Dear Mark,
On the weekends, do casinos make adjustments on their
video Slots machines to make more money? Sam K.
Do you mean do casinos take a screwdriver to their slots
on the weekends to tighten them up? No way. It is not
cost effective for the casino to continually alter the
payouts on their machines. To alter the percentage return
in their favor on a video game, the casino must, by
law, make a hardware change. You do this by swapping
out an internal component, the ROM portion of the microprocessor
chip. ROM, or read only memory, is a chip the slot manufacturer
provides the casino.
This is the chip that
tells the video poker machine to pay 9 coins for
a full house, 6 coins for a flush. Additionally,
they would have to physically change the glass payout
schedule on their machines.
What you could see is a seasonal wholesale change
to improve their theoretical hold by making all
9/6 machines to 8/5 bandits. By changing to all
8/5 machines, the house holds an additional 3% edge
on each and every machine.
