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I recently installed a Double Diamond Haywire game in my S2000  all went well no complaints. Today I made it into a Multi Denomination. I keychiped and programed the inputs to .25,.50,$1,$2 and all four percentages are set to 98.2%. Everything works . The problem now is it hardly ever hits on anything anymore and it takes forever before it haywires. Before I made it into Multi Denomination everything was good. Can some tell me if maybe I set up the percentages wrong or have any ideas?

Edison

Yeah...you messed with it....lol
Just kidding...there's nothing wrong with your machine.
That's the way it works.
You've had your fun and it hit like crazy.
It was paying out way too much but now it's taking the percentage back. :79-

Go into the accounting mode...what is it's current payback?
That may solve your question.
Post where it's currently at...if it's still way over 98%, expect to play off a lot more credits.

By the way, how many pulls is it at now too?
Remember, the percentage of 98% is rated at around 10 million pulls in the PAR sheets.
My guess is that you don't even have 1 million pulls on it yet.
Maybe not even 100,000 pulls...

I am not sure if this is what you ask for but here it goes
paid in 4882.00
paid out 3609.50

total games 3074
games won 437
games lost  2637

I clear chip the game when I installed the game one week ago...

 

I wonder what percentage 3 thousand pulls is from 10 million pulls?
Do you see what I mean?
You played such a tiny, tiny, minuscule amount of games ("pulls")
that the 98% percentage hasn't kicked in yet.

Look at it this way...if you look at $3,000.00 in your bank account.
How much smaller is that compared to someone that has
a bank account with $10,000,000.00 dollars in it?

Basically, I don't think you will ever get all the jackpots your chip has to offer. :60-
You just won't live long enough to amass 10 million pulls.   :5-

A glance at a PAR sheet on the DD Haywire tells me that you can expect 8 jackpots
of double diamond/ double diamond/ double diamond - in ten million pulls.
You can expect to get around 336 wins of the double bar/ double bar/ double bar in ten million pulls.
You've play what? 3 thousand games? You got a LONG, LONG ways to go!!!

Also, your game may have a HTFQ: ("Hit Frequency") of around 14.
What that means is - expect some sort of a winner ( could be a single cherry or a jackpot)
like around somewhere of every 14 pulls or games played.
It's NOT going to be exact. Sometimes you'll win two or three wins of something in a row...
then you'll get a cold spell of like 30 losses in a row.

However, in the end and only after 10 million pulls, you will get the wins
which add up to roughly 98% for the player.
Believe me, you may never see that day...

At the rate that you're going now - 3 k games/ week.
I expect you to play 10 million games by the year 20XX....?

ADD: I figured it out...roughly the year 2075...!!!

as of his post he is at a payback of 73.93%
payback is amount won diveded by amount wagered.
3609.50/4882 = 0.73934 or 73.93%

of coarse the machine can tell you the actual payback as well.
It is the S+ that you have to really work to calculate it.

My S2000 is holding 7.35% or a payback of 92.65%

and I have it set to 98+ percent

I will see it slowly rise to 98+ payback over time, if I do not change the game first.

I believe I understand..... If for now all I can base the early game stats on is the HTFQ  "Hit Frequency" than I can divide the total games played by the total games won. (3074 / 437 = 7.03) So my HTFQ is around (7) pulls as I stand now.  I get it! That's really not bad at all.  Yes, I did have a couple good paying pots in the beginning. Overall that's a pretty good HTFQ right now. I guess in the year 2075 I can see if it pans out to the 98.2% ,but for now I can go by the HTFQ which should eventually average out to about (14)......Thanks Bunker! The more I learn about this great hobby the fewer questions I will have. Sorry if they seem a little basic right now... but I will get there.....Thanks for explaining this to me.

Edison

Just to be clear.......

The slot runs on a RNG (Random Number Generator).

Each pull is unique, and no matter how many pulls you make .... be it 1 or 10million or 20 trillion....will you ever be guarenteed that you will get a jackpot or ever see each and every winning combination. There is NO cycle that the slot is trying to work through and no forced percentages.

What you have is a table with xx number of winning combinations. If that combination happens to come up. Then you win otherwise you lose.
In math this is referred to as a probabiltiy field....

Consider a coin flip - heads or tails. If you flip it 1000 times you "might" get 1000 heads. However the "probabiltiy" is that you will get a certain number of tails.
If you flip it 10million times the law of averages comes into play and you should get an aproximation of 50%.... but lets say you don't and you get 76% heads. The next 10mm spins might comeup with 82% tails. The third comes up with 56% heads..... now average those 3 x 10mm flip numbers and you average 50%
There is NO guarentee of any result but do something enough times and the law of averages kicks in......

