When do "must hit" slots really hit?

[Alan Mendelson]

Dan come on now. What's illegal about a machine that must hit by $5,000 and goes all the way to $5,000 ?

[Dan Druff]

And that rap kew is exactly why you are a total phony. Nothing is ever "guaranteed" and the fact that you say such a stupid thing only goes to show how you're nothing more than an anonymous internet forum showman. I dare you to repeat that to any casino manager.

The casino manager would likely respond as follows:

"The casino offers games all of which have an advantage which favors the casino. Over time they all give us a nice profit. Oh sure, there's variance but our success is never really in doubt."

So if the house can make such an unchallenged claim, why couldn't a player if he / she has a similar advantage over the house?

Excellent question!!!!!

I'll offer a couple of possible reasons why.

First, the casino has perhaps 2,000 or more games in play. How many games is the AP playing?

Second, the casino has a bigger bankroll. Do you really think a $100,000 AP bankroll is going to outlast a casino's bankroll?

The mistake that APs make (and understand this all of you gaming experts) is that the edge you think you have on one game isn't the same that the casino has on 2,000 games.

Yes, APs do often underestimate the bankroll and variance requirements to show a profit. They also sometimes underestimate expense if they are traveling the country for plays.

There's also the factor of losing out on "earned" EV. For example, if your play is based upon freeplay earned, but you get trespassed or no-offered, then your +EV play has just become retroactively -EV. And that's happened to me more than once.

Still, Alan is being too dismissive of AP. You don't need a bankroll the equivalent of a large casino to show a reliable profit as an AP. Indeed, if you are running enough plays which are enough +EV, you will eventually show a profit, as long as you're not being overaggressive with your bankroll, and if you don't put too many eggs in a few baskets. (I know of some peope who will take huge variance shots at a certain type of play, and then the rest of the time stick to smaller and medium stuff, and that can go bad very quickly.)

I still think Alan dismisses AP because he doesn't do it, so therefore he rationalizes to himself that it's a waste of time and a money loser.

[Dan Druff]

Dan come on now. What's illegal about a machine that must hit by $5,000 and goes all the way to $5,000 ?

Nothing is illegal about it. But it should be illegal for the casino to imply that it can hit any time but "must hit" by $5000, when in reality it's going to hit at $4990+ most of the time.

If there was a sign on the machine stating, "Must hit by $5000, but it is very unlikely you will see it hit before $4900", would many ploppies play it when it's at the $4600 level? Obviously not.

So there's an amount of indirect deception involved here.

People only play these machines believing they have a realistic shot to hit the jackpot, when in most cases, I don't believe they do.

[mickeycrimm]

Dan, I suspect you were playing a machine made by AGS. Probably had a name like River Dragons, Forest Dragons, Fire Wolf or Wolf Queen. These games always run to at least $4990. If you play anything lower than $4930 you will most likely get in for more than it pays. I wrote about it in another thread. But anyways, feed me some information and we'll analyze the situation.

1. What was the name of the game? Manufacturer?
2. What was your starting number? Right to the penny would be nice but just the dollar amount will suffice.
3. I already know it ran you to $4999.31
4. Do you know the meter speed? If it was one of the games I named above I already know it runs at 0.26666%
5. Exactly how much money did you lose? This is important in calculating the drop.

If you can give me this information I can tell you what happened.

[Alan Mendelson]

Frankly Dan, every time you play a machine with a sign that says it "must hit by" the casino is giving you a gift.

[MaxPen]

Dan come on now. What's illegal about a machine that must hit by $5,000 and goes all the way to $5,000 ?

Nothing is illegal about it. But it should be illegal for the casino to imply that it can hit any time but "must hit" by $5000, when in reality it's going to hit at $4990+ most of the time.

If there was a sign on the machine stating, "Must hit by $5000, but it is very unlikely you will see it hit before $4900", would many ploppies play it when it's at the $4600 level? Obviously not.

So there's an amount of indirect deception involved here.

People only play these machines believing they have a realistic shot to hit the jackpot, when in most cases, I don't believe they do.

The fact you understand this makes you not a ploppy. Ploppies are needed for machine AP to exist. Embrace but recognize the deception and then exploit the situation for your benefit.

[Bill Yung]

... and if you don't put too many eggs in a few baskets.

One bankroll for one purpose for the Kelly Criterion.

[Bill Yung]

The fact you understand this makes you not a ploppy. Ploppies are needed for machine AP to exist. Embrace but recognize the deception and then exploit the situation for your benefit.

Sorry, but this just sounds so simple-minded. Crazy in a way.

[Alan Mendelson]

Dan since you didn't reveal your entry point (unless I missed it) I suggest you consult with mickeycrimm before playing.

