Technology
does exist for machines to be set to act other
than randomly. Such machines can be programmed
to avoid giving you those elusive blackjacks,
giving the house a much bigger advantage. But
those machines are illegal in Nevada, New Jersey,
Mississippi, where you played, and most other
gaming jurisdictions that pattern their gaming
regulations after the above-mentioned states.
Like
all of today’s cybernetic slots, video blackjack
machines use a random number generator (RNG) software
algorithm to determine the game’s outcome.
The number of coins played cannot influence the
end result.
What
I would like to discuss is your gambling timeline.
Your gambling timeline was possibly limited to
maybe hundreds of hands of blackjack, not millions,
so any percentage return, can, and will happen.
The Law of Averages does not have time to work
during such a brief casino visit. That said, you
should never put your faith in the heady fantasy
that happy aberrations in gambling odds will not
happen, even in games that carry the smallest
house edge, like blackjack with your crafty play.
Dear
Mark: If I were to insert a $100 bill in a dollar
slot machine where they advertised a return of
98%, how much on average would I have to run through
the machine before I would go totally broke? I
ask because this past weekend I played through
$100 in less than10 minutes. Marty C.
First,
Marty, see above where I talk about a gambling
timeline as to why your billfold took a lickin’
lickety-split; then here’s the simple formula
for your question. Take your initial investment
($100) and divide it by the house edge (2%). In
this case the answer is $100/0.02 = $5000. But
due to the high volatility of slot machines and
your gambling timeline being so short, apparently
anything DID happen.
Dear
Mark: On a lot of video poker machines, four Deuces
through four Fours pay higher than four Fives
through four Kings. Why would lower hands pay
higher? Aren’t the odds of getting a four-of-a-kind
the same, and Kings worth more than Deuces? Jan
L.
Yes,
Jan, with a 52-card deck and four of each card,
the odds are the same for any four-of-a-kind appearing.
The
reason that four Threes pay more than four Queens
is presumably because a lot of players don’t
keep their low cards as often, therefore, four
Threes will come up less frequently than Four
queens. They’re banking on your behavior
of discarding those lower cards to make it easier
for them to pay a bigger bonus for those low four-of-a-kinds.
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