Slots work in the same way ..... xx number of winning combinations out of yy total combinations x 10mm spins and you have an aproximation of a percentage pay. When certifying the slots they run a probability simulation comprised of 10mm spins over and over again and then take the average of these results to prove that the chip with XX winning combinations will pay aprox 96% (or whatever it is rated at).

I understand (Random Number Generator) just a little confused about one thing..... What then happens when you change the game percentages in the keychip menus???? Anything?

You're changing the weighting of the symbols.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it has to do with virtual stops. Simply put, lets say a reel strip has 32 symbols (including blanks). So 32x32x32=32,768 possible combinations. So you would have a 1 in 32,768 chance of hitting that jackpot (or any other comination). Howerver, the machine uses virtual stop numbers which is higher. For example, one with 150 virtual stops would be 150x150x150=3,375,000 possible combinations. But more of those virtutal stops are assigned to blanks or lower paying symbols. So by changing the way the virtual stops are assigned, it will change the percentages.

poppo- That makes perfect sense! I believe I have my answer.........thanks!

It has to do with your volitility index of the machine. A higher VI will reach the theoretical hold with less handle pulls while a low VI will take more handle pulls. Every time you clear the RAM on the machine it restarts the VI and your handle pulls. Currently an SB100155 (i think) has a VI of 10.772.  at 0 to 1000 pulls the range at a 95%conifidence is around 63% to 132%. The next range is a little better but not much since it has a moderatley low VI, 87% to 108%.

Changing the volatility index does not change the overall percentages - it only affects the rate of percentage.
If the percentage rate moves up and down rapidly over short time periods, it would have a high volatility.
If the rate of percentage almost never changes, it would have a low volatility.
It does not change the overall game percentage though.
 
Changing the assignments of the virtual stops, as Poppo explained, changes the percentages -
which is the same thing as weighing the symbols differently.

However, I'm only human and I could be wrong.... :72-
It's amazing how both ideas affect the game.
The high volatile game is fun for a little while - until you hit the doldrums....lol
It's probably like coming down out of a crack-pipe high and you wake up in the alley shivering...  :5-

You dont change or cannot change the VI it is a set rate. You are right about the virtual stops and that is how the yields and holds are changed. Yet even with a different yield or percentage you will still have a set VI. VI is the measure of varitabilty of your return and in the end the PAR is about your return not how much you win during play. Even though they pretty much go hand and hand. You are correct about the high and low volatility moving through ranges but over time those ranges are reduced by the amount of games played. So in the end or 100000000 pulls your range is within a few percentage points from your percentage that was derived from manipulating the virtual stops. Clearing RAM has a direct affect on your percentage. You would also have to measure the volatility by the confidence interval which is the purity of your payback (or percentage) based on your handle. This is figured into your standard index which then sets your VI. Volatility really is about your PAR not game play. You need to have a clue about how the machine will maintain your desired hold and how it will effect your overall win. A high volatile game is derived from the factors that the VI is obtained and is a lot more complicated than just figuring if you reach a doldrum or not.

I'm not sure if I am buying that unless I'm reading it wrong. It may have an effect on stored statistical data (i.e. percentage to date since last cleared), but I don't see how it can actually change the game play percentages.

The play percentages are theoretical percentages. Every machine has a volatility that is governed by its index. Based on handle or game play from 1000 pulls, 10k pulls to 10M or 100M pulls that theoretical payback has a specific range on its high end to the low end. After a RAM clear is performed the handle restarts and the Theoretical Payback is put back to the range of zero to 1000 pulls. A low volatile game will have its 0 to 1000 theoretical payback range with a smaller range from its lo to high like 60% to 80%. This range would become smaller as more handle is acquired. (Or you play more, lol) Now a High Volatile game would have a broader range like -40% to 138%. These figured are not just blank ranges they are the actual ranges of theoretical payback. Look at your accounting section and you will always notice you have a theoretical and actual hold or paybacks. Every casino runs a report showing the large variances from the theoretical and actual. Standard is based on anything plus or minus 3%. These reports have to be justified and the best way and correct way to do this is to calculate your handle and check it against your volatility. There is a direct corralation with any RAM clears or resets. So yes if you clear the RAM on your machine you are also bringing it back to its begining state where the payback percent you set it to will waver between your machines set ranges up until around one million pulls to where it will start to average out. Yet it still takes about ten to one hundred million pulls to reach the area you want your machine to be operating in.

I have no clue what you've just said but it sounds fabulous!  :5-  :72-
Thanks for the explanation shivwitts!  :3-

I handle the variance analysis for the casino i work for. It all seemed impossible when i first started doing this but after a while it is like a large number puzzle. I have been doing this for about four years out of my 18 years as a slot mechanic. I am still learning, like all of us.

The operators go nuts when a big jackpot goes out...
I just tell them that" you have to give out money to make money"... :72-
They don't understand nor care about all the mumble jumble I tell them...lol

It's either that or I tell them the other machines will take care of the hits from the bad ones... :96-

I still don't see how the RAM statistical data actually changes the percentage. I can see how doing a clear will make the counters start over and thus it will take a while for the numbers to come into line with the programmed percentages (i.e. the more pulls, the more data to average, and thus the more accurate the data is). It would seem that if doing a clear actually affected actual game play, casinos would be clearing or avoiding clearing games in order to manipulate the games.

Yeah...the paperwork they just LOVE doing...lol
At home, whenever you do a clear, you win something fairly big early on in.
Don't ask me why - it just does! lol
After that - it's usually back to the doldrums.... :72-

Poppo call the manufacturer and ask them. This is how the game operates. And it is true that you or we can do a RAM clear on a bank or machine to "start over" the reports. But you would not want to do that. If you do and when we do we get erradict results. The banks and lenders all want to have a solid average hold on our floor. When we do RAM clears, if we do alot of them, the average hold fluctuates and is not backed up by the coin in and coin out. Now the theoretical hold is not set in stone ever. It has room to fluctuate and this is determined by handle. Think of probability. If you throw ten silver coins in a bag with one gold and grab one ten times... You know you will not get close to the percent of getting that one unless you do this one million times and average the results. I am not a math guru but you see what i am getting at. This is how the percent is on slot machines. Actually in several jurisdictions it is required by the various commissions to perform theoretical hols adjustments to your casino based on the years actual hold. So the VI is the formula the companies gave us to help track the difference of the percentages based on early play.

Stayoutofthebunker - think about it. the hold or payback variation at the first levels of the game play range from large ranges. Now if you hit the range around -125% well you probably will win something. It could be a small win or large win, this is where your virtual stops come into play. But if you hit on the other end of the range for the 0 to 1000 handle pulls like 132% then you will lose. The difference being the wins will always be larger than the bet or equal while the loss will be your bet. I have opened several casinos and seen several expansions go online, it seems when you have several machines all starting out you have more winners. You do, but logic states and the volatility reflects that if you have big winners ie a negative hold range on the low end you will have big losers ie a positive range on the high end. The thing is you cannot have a big loss due to you only losing your bet while your wins which hit more frequent in the early stages of the game will be bigger and more pronounced. We strive to have the machines as close to the hold we choose at all times. When we do do a RAM clear it is only after all other options have been exhausted and if one of my techs do do a RAM clear without proper troubleshooting results, they will be written up. That said think about it. If you know a machine at the casino you go to has just been RAM cleared, then you have a chance to hit that extreme negative hold where your payback will be enhanced for the guest not the house. This is why PAR sheets are not for the average person and new ones for new machines are usually hard to get period.

I thank you for your answer shivwitts !
It will be helpful to many members who ponder questions like this.

I always wondered though, I heard of casinos have employees "test play" the
new machines to over 5,000 pulls before installing the machines out on the floor.
The accounting books then actually began when the machines were "live".
This was done to avoid the high payouts on a "live" floor from patrons early on after the initial ram clear.
This practice of excessive"Test Play" I find disturbing.
Any thoughts? I cannot divulge which casinos are doing this to which I'm sure you'll understand.

I have been reading some of your posts, Stay and Poppo, You guys are pretty good. Do either of you work for a casino, just wondering. If not youd make excellent slot mechanics.

And yes i have had a director try to do that. Actually once we were opening an expansion with a few hundred machines. They gave the employees a chance to be the first to play. It was sort of a anniversary day so the casino didn't mind the payouts going to us. Of course i had to work it. :(

But its not unheard of doing that and not really illegal. We do not do it here.

I don't mind that at all.
It's very fun when the employees play the machines.
I really get needled and ribbed by them a lot as they're playing... :96-

We test the machines extensively as well before they hit the floor.
But they're Clear chipped first before they are "live"- so that the internal
accounting books are reset to zero.

I wish I had a dollar for every little old lady that asked me to
set "their" machine to win - I'd be a millionaire!
I really like implying to them if if the machine was "theirs" - why can't I play it? lol