As I said the must hit by number is a gift from the casino. But mickeycrimm can tell you when it becomes playable.

What MaxPen wrote was wordy but correct.

[MaxPen]

The fact you understand this makes you not a ploppy. Ploppies are needed for machine AP to exist. Embrace but recognize the deception and then exploit the situation for your benefit.

Sorry, but this just sounds so simple-minded. Crazy in a way.

The point of philosophy is to start with something really simple, as to seem not worth stating and to end with something so paradoxical no one believes it. You spend too much time in this world and it blinds you to the many opportunities that surround you.

[Dan Druff]

Dan, I suspect you were playing a machine made by AGS. Probably had a name like River Dragons, Forest Dragons, Fire Wolf or Wolf Queen. These games always run to at least $4990. If you play anything lower than $4930 you will most likely get in for more than it pays. I wrote about it in another thread. But anyways, feed me some information and we'll analyze the situation.

1. What was the name of the game? Manufacturer?
2. What was your starting number? Right to the penny would be nice but just the dollar amount will suffice.
3. I already know it ran you to $4999.31
4. Do you know the meter speed? If it was one of the games I named above I already know it runs at 0.26666%
5. Exactly how much money did you lose? This is important in calculating the drop.

If you can give me this information I can tell you what happened.

It was River Dragons. You're correct.

Starting number was $4870.

Don't know the meter speed. Should have paid attention but didn't.

I lost $1800, but $1000 of it was freeplay. Or, more accurately put, I lost $6800 in credits, but got $5000 back at the end (obviously), and $1000 was also freeplay, so I lost a real $800.

If it matters, I was actually doing okay until about the $4980 mark. At that point, I was $4300 in, and only $3300 of "real" money since $1k of that was freeplay.

The final $19 on the meter set me back $2500.

So ignoring which was freeplay and which wasn't, I lost $4300 moving the meter $110, and $2500 moving it the final $19. I also wondered if that was rigged in some way (or if that's even legal.)

Also the $500 must hit secondary meter was at like $460, and that moved faster. So that was going to hit on the way, fairly early, which it did. Though I'm not sure if the secondary started at $200 if I would have hit it at all throughout the cycle I did. It moves faster, but not sure if it's fast enough to cycle through once if starting at $200. I mention this because it was destined to hit once and only once for sure, while I was playing, in which case the timing of hitting didn't matter unless there was a chance it would miss completely if low.

[RS__]

And that rap kew is exactly why you are a total phony. Nothing is ever "guaranteed" and the fact that you say such a stupid thing only goes to show how you're nothing more than an anonymous internet forum showman. I dare you to repeat that to any casino manager.

The casino manager would likely respond as follows:

"The casino offers games all of which have an advantage which favors the casino. Over time they all give us a nice profit. Oh sure, there's variance but our success is never really in doubt."

So if the house can make such an unchallenged claim, why couldn't a player if he / she has a similar advantage over the house?

Excellent question!!!!!

I'll offer a couple of possible reasons why.

First, the casino has perhaps 2,000 or more games in play. How many games is the AP playing?

Second, the casino has a bigger bankroll. Do you really think a $100,000 AP bankroll is going to outlast a casino's bankroll?

The mistake that APs make (and understand this all of you gaming experts) is that the edge you think you have on one game isn't the same that the casino has on 2,000 games.

Give me +110 odds on a fair coin flip and I’ll take Bill Gates’ & Elon Musk’s net worth, no problem. Of course, I strongly doubt they’d lay -110.



@Dan - I don’t play must hits, at least not much. Occasionally I’ll see something that’s decent/good and I’ll play it, although that’s mostly just to put a bit of slot play on my card for cheap. If there’s a $5k must hit that’s at a good number, then I’m obviously going to play it (I just haven’t found one that was open :/ ). I did see one guy slamming a $5k must hit one time. It was at something like $4990 when I walked by and I didn’t have anything else to do for a few minutes and watched. He ended up hitting it at $4998.

I don’t know how it’s figured when it’s going to hit, like if the machine determines it when the prog gets reset (as in, the machine “knows” it’s going to hit at $4,753.29) or if it’s a 1-in-X chance to hit every spin. I’ll ask someone whom I know is really good with slots and stuff and see if he knows how it’s determined or if it can be weighted closer to $5k or if it has to be hit at a random point without weight.


I just noticed you said it was at $4870 when you sat down on it. To me, that still seems pretty low, but I don’t really know much about progressives. My guess is it’s a small edge.

[tableplay]

And that rap kew is exactly why you are a total phony. Nothing is ever "guaranteed" and the fact that you say such a stupid thing only goes to show how you're nothing more than an anonymous internet forum showman.

I dare you to repeat that to any casino manager.

So the casinos should all shut down since there is no guarantee that they will ever show a profit (from gaming) moving forward from any given point in time ?

[Alan Mendelson]

Those of you interested in must hits should hang out at any of the Station Casinos in Vegas. All of their machines are tied into a must hit by $20,000 jackpot. Any machine could be picked at random. All other players at the time of the jackpot get free play up to $100.

That must hit had come as low as just above $10,000 (the starting point) to just under $20,000. They say it's totally random. But when I see it above $19,800 you won't find an empty machine at Red Rock.

[mickeycrimm]

deleted. duplicate.

[mickeycrimm]

Thanks, Dan. Okay, so now I have some numbers to work with. Instead of "must hits" we refer to the AGS games like River Dragons as "will go to's." The 5K meter never hits before 4990. And the 500 meter almost never hits before 490. In rare cases it will hit in the 480's.

In the future, if you want to know whether it's random or not then check the name of the manufacturer. If it's Konami, WMS or Ainsworth it's random and a number like 4870 would be super strong. But with AGS 4870 is way low. Its why you got the play. AP's that have experience with them know not to play that low.

Okay, so the meter ran you from 4870 to 4999.31. The 5K meter speed on every River Dragon I've ever clocked has always been 0.26666%. I'm sure the one you played was the same. I've encountered two different meter speeds on the 500, 0.375% and 0.4%. But it's irrelevant here. Since you didn't say what the number was when the 500 hit I'm going to use an average number, 495. I need this number to calculate the drop in the main game.

The first thing we're going to do is calculate your total wager. If we divide 1 by 0.26666% we get 375 dollars. Thats the amount of action it takes to drive the meter $1. You drove the meter $129.31 (4999.31 minus 4870).

129.31 X 375 means your total wager was $48,491. Oh, boy. That's huge compared to the 5K payoff.

Since you lost $1800 we can now calculate the actual payback percentage.

1800 + 4991 + 495 = 7286

7286/48491 = 15%

Your actual payoff was 4991 + 495 = 5486.

I have about 50K in action tracked on this game and got dropped for 17% so you ran 2% better than me.

These games always come down to the wager against the drop. Even though my stats say 17% I always figure the drop at 20% to be on the safe side. I don't want to run more than 26K in action so my playable number on these AGS games is 4930. If it runs me to the top:

70 X 375 = 26,250

At a 26K wager the payoff, 5K, is 19% of the total wager. In your case the 5K was just 10.3% of the total wager.

With competition from other AP's it's hard to find a number that high. Some AP's will play a little lower number figuring to generate freeplay offers. And even ploppies get roped into running it to the top when they've started it to low, consequently losing a lot of money.

But depending on where you played it at you may have generated enough action to get a bunch of freeplay offers.

PS: I consider the AGS 5K's to be immoral for faking people into believing they have a chance to hit it below 4990 but I can't really do anything about it. I just exploit the situation when I see it.

[The Boz]

Thanks Mick for the breakdown!

I think you said it best when you said they may be immoral but they are doing exactly what the manufacturer and casino want. Ploppies are playing them thinking they have an advantage and most times don’t have an advantage and are underfunded. It’s just more opportunity for you and others as you said.

I believe there was a discussion a while back on WoV on how the designers program these machines and how it’s legal.

[Alan Mendelson]

Good job Mickey. But I don't see anything immoral about these games being set to hit in a narrow band near 5K. As I said before this info is a gift from the casino to the players.

By the way, there are smaller payoffs as well throughout the runup of the meters, right?

[Barney]

This is Barney,

I most certainly believe more light is needed to clear heads of those personages who lack the clear thinking in this matter. The original question from the most greatest Mr. Druff was regarding how the winning number was chosen implying it didn't seem to be random regardless of the meter movements and other factors which seemed very unfair to those of less intellegences. As stated by the most greatest Mr. Planck, for these "must hit" slut machine devices, the must hit number is in fact is chosen randomly by the RNG but it is biased because of the weighted distribution of numbers that the RNG has to choose from.

[pepe]

One more thing about the AGS games is I believe AGS is a "class II" (bingo-based) manufacturer.

What that means is that the game does not determine the payout based on an RNG determining where the displayed reels line up. The reels are for decoration only.

The actual payout is determined by a bingo game where a certain bingo pattern must be hit in a certain number of balls, and there is usually a minor payout that goes to the "winner" of the bingo game (at the moment you spin, everyone else in the casino playing a similar machine is simultaneously playing the same bingo game)

Usually these are either displayed on a small separate window that shows the card and balls or there is an option in the onscreen menu to view in "bingo mode".