough to hit at 729,000 to 1 and it's much higher at 10,000 for a 2-coin game. But the cool thing about Five-Times Pay is that, for the 92% payback chip that I have on my S+, the overall chances of hitting any payout of at least 500:1 (that's 1,500 coins or more for a 3cm) are around 9,000 to 1. That's damned good for a slot machine, and quite a few of those hits are 2,250 and 3,750 as well. There are also lots of medium level payouts in the 100:1 to 250:1 range (300 to 750 coins)

It's always been one of my favorites because I know that even if I'm down 500 or 600 coins, I can get it all back with one decent hit. And they DO happen. The only prize I've never hit on the machine is the top jackpot of 15,000 coins, but I've hit everything else several times. It's the only game theme that I have that has routinely exceeded my 2000 coin credit limit and had to start paying small wins to the tray. And I have my jp lockup set to 1,200 so only 1,500 or better locks up. The highest single pay that doesn't lock up is 900.