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Statistics Question

#22
Groove Doctor said:
Neither machine influences the other, so payout the same. Technically, you'll lose your money twice as quickly. House always wins in the end.
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This answer is correct. The machines are independent. They will likely pay out 90% of the time, singularly or together. Remember that the 90% is only a likelihood. The results will vary. You most likely will not get back $90 for every $100 you play. Those are odds, not laws.

Now, there is the law of large numbers which says that the more you play, the more likely your outcome will conform to the odds. However, if you play one machines with 90% payout 100 times, or two that both have 90% payout 50 times each, you outcome is just as likely to conform to the odds. But again, they will likely be variations. The odds do not change, however.
 
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#27
FingerDub said:
My dad took me on a cruise when I was 15. I remember seeing this dude play at the slots on the ship. He stayed at the same machine for over 28 hours. I saw him at about 1pm and then came back the next at about 5pm and he was still there. He refused to leave. He told me he had put $2800 into it. Since it was 1989, I assume it wasnt a digital machine. The dude was sweating and smelled. But he refused to give up his machine. He was convinced that it would soon hit.
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Haha, talk about the sunk cost fallacy. On a related note, I used to play this gig with crazy hours. We played five sets, plus had like over a two hour drive one way. Problem was that pay was about the same for any other gig. The club had video poker. I'm not a gambler, but I'd always play the machines, get a few bucks ahead, and then stop. I was literally trying to make a few dollars more to make the gig feel like it was worth it, financially.
 
#29
Downunderwonder said:
If you look at the number of nickles inserted per hour and keep that the same but split between two machines you will lose 10% each session on average. How is that fun?
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Some people like to spend a little to be entertained by a movie or a band. Others get their jollies laboring under the fantasy of a big pay off for stuffing coins in a machine calibrated to return a set percentage of the money fed in.
 
#30
48thStreetCustom said:
Apparently they do because a nickel slot has different a payoff percentage than dollar slots. My question is if playing two machines changes those payoff percentage.
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So your question is, can playing myltiple slots alter the payoff percentage? Or are you asking if playing a mix of denominations alters the payoff percentage?

The answers are no and no. Playing multiple nickel slots will result in losing the same percentage of money which would be lost playing a single machine. The only difference would be it will only take half the time to lose the same amount. As for playing multiple denominations, you will still lose the same percentage of cash, it will simply be a larger (or smaller) loss than would be experienced by playing a single machine.

In either case you will average losing a set percentage of whatever you feed the machine(s). It's not a statistical thing, it's a percentage of loss versus time required to incur that loss.

If the payout is fixed, odds related to who keeps what amount of the money spent, never changes. The only variable is the time required to arrive at that breakdown. If you begin with a fixed amount, the more money you put in per play, the less time it takes for you to lose ten percent of your kitty.

It's not a mater of statistics, it's a matter of percentages. Just because statistics are sometime expressed as percentages does not make them one in the same. While the amount put in will vary by individual, the amount retained by the house never changes.
 
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#35
Slots work on a diminishing returns system. A machine that pays 90% (in theory) will pay back $90 of the $100 you put in it. If you continue playing, your $90 will pay back $81. The $81 will pay back $72.90, etc.
That is not to say that you will never beat the odds and win more than you started with, but casinos don't make their money by having people win. The odds are in the house's favor. The main advantages of the house are: bigger bankroll and time.
 
#36
shadowtippy said:
Slots work on a diminishing returns system. A machine that pays 90% (in theory) will pay back $90 of the $100 you put in it. If you continue playing, your $90 will pay back $81. The $81 will pay back $72.90, etc.
That is not to say that you will never beat the odds and win more than you started with, but casinos don't make their money by having people win. The odds are in the house's favor. The main advantages of the house are: bigger bankroll and time.
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you contorted the most important house advantage. Limit on size of bet. Otherwise a bigger bankroll than the house could always double down to victory.
 